We all know what burnout is and why it’s bad.
But fewer of us have heard of ‘boreout’ – a related phenomenon that is arguably just as pernicious.
While burnout is linked to long hours, poor work-life balance and our glamourisation of overwork, boreout happens when we are bored by our work to the point that we feel it is totally meaningless. Our job seems pointless, our tasks devoid of value.
Boreout doesn’t get as much attention as its workaholic cousin, but experts say that this phenomenon – which occurs across industries – can result in some of the same health problems for workers. It’s also bad for companies, because a workforce with boreout can lead to high staff turnover.
Knowing what boreout is, and being able to identify it in ourselves, is critical for tackling it. There are also actions both workers and companies can take to alleviate it. And experts suggest that as we emerge into an evolving new world of work that prioritises worker wellbeing, boreout could merit just as much attention as other workplace problems.
If you don't already know, boreout is chronic boredom.
Factors that cause chronic boredom, include working in a demoralizing physical environment like a cubicle farm, or feeling under-challenged over a prolonged period.
Lotta Harju, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at EM Lyon Business School, France, who has studied boreout for years, says the fundamental experience of boreout is meaninglessness – “the experience that the work doesn’t really have any purpose, that there’s no point”.
Ruth Stock-Homburg, a professor of management and human resources management at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, says she’s witnessed the phenomenon across multiple industries. “I started observing people in quiet hours in retail stores, and people are just standing there bored. Or taxi drivers that have to wait sometimes for hours in quiet times in the countryside.” Tech workers in Silicon Valley have also told her they feel the same way, she says.
Stock-Homburg and her colleagues have identified three main aspects of the boreout phenomenon: “being terribly bored, having a crisis of growth and having a crisis of meaning”.
Although it’s normal for everyone to get bored at work occasionally, being chronically bored for days on end may indicate that you need to address the issue, says Harju, because failing to do so can have consequences.
In 2014, she worked on a study, looking at more than 11,000 workers at 87 Finnish organisations. She found that chronic boredom “increased the likelihood of employees’ turnover and early retirement intentions, poor self-rated health and stress symptoms”.
Other research backs this up. A 2021 study showed that 186 government workers in Turkey who suffered from boreout also dealt with depression, and high rates of stress and anxiety. Studies show depression from boreout can follow workers outside the office, and lead to physical ailments from insomnia to headaches.
Tackling boreout can be tricky, however, because generally by the time you recognize it, you’ve been chronically bored for a while.
“Boreout is different from burnout in the sense that bored-out employees rarely collapse out of exhaustion. Bored-out people may be present physically but not in spirit, and people can keep doing this for a good while”, says Harju.
Workers who realize they’re experiencing boreout may also be reluctant to flag it up as an issue to line managers or human resources. While the behaviors that feed into burnout – overwork, drive – are appreciated and rewarded by employers, boreout “reflects a lack of interest, a lack of motivation”, says Harju. “These are very much taboo in organizations”.
Fahri Özsungur, an associate professor of economics at Mersin University, Turkey, who was behind the 2021 study on the health effects of boreout, points out that combatting the phenomenon isn’t just down to the individual.
“Giving meaning to the job is not just up to the employee”, he says, instead it’s up to management to create an office culture that makes people feel valuable. “Make minor changes to the job or tasks. Whatever makes work boring, make it enjoyable”. Organizations need to learn what boreout is, he says, and then make resources available.
Sure, some jobs can be inherently unstimulating. But “even though the work itself would not be all that exciting, other aspects of work, such as having good relationships at the workplace or feeling appreciated by the employer, can to some extent compensate for and bring meaning to tedious work”, says Harju.
Preventing boreout in workers, says Harju, can boil down to “plain old good leadership”, whereby leaders take time to communicate to workers why what they’re doing is valued and valuable.
