New Paper Announcement
We are excited to share that our Founder & Executive Director’s paper, “Addressing Burnout: A Shift to the Progressive Work Model,” has been published.
This paper addresses one of the most pressing organizational challenges of our time: burnout. While many interventions focus on isolated factors (e.g., workload, policies), this research introduces the Progressive Work Model (PWM) — a forward-thinking framework that reduces burnout, used to organize work activities and processes within an organization and meet the work-life balance needs of the modern workforce. Designed using survey data from 8,484 workers across six continents and 81 countries, the PWM is comprised of four components:
1️⃣ Choice-facilitated Autonomy — allowing workers to decide their job status (employee or independent contractor) when applying for a job, rather than it being pre-determined by the organization.
2️⃣ Flexible Work Practices — e.g., job sharing, hybrid work, remote work.
3️⃣ Psychological Safety Climate — a worker’s perception of an organization’s commitment to safeguarding their psychological health and safety through policies, practices, and procedures.
4️⃣ Work-life Programs — e.g., maternity leave, mental health assistance, paid time off (PTO).
Key Takeaways:
✔️Burnout is not an individual problem; it is a work design failure.
✔️Substantive change requires embedding functional work design components within a psychological safety climate.
✔️Collectivism moderates the degree to which choice-facilitated autonomy, flexible work practices, and work-life programs affect burnout, establishing that cultural factors can impact burnout mitigation.
We are grateful to The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science for providing a platform to advance this conversation.
#Burnout #ProgressiveWork #PsychologicalSafety #WorkDesign
Doss, M. M., & Feyerherm, A. E. (2025). Addressing Burnout: A Shift to the Progressive Work Model. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00218863251365271
