Employee burnout at Lesotho Highlands Development Authority

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Date
2015-11-16
Authors
Sephelane, Poloko
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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.
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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
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