BUSI 561 Research Paper Companies Facing Employee Burnout RESEARCH_PAPER. pdf

RESEARCH PAPER

Research Paper: Companies Facing Employee Burnout

Autumn Mentch

School of Arts, Liberty University

Author Note

Autumn Mentch

I have no known conflict of interest to disclose.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to

Autumn Mentch

Email: aumentch@liberty.edu

Step 1

Tribe513 is a private faith based medical practice located in the Upstate of South

Aesthetics, and most recently as of 2021 with Parkside Family Medicine. Brio Internal Medicine,

Parkside Pediatrics, and Brio Aesthetics have all won awards in South Carolina consisting of the

best place to work, best pediatrician office, best weight loss facility, and best place to get a facial

with the votes coming from local residents and patients. Tribe513 is a company that is dedicated

to ensuring its employees live a life of fun and play, and not take work outside of work. As it

sounds, Tribe513 has a very employee oriented, friendly, and most importantly Christian

workplace, the company has struggled with employees feeling burnt out and to add on,

underpaid.

Overriding Issue

Tribe513 is known in the Upstate of South Carolina as a wonderful place to work, but feedback

representatives, triaging patients in the office, keeping track of their schedules and calling

patients before tele visits, filling out paperwork for patients, and the list goes on. One of the

issues Tribe513 and its practices face is that they are a privately owned medical business. The

company is only composed of nine main leaders which includes the four female medical doctors

who founded it, the CEO and COO, and three male doctors who were brought on to operate the

pediatric side of the business. Tribe513 faces the issue of being privately owned and not having a

hospital system to stand behind them, and the lack of federal funding because they are not

backed by a hospital system. With the lack of extra funding coming from hospital systems and

federal funding Tribe513 has to budget their finances in order to pay the staff including the high

physician salaries, medical supplies, and the building costs. According to Medical Economics,

physicians working in a private practice make on average $50,000 less than physicians working

Burnout is defined by the WHO (World Health Organization) as a syndrome

conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully

managed. Medical Economics reported that the lack of and or lower income and pay is also

reported to make the feeling of burnout in the healthcare field worse. The survey completed by

Tribe513 found that the majority of the employees struggled with both lack of pay and lack of

help and having to take on more work. It is important to identify and address the root causes of

burnout in the healthcare field in order to solve the burnout crisis. Studies completed with

American Academy of Family Physicians found that working in a primary care office carries the

responsibilities of paperwork, feeling undervalued, frustrations with referral networks, difficult

and unique patients, medicolegal issues, and the lack of pay contributed to feeling burnt out. As a

Tribe513 employee, you take on a lot of responsibilities and have deadlines that have to be met,

for example the 48-hour turnaround time on all messages and five-to-seven-day turnaround time

on lab results. The stress of ensuring all messages are being managed within the 48-hour

timeframe causes stress to employees especially when the provider they work under might only

work two to three days a week. One of the biggest moments when Tribe513 was facing a huge

burnout with their employees was in late 2020 and into early 2021 when the Covid19 pandemic

had just begun, and numbers were rising. Being a private medical practice, Tribe513 did not have

the summer heat and ended it in the winter cold. The employees completed a survey that year as

well for the months of January to March, and 360 out of 400 employees completed the survey

and 72 percent of them stated they were feeling some amount of overwhelmed, burnt out, and

stressed.

Within Tribe513 and its medical practice, there are over 350 employees, some of which

are feeling burnout and under benefited. The employees are given multiple tasks a day and are

under a provider who has dozens of requests and patients coming a day. The clinical team is one

of the teams that faces the most obstacles a day and the live answer communications team is the

second. These teams are the first people the patients talk to, and in some cases, they are the ones

the patients talk to the most, sometimes more than their own provider. The live answer

communications team answers all incoming calls five days a week during business hours, with

one thirty-minute lunch break. The calls are the only way patients are able to communicate with

their providers and nurses, so the calls consist of anything from prescription refills,

appointments, questions, and concerns. Each team has two leaders, one being the team lead and

one being the team coordinator. Leadership is in charge of assigning tasks and determining what

employee will take over tasks when short staffed. Leaders send out quarterly surveys that are

reviewed at a one-on-one meeting with each employee. The survey consists of questions about

and the rise in covid patients while still continuing to see their other patients and schedule new

patients. Two years later, Trie513 leadership is still asking employees if they are feeling burnout

but not as accommodating. Leadership offers ten extra sick hours a year that can be used for the

employees to take a mental health day along with the seven hours of paid time off accumulated

every pay period. The leaders at the company do still provide check-ins every quarter and give

employees the chance to talk about their workload and how work is making them feel both at the

workplace and at home.

Step 2

According to the BMC Public Health record and study, Doctors in the United States

experience the worst and fastest increasing burnout rate in the world with the burnout rate rising

from 40 percent in 2013 to 65 percent in 2016. Employees who are experiencing burnout

reported having a decline in work performance, high job separation and turnover rates, poorer

has an employee employment turnaround time of 1.5 to 2 years. One of the biggest reasons for a

high turn around or turnover rate is how employees are treated at work, and how their tasks at

work are managed. Employees who are feeling burnout are more likely to not stay at a job for

more than 6 months to a year according to Harvard Business. Tribe513 is a remarkably diverse

company with employees ranging in all ages, ethnicities, races, religious views, and backgrounds

and employees with titles ranging from Medical Doctors, nurses, communication representatives,

and administrative staff. BMC Public Health confirmed with their survey that for each person

found to have been experiencing burn out had differences in their age, marital status, working

hours, and that burn out levels were consistent across all employment types, job types, and

medical levels.

Tribe513 is a Christian organization that encourages its employees to pray both before

work shifts and before meals at work. The company also encourages all employees to seek

support from their leadership when they are feeling like their work is stressful or if they are

feeling less than par at work. The company’s organization behavior correlates around ensuring

all employees are taken care of physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. Leadership and

employees are required and encouraged to treat coworkers and all patients how they would want

to be treated. BMC Public Health found in their study that burn out can be reduced and avoided

by ensuring all employees are showing empathy and are receiving empathy. The study also

concluded that when employees are at the same company for years and gain experience, and job

commitment then they are a sequential increase in empathy so variations in job commitment can

improve the relationship between empathy and burnout.

frustrated with the lack of pay, benefits, and empathy from both their employers and patients and

are quitting the medical profession to work elsewhere. There has to be a point where leadership

in the medical profession takes a step back to decide what must be done to help their staff and

reduce burnout before it is too late.

Step 3

There are numerous factors that can cause burn out at work including lack of control over

decisions, unclear job expectations, dysfunctional dynamics, lack of support, and work-life

imbalance. Tribe513 employees have faced some or all of these within the last three years, and it

is vital that there are plans to help solve the burnout issue. The first recommendation is for

leadership to continue to evaluate options for employees. This will be completed by discussing

specific concerns, producing realistic expectations of the everyday workload, and setting goals

that are weekly and monthly instead of daily. With goal expectations, the goals need to be

realistic and categorized by what must be done like prescription refills requests versus calling a

patient back to schedule an appointment 3 months out. In order for the clinical team to reduce

their stress, all administrative tasks such as patient paperwork and scheduling should be assigned

to the administrative team and communication team. The second recommendation is for the

thanksgiving, and humbleness. When we are joined with the feeling of being grateful in our

tough situation, we can let our requests for calmness and less burnout be made known to God.

God knows our struggles, and a bible study will allow the employees to take a step back from

their job duties and take a moment with God. BMC Public Health found that 60 percent of

medical employees struggle with burnout and suggest that prioritizing self-care can assist in

resolving burnout for employees. In order to reduce the high percentage of employees feeling

burnout Tribe513 will need to ensure employees are replenishing their physical, emotional, and

mental energy.

There are over ten departments within our company and when one team becomes overwhelmed

with tasks, I do not think it is efficient to pass those tasks onto someone else. Tribe513 is very

well known in the Greenville and Upstate South Carolina community, and it would be an

efficient idea to hold a staffing day or a job fair. Also, advertising to the current patients that the

company is hiring would benefit the company. Patients are the ones who have been voting

Tribe513 and its practices for awards, awards such as being the best place to work. Patients who

are familiar with the company and its practices could potentially make great employees,

especially if they love the company. For example, I was a patient before I was an employee with

Tribe513. I loved the offices, staff, and the company mission so much that I took the leap and

decided to work for the company.