What Causes Worker Burnout?

I think you can sum up and simplify the article this way:

Do your best to create a team... not a team "feeling". There's a difference. On a team (ideal team), every player is committed to helping any other player who needs help. And a job is important, but it should never be placed above a person's health -- mental or physical.

You might get some ideas from watching some TV drama programs, like "Bones", "NCIS", "Forensics Files", "Law and Order" and "House". There is always a sense of cooperation and solidarity among the players. Sure, it's fiction, but no reason why we can't learn from it. I mentioned these five TV programs because they take place in a laboratory setting.

1. Being assigned to tasks without the time or resources to accomplish the task

2. Lack of recognition for actually completing those tasks sucseffuly.

If you really want to burnout your employees, drag down your company's reputation, and ultimately negatively influence your bottom line, then I suggest you try these simple but effective management techniques:

1) Assign an employee a difficult task such as planning a major improvement project, insist on tight deadlines through the planning phase that force the employee to work long hours to meet, then never approve funding to actually implement the project.

2) If an employee offers a suggestion in a meeting (or any public setting), then ignore him or her (or better yet roll your eyes), then use the idea later without ever mentioning the originator's name.

3) Never rate your employee as better than "acceptable" or "expected" on any review (especially if the employee has genuinely shown great improvement).