Editorial: Nursing, teaching, trucking — a trifecta of burnout
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For the past two years, America has dealt with a weird paradox.
While many people were out of work, many businesses were suffering from an inability to find workers. While some of the most obvious examples were the front-facing service industry, it wasn’t just a problem for fast-food joints and convenience stores. Yes, those were the jobs you saw advertised on scrolling electronic light boards and colorful signs staked along busy roads, but they were just a fraction of the need.
It’s a problem that has affected municipalities looking for snowplow operators and ports that needed crews to unload boats. It has affected school districts and hospitals and transportation particularly hard.
A new survey from the University of Pittsburgh shows 93% of non-physician hospital employees are at least thinking about leaving their jobs. The employees polled were workers at Pittsburgh hospitals during 2021.
This isn’t surprising. Nursing, in particular, has experienced real shortages since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Of those surveyed who had left, 73% attributed their departure at least in part to staffing problems. Other concerns have been mental and emotional demands, long hours, low pay, burnout and just a sense of hopelessness.
Similar feelings have been expressed by teachers. In addition to districts struggling to find enough substitutes, many teachers are talking about walking away. A National Education Association poll in January puts the number of educators considering leaving at 55%.
Not every teacher considering that move is making it, but the fact there is such widespread dissatisfaction is a troublesome sign for education.
Then there are the truckers. Supply chain issues that left store shelves empty of many random products and consequently drove up prices highlighted the importance of drivers in a country where almost everything in our lives is on a truck at some point.
Truckers, who are frequently considered contractors rather than employees, also are walking away, with major trucking companies reporting average turnover of 92%. The American Trucking Association says 80,000 more drivers are needed nationwide.
“Research into the link between burnout and turnover in trucking generally analyzes three dimensions of burnout: overwhelming exhaustion, feelings of cynicism and inefficacy,” a report from Walton College at the University of Arkansas said.
Yes, Walton. That Walton. The school is named after Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, one of the largest companies using trucking in the country. Earlier this month, Walmart tried to fix the problem by offering warehouse employees a 12-week training program to become drivers and announcing it was raising trucker pay to a minimum $95,000 to start.
UPMC and Allegheny Health Network are trying to find ways to solve the nursing shortages, too. School districts? Well, the teacher problem is complicated by the politics of individual districts, so finding an answer there might be harder.
The fact that pay is mentioned but not the only problem on the list for any of the jobs means this is a bigger problem than just adding more dollars to the paycheck. That’s probably true of almost every job that’s going through shortages and stress right now.
The best way to fix that is not by piling on more strain but in listening to what is making people consider walking away or actually leave. These are important jobs that need to have people who are not just present to do them but want to be there.