Workplace survey cites top 3 reasons for burnout: poor leadership, lack of clarity, and work overload

Anonymous workplace community app Blind runs one-week survey with just one question on the main source of employee burnout; claims response from over 9,000 employees.

Poor leadership and unclear direction are the top reasons why employees burn out at their workplace, according to a survey by anonymous workplace community app Blind.

The US-based company ran the survey from August 10–17 with just one question: What is the main source of employee burnout at your current workplace? It claims that a total of 9,103 employees (from various firms) responded.

According to the survey, “poor leadership and unclear direction” was the response from 22.9 percent respondents while work overload was the second most popular response, with 19.44 percent respondents saying so.

Third came toxic culture (17.52 percent), followed by lack of control and career growth (15.41 percent), and insufficient reward (12.45 percent). Only 9.7 percent of participants answered that burnout was not a problem at their company, meaning 91.3 percent indicated burnout is a problem.

Blind, which focuses on US-based tech companies, claims to have more than 40,000 users among employees of Microsoft, more than 25,000 from Amazon, more than 10,000 from Google, and more than 7,000 from Uber. They have employees from more than 50,000 companies on its platform, including 5,000 employees from LinkedIn and Facebook.

Working professionals get to communicate with each other anonymously on Blind app. The platform often witnesses (anonymous) discussions on topics like internal work culture, different job opportunities, career options, layoffs, compensation, travel, and even food.

Blind states that each user spends at least 35 minutes on their app every day on an average.

The survey found that eBay, Salesforce, and Intel (in that order) ranked highest in the category of burn out due to poor leadership. Among Microsoft employees, “insufficient reward” was the top reason for burnout, with 20.7 percent. Among Amazon employees, it was “poor leadership and unclear direction” for 26.8 percent. Only 10 percent at Microsoft and 7.1 percent at Amazon said burnout was not a problem.