Burnt to a crisp? Understanding drivers of burnout amongst New Zealand workers

PurposeJob burnout is a popular topic for researchers and a pressing issue for employees and employers. However, the most popular measure has become widely critiqued, and a new construct – the Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT) – has been offered as a better way to assess burnout.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses data from 1,022 employees across a wide range of occupations, sectors and industries. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and odds ratio calculations are explored.FindingsThe present psychometric properties of the BAT construct are supported. Overall, 11.1% of employees met the high burnt-out risk threshold. Determinants of burnt-out risk were explored, with significant findings from high perceptions of organizational support, large firm-size, young age and long work hours found. No gender differences. The odds ratio provides greater insights into the risks associated with factors, especially working 55+ hours/week, which resulted in 580% higher risk of burnt-out risk.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings highlight the danger of burnt-out risk and provide a useful benchmark for those exploring the burnt-out risk rate.Originality/valueThe BAT has not been tested in New Zealand across a sample of employees. Given the large size and breadth of employees, this provides useful generalizability to the BAT-NZ. The determinants tested here are all unique to the literature and provide new insights.

Association between student-teacher ratio and teachers’ working hours and workload stress: evidence from a nationwide survey in Japan

Background Too long work hours of Japanese school teachers, along with an increasing number of teachers taking leave due to mental illness, are well known and recognized as a serious social problem. In order to prevent the spread of COVID-19 by reducing the density in the classroom, the Japanese government has decided to reduce the upper-limit of class size in primary schools after 2021, which is expected to result in lowering the student-teacher ratio. The aim of this study was to examine the association between student-teacher ratio, teacher work hours and teacher stress. Methods Data on student-teacher ratio, teacher work hours, and teacher stress were obtained from a large-scale international survey conducted by OECD. The number of teachers participated in the survey was 3308 (primary school) and 3555 (lower-secondary school). After excluding teachers with missing observations, the analytic sample consisted of 2761 (primary school) and 3006 (lower-secondary school) teachers. Multivariate regression analysis was performed. Results Regression results revealed that student-teacher ratio was positively correlated with total work hours and workload stress of teachers. In particular, teachers working in schools with high student-teacher ratio spent more time on time-consuming tasks such as marking/correcting student work and communication with parents or guardians. The coefficient estimates suggested that, on average, lowering the student-teacher ratio by five in lower-secondary school was associated with 2.8 hours shorter working hours per week (p<0.001). Conclusion Our empirical results suggested that the class-size reduction policy starting in 2021 could reduce teacher stress and long work hours through the consequent decrease in student-teacher ratios.

Development of Matching Modeling for Human Resource Allocation of Shelter Management by the Set Theory

The purpose of this study is to develop a support system for planning human resource allocation of shelter management by modeling the matching between the shelter and the staff on the basis of the set theory approach to enable sufficient days off, reduce long work hours, and consideration for appropriate rotation without causing the mental and physical deterioration of the shelter management staff. Using this matching model, a basic study was conducted to determine the appropriate human resource allocation to manage the shelter with a small number of staff members, free from unbalanced work days. The study results elucidate the relationship between the number of possible consecutive work days and that of required consecutive days off. In addition, the human resource allocations with experience in shelter management and the setting method of days off were modeled and their results are presented in this study.

Free Time Across the Life Course

In most industrialised countries, citizens enjoy a very large amount of free time towards the end of their lives, when they are retired, but find it very costly to access free time during the middle part of their lives. This is concerning because those who die early are deprived of the reward of free time that retirement holds. Extreme discrepancies between a time-rich old age and a time-scarce middle age are not, however, inevitable: some states incentivise long work hours during middle age in combination with early retirement, whereas others incentivise shorter work hours during middle age and later retirement. This variation raises the thus far unexplored question of how a just society should design policies that affect the costs of access to free time across the life course. I answer this question by using a hypothetical decision-situation where prudent choosers must allocate access to free time across different life stages.

Shift work and overtime across a career in law enforcement: a 15-year study

PurposeTo characterize changes in work hours across a career in law enforcement.Design/methodology/approachN = 113 police officers enrolled in the BCOPS cohort were studied. The police officers started their careers in law enforcement between 1994 and 2001 at a mid-sized, unionized police department in northwestern New York and continued to work at this police department for at least 15 years. Day-by-day work history records were obtained from the payroll department. Work hours, leave hours and other pay types were summarized for each calendar year across their first 15 years of employment. Linear mixed-effects models with a random intercept over subject were used to determine if there were significant changes in pay types over time.FindingsA total of 1,617 individual-years of data were analyzed. As the police officers gained seniority at the department, they worked fewer hours and fewer night shifts. Total paid hours did not significantly change due to seniority-based increases in vacation time. Night shift work was increasingly in the form of overtime as officers gained seniority. Overtime was more prevalent at the beginning of a career and after a promotion from police officer to detective.Originality/valueShiftwork and long work hours have negative effects on sleep and increase the likelihood of on-duty fatigue and performance impairment. The results suggest that there are different points within a career in law enforcement where issues surrounding shiftwork and long work hours may be more prevalent. This has important implications for predicting fatigue, developing effective countermeasures and measuring fatigue-related costs.

Student-Teacher Ratio, Work Hours, and Workload Stress Experienced by Teachers

Background: Too long work hours of Japanese school teachers, along with an increasing number of teachers taking leave due to mental illness, are well known and recognized as a serious social problem. In order to prevent the spread of COVID-19 by reducing the density in the classroom, the Japanese government has decided to reduce the upper-limit of class size in primary schools after 2021, which is expected to result in lowering the student-teacher ratio. The aim of this study was to examine the association between student-teacher ratio, teacher work hours and teacher stress. Methods: Data on student-teacher ratio, teacher work hours, and teacher stress were obtained from a large-scale international survey conducted by OECD. The number of teachers participated in the survey was 3308 (primary school) and 3555 (lower-secondary school). After excluding teachers with missing observations, the analytic sample consisted of 2767 (primary school) and 3018 (lower-secondary school) teachers. Multivariate regression analysis was performed. Results: Regression results revealed that student-teacher ratio was positively correlated with total work hours and workload stress of teachers, and was negatively correlated with their job satisfaction. In particular, teachers working in schools with high student-teacher ratio spent more time on time-consuming tasks such as marking/correcting student work and communication with parents or guardians. The coefficient estimates suggested that lowering student-teacher ratio by five at lower secondary school would decrease total working hours by 2.5 hours per week (p<0.001). Conclusion: Our empirical results suggested that the class-size reduction policy starting in 2021 could reduce teacher stress and long work hours through the consequent decrease in student-teacher ratios.

What makes It Difficult to keep an Intimate Relationship: Evidence From Greece and China

Keeping an intimate relationship is challenging, and there are many factors causing strain. In the current research, we employed a sample of 1,403 participants from China and Greece who were in an intimate relationship, and we classified 78 difficulties in keeping an intimate relationship in 13 factors. Among the most common ones were clinginess, long work hours, and lack of personal time and space. Clinginess was reported as a more common source of relationship strain by women, while bad sex was reported as a more common source of relationship strain by men. Fading away enthusiasm, bad sex, infidelity and children were reported as more important by older participants, while lack of personal time and space, and character issues were reported as more important by younger participants. The factor structure was similar in the Greek and in the Chinese cultural contexts, but there were also differences. In addition, there were significant interactions between the sample and the sex. For instance, for the non-monogamous factor, men gave higher scores than women in both samples, but the difference was much more pronounced in the Greek sample.