Burnout in the maritime industry

Abstract

Today's intense business relationships put a great deal of stress on employees both physically and mentally. Various occupational groups and organizational structures are faced with important levels of stress due to the difficulties created by working conditions. Because of the physical and environmental working conditions, the maritime industry is regarded as one of the most difficult in the world. In addition to being able to cope with these difficulties, seafarers are expected to be physically and mentally healthy, constantly ready, and able to adapt to the work environment. Consequently, employees suffer from a condition known as "burnout." Some of the causes of burnout are being away from home and loved ones, fatigue, long working hours, limited space, insufficient sleep, and international factors. Therefore, eliminating or minimizing the stress factors that may affect seafarers carries vital importance in terms of ensuring motivation in the organizational work environment. Stress includes the physiological and psychological responses of the individual to excessive and often undesirable stimuli and threatening incidents. Stress manifests itself with a burnout at the organizational level as well as at the individual level. In the maritime sector, it is essential that all maritime enterprises in the world, the education sector, the administrations, and shareholders think about burnout, develop, and implement applications to make the profession sustainable. In this part of the book, the definition and dimensions of burnout will be explained. After defining the concept of burnout, the details of burnout models will be examined, and the results of burnout syndrome will be explained. A conceptual framework will be presented to describe the effect of working conditions in the maritime sector on burnout and the causal relationship between burnout syndrome and accidents and incidents.