Employee burnout at Lesotho Highlands Development Authority
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Date
2015-11-16
Authors
Sephelane, Poloko
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of the Free State
Abstract
Purpose: The primary objective of the study was to determine the level of employee
burnout at Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA).
Methodology: The research approach was positivist and the research design was
quantitative. The Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS) was used to
measure burnout dimensions – exhaustion (5 items), cynicism (5 items) and
professional efficacy (6 items). A comprehensive sampling strategy was used and the
study subjects were all 276 LHDA employees. The questionnaire was manually
distributed and the company’s internal mail service was also used for questionnaire
delivery to some operational sites.
Findings: Cronbach’s α was 0.77 for exhaustion, 0.724 for cynicism and 0.713 for
professional efficacy, indicating a satisfactory reliability of the instrument. Overall the
level of exhaustion was found to be low, that of cynicism moderate; while the level of
professional efficacy was found to be high. The level of cynicism differed between men
and women, with men having a higher level of cynicism. The level of cynicism also
significantly differed between employees who never completed high school and those
with at least a bachelor’s degree qualification; the former having higher levels of
cynicism than the latter. The exhaustion levels differed significantly between employees
with tenure of less than five years and those with tenure of 5 – 10 years as well as those
with tenure of more than 15 years, with a lower level for those employed for less than
five years. There were no significant differences regarding the levels of exhaustion,
cynicism and professional efficacy across all ages, occupations, sites and marital status
groups.
Conclusion: The employee burnout level is low at LHDA, with individuals who never
completed high school education having the highest level of cynicism.
Description
Keywords
Burnout, Exhaustion, Cynicism, Professional inefficacy, MBI-GS, Power generation, Water utility, Lesotho Highlands Development Authority, Job stress, Dissertation (MBA (Business Administration))--University of the Free State, 2015