The relationship between mindfulness and burnout amongst employees in a South African corporate organisation

M.A.Burnout due to work-related stress is an ever-increasing problem around the world. Burnout is virulent and has entrenched itself in modern corporate life making corporate workers susceptible to its effects. Mindfulness meditation training has been found to be beneficial in enhancing psychological welfare and can ameliorate the effects of burnout. Research on burnout and mindfulness has been limited within the South African corporate context. This study aimed to explore the extent of burnout among employees in a South African corporate organisation and to examine the relationship between burnout and mindfulness in the same population. It was hypothesised that burnout was prevalent and that there will be a statistically significant relationship between mindfulness and burnout. Another aim was to determine whether the OLBI and the MAAS were reliable for use in a South African context. An additional aim was to determine which variable (mindfulness, job satisfaction or social support) contributed significantly to burnout. The sample consisted of 207 participants from a bank in Johannesburg. Each participant completed a biographical data questionnaire, the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI), the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), the Overall Job Satisfaction scale and the Social Support scale. The results of this research confirmed that burnout was prevalent in the organisation. However, the prevalence was not as extensive as expected. Nevertheless, results indicated that some participants were exhausted. The results provide evidence for a moderately significant negative correlation between burnout and mindfulness [r = -0.543, p <0.01]. This suggests that the therapeutic benefits of mindfulness training can potentially be accessed to ameliorate the negative effects of burnout. High reliability coefficients were found for the OLBI (alpha=0.883), MAAS (alpha=0.904), Job Satisfaction (alpha=0.732) and Social Support (alpha=0.809) scales. Three variables (mindfulness, job satisfaction and social support) explained 59.3% of the variance in burnout [F(3, 198) = 96.31, p<0.001]. Job satisfaction contributed most to burnout, recording the highest beta value [beta = -.472, p < .001]. Mindfulness was the second highest contributor [beta = -.379, p < .001], followed by social support [beta = -.175, p < .001]. Support was garnered for the use of the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model as a framework for examining burnout among corporate workers insofar as job resources mediated between job demands and burnout. Future studies should involve large-scale standardisation research for the OLBI and the MAAS in order to expand their use beyond their research utility and allow for their use in everyday circumstances