The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It by Jennifer Moss

3.81 AVERAGE

tonyk's profile picture

tonyk's review

3.0
informative slow-paced

whitecat5000's review against another edition

3.0
informative medium-paced
While this was informative for some of the text, other info seemed a bit more common knowledge.  I also think this won't be as beneficial for those that are shift workers, or those not in offices.  

msmouse's review

3.0
informative reflective slow-paced
theunabridgedlifeofsalamacita's profile picture

theunabridgedlifeofsalamacita's review

5.0
This book was wonderful. Jennifer Moss delves into the root causes of burnout and explains how asking workers to do more self-care activities like practicing yoga is actually harmful because that puts the onus on the employees when in fact it is because of a variety of reasons, usually from the top down that are causing the burnout. She gives the metaphor of having birds in a coalmine coming out all sick. No one would be curious as to what the birds were doing wrong, but rather the question should be why are they in a coalmine and how can we change that? She discusses how systems are failing people and not the other way around. She emphasizes assuming an employee first strategy to avoid burnout. She also talks about crucial topics like certain industries encouraging female employees to participate in egg freezing to not delay any of the company's goals, something that I think is so incredibly abhorrent and absolutely no boss's business. She talks about the significance of making sure any programs put in place are well executed not just well intended in order to truly relieve burnout.

Ultimately, I think this book is most useful in industries that have very high burnout rate and where employees are expected to not ask for help like healthcare and academia (including grade school teaching not just university). I do think that anyone can benefit from listening to this book; however, those are the two arenas that I think would benefit the most.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harvard Business Review Press for my gifted copy in exchange for my honest review.