Continuous organisational change: exploring burnout at the organizational level

The last four years has seen many organizations struggle to survive in increasingly, turbulent, surprising and continuously evolving business environments. Continuous waves of change interventions ultimately impact upon organizations and their survival. This paper considers the extent to which continuous changes lead to organizational burnout. Whilst traditional academic approaches to burnout have concentrated typically upon the individual level and sometimes on job burnout, research into organizational level burnout remains limited. Three key areas of engagement, resilience and wellbeing are explored and linked to burnout, with a particular emphasis upon the impact on organizational level. Preliminary research findings are also included within this paper, providing a comparison with the HR function acting in an empty shell manner, as well as exhibiting the "boiled frog" phenomenon. One of the key findings was that many organisations recognised that they had serious concerns about the rate of change and the impact upon the business, very little concern was expressed in relation to their employees and employee welfare. This paper explores these emerging themes, consequences for management and the role and responsibility of Human Resource professionals in managing change and organisational wellbeing. Suggestions for further research and the role of HR are discussed.