Steve McConnell/UC Berkeley
Christina Maslach has conducted pioneering research on burnout for over three decades.
She said pandemic-induced burnout should serve as a wake-up call to corporate America.
Organizations need to enlist their employees to help them uncover better ways of working, she said.
Early in her career in the 1970s, when Christina Maslach was starting out as a psychologist, she was doing research in human services where she'd interview healthcare workers and teachers about their jobs. She noticed a pattern: Many of the people she spoke with told her they felt exhausted and utterly drained of energy. They felt a gnawing cynicism about their work and a deep sense of personal inefficacy.