Emotional exhaustion of school teachers in a country with a prolonged economic crisis

Emotional exhaustion of school teachers in a country with a prolonged economic crisis

 Abstract

Currently, the public schools in Greece are have started experiencing an economic crisis, which frequently reported; there is a lack of resources and shortages in staff. This condition can bring depletion in emotional support, which will lead to emotional exhaustion. The main objective of this paper is to certify the effect of the economic crisis in Greece on the risk of professional burnout for teachers. The materials used retrieved from the Google Scholar database, and the keywords used during searching were Maslach Burnout Inventory, teachers, and Greece. The research was conducted in December 2019 (first week) the Maslach burnout inventory papers which were used and included in the analysis were either published in 2010-2019 or 1995-2010. The work which was published used to compare the economic crisis in Greece and the level of exhaustion before and after the economic crisis started. The results of the final analysis paper revealed that when the financial crisis began in Greece, they were an increase in the level of emotional exhaustion in teachers. Emotional exhaustion is an indicator of professional stress and is said to be a forefather of depersonalization, which needs implementation and monitoring of any possible proactive workforce policies.

Keywords: teachers, emotional exhaustion, burnouts

Introduction

In Human resource management, Occupational stress is one of the essential parameters, which is a chronic condition in the workplace and can eventually lead to burnout. Burnout is a situation that i brought about from depersonalization, reduced personal achievement, and emotional exhaustion (Rautakivi et al., 2019). Numerous factors affect burnout and job satisfaction. In a workplace job, burnout happens because of prolonged employees’ exposure to psychological and physical stress. These exposures eventually lead to a reduced sense of professional accomplishment, depersonalization, mental, and physical exhaustion. Frequently exposure to prolonged mental and physical stress are contributing factors that employees get to, which leads to a professional burnout zone. A burn out region characterized by a lack of job satisfaction and a decrease in productivity (Sergiovanni, 1967), Another factor that is related to teaching occupation is stress, which is a common phenomenon which can lead to burning out regardless of teachers’ salary. Teachers can perform their skill well; however, they are prone to professional burnout. The magnitude of the problem determined by length of exposure (the more you are exposed, the more you are likely to professional burn out), Burnout symptom problem increases with duration of exposure, working conditions, job demands, which leads to occupational stress (Maslach, 2003).

Low job satisfaction, reduced productivity, low morale, stressed the level of exhaustion, determines employees, absenteeism, and negatives attitudes towards work. If employees exposed to too much psychological and physical stress, it can result in emotional and physical fatigue. Lack of motivation to socialize and perform a task, mental fatigue, frustration are some of the symptoms of burnout. A research carried out by Maslach in 2011 revealed that burnout syndrome based on three principal; first principal reduced personal accomplishment, which is characterized by feeling incompetent at the workplace. Emotional exhaustion is the second principle described by psychological and physical fatigue. Depersonalization is the principal that is characterized by detachment from work and cynical behaviors.

In Greece, in the past years, different studies have also revealed that teachers’ burnout is a significant issue in the teaching profession (Kamtsios and Lolis, 2016). Because of the current economic crisis in Greece’s central government, measures to change the working conditions of public servants. The actions taken to alter working conditions included a reduction in the number of teachers employed in public schools and salaries (OECD, 2014). The teacher’s gross income was cut off by 30% as Greece was experiencing problems in job insecurity, rising taxation, and increased working hours. Reduction in the number of employed teacher and salaries have an impact on stress and job satisfaction. For instance, reducing the purchasing power imbalance and gross income can increase job burn out (Panagopoulos at al, 2014). A cut in the gross income for teachers has altered the public servant working condition as it was before the economic turmoil in Greece. In the year 2008, when Greece started experiencing financial crisis, the gross income of teachers has drastically reduced as teachers considered less unproductive as compared to other public servants. When Greece began experiencing an economic crunch, workers in the various organization in the public sector were faced with fewer resources and worked with fewer resources and reduced wages. For instance, the salaries for hospitals and schools cut 45%, and lack of resources and staff became a norm. Lack of resources and staff can result in depletion of emotional support, which leads to emotional exhaustion (Frenkel et al., 2012).In Greece, some hospitals indeed experienced medical supply and shortages of staff associated with the level of emotional exhaustion (Rahiotis et al., 2014). Also in some Greek schools were too faced with the same similar problem, and there were reports of the level of emotional exhaustion of teachers; this was a result of the economic crisis Greece was experiencing (Botou et al., 2017).

From the above conditions and lack of resources and shortages of staff, the risk of teachers to professional burnout is considered very high (Anastasiou & Garamtsi, 2019). Human resource management in Greece should include proactive policy monitoring indicators for occupational burnout. The most widely used estimator to estimate the level of exhaustion is the MBI (Maslach Burnout inventory). The MBI (inventory) has 22 questions, which used to determine three principles of burnout which are; depersonalization, lack of personal accomplishment, and emotional exhaustion — basing on the 22 items the score estimated according to responses of participants to every question using a 7-point Likert-scale ranging from 0 to 6. Each principle is determined from the corresponding questions and is classified either moderate, high, or low level  (Mclean et al., 2019). For instance, when the scores of emotional exhaustion ranked high when ≥ 27 and depersonalization ≥ ten and lack of personal accomplishment when ≤ 33. Emotional exhaustion comes first before depersonalization, which can subsequently lead to a lack of personal achievement (Babakus et al., 1999). The prolonged economic crisis in Greece has made the public servants (teachers) experience unfavorable working conditions, which lead to occupational burnout and stress.

 Methodology

The method used to certify the hypothesis on the effect of the economic crisis on the risk for professional burnout of teachers in Greece was bibliographic research. The bibliographic study analyzed a random sample which reported result in Greece on the levels of teachers burnout. The first two pages of the bibliographical research used to come with published data from two different periods. The first page was from 1995 to 2010, and the second page from 2010 to 2019. The study happened in December 2019, and the first two pages from the google scholar search were screened and published, which used the Maslach Burnout Inventory. The bibliographic research sample paper used to compare and contrast before and after the beginning of the economic crisis in 82

Zahariadis, N. (2016). Powering over puzzling? Downsizing the public sector during the Greek sovereign debt crisis. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, 18(5), 464-4.