The expert named the signs and causes of employee burnout
Professional burnout after the pandemic has become one of the most common problems of the modern labor market. Andrey Nesterov, an expert on marketing and digital transformation, former director of strategic marketing at T2, Rostelecom and Mir, told Izvestia on December 6.
According to him, burnout is recorded in almost all professions — from medicine and education to corporate governance. However, it is in marketing, digital and AI environments that the risk of emotional exhaustion is higher today than the market average.
"Modern burnout in marketing and digital is a natural result of working in an environment where technology is changing faster than a person has time to adapt. In addition to the classic symptoms of fatigue, apathy and cynicism, new types of professional exhaustion are forming today, which are characteristic of the digital industries," the expert warned.
One of these phenomena is considered to be "digital emotional burnout" — "digital autism" — a condition in which the ability to empathize and understand the audience decreases due to constant information noise. In marketing, where emotional intelligence is the main working tool, this is especially dangerous.
"Another hidden marker is the "aging expert syndrome," or "impostor 2.0." The skills of marketers are devalued every 12-18 months due to the rapid development of AI technologies. This dynamic leads to a constant feeling of insecurity and the feeling that the specialist is "unsuccessful," even if there are no objective reasons for this," explains Nesterov.
The third manifestation, according to him, is creative paralysis. During burnout, creative industry employees begin to avoid generating ideas, perceiving it as a threat: the fear of failure becomes stronger than the professional instinct to find solutions. But the main marker is when a person stops thinking strategically, the specialist emphasizes. In such a situation, the employee stops thinking about the future of the company, trends, and audience behavior. The focus remains only on deadlines, operational details and the need to close tasks.
The situation is complicated by rapid AI transformation. According to Nesterov, artificial intelligence has become both the cause and a possible solution to the problem. On the one hand, the speed of change in AI marketing reinforces the feeling of constant professional inadequacy. On the other hand, numerous digital tools make it possible to relieve a specialist from routine tasks.
"There are already AI systems that can detect early signs of burnout by slowing down the work pace, increasing the number of task switches, and increasing internal digital noise," Nesterov said.
The expert emphasizes: burnout does not mean that a professional should immediately leave the industry. But it's important to answer basic questions honestly.: does the job match your strengths, does there feel a sense of growth, does it still make sense, is it possible to imagine yourself in this position in a year?
"Sometimes a short break is enough to recover, sometimes a role adjustment, and sometimes a transition to another profession," the specialist explains.
According to him, the optimal moment for rethinking comes not when everything finally collapses, but at the moment when a person clearly understands for the first time that he is no longer moving forward. This is a natural stage of development. The world is changing, professions are changing, and people need to change with them.
Psychologist Ekaterina Yemelyanova told Izvestia on December 4 that modern people are increasingly faced with a condition where they do not have the strength and cannot force themselves to work. According to her, in this case, laziness can be a way to resolve an internal dispute: one part of the personality longs for realization and recognition, the other is afraid not to endure potential failure.
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