Burnout and motivation in the helping professions: a national research program

The ask

Institutions serving vulnerable populations were losing staff faster than they could train replacements. The research question: what actually drives motivation, burnout, and the decision to leave among social-sector and pedagogical workers — and what can leadership change?

Approach

• Multi-year program combining participant observation inside a residential care institution with a structured survey program across staff groups.
• Instruments built around value-motivational meanings: paired importance–realization measures rather than generic satisfaction scales.
• Positive Psychological Capital (PsyCap) scales — hope, self-efficacy, resilience, optimism — as a leading indicator of burnout.
• A ranked demotivator inventory: concrete, named practices statistically linked to burnout and turnover intention.

What the research showed

• Burnout tracked frustrated work meanings far more closely than raw workload; no compensation adjustment closed the gap where meanings were blocked.
• Staff under 35 emerged as the most burnout-prone group — the segment retention programs most need and most often miss.
• A shortlist of demotivating practices (paperwork displacing client contact, decisions made without consultation, invisible leadership support) explained most of the variance in quit intention.

Delivered

Findings published as a monograph with the support of the national Association of Social Workers — 760 copies distributed to universities and social services — with recommendations implemented by institutions in multiple regions and coverage in the field’s federal journal.

Prior engagement led by Andrei Akhtyrskii, PhD. Client identity withheld where confidentiality applies.