Not Burnout but ‘Boreout’

The employee checked his meeting schedule and noticed something odd—it was blank. He asked his manager about taking on another project, but there wasn’t one. Normally a hard worker, the employee tried to fill the day by boning up on his AI skills and pursuing various kinds of training.

Despite hiring freezes, layoffs, and a push from leaders to increase productivity, more workers these days are apparently feeling, perhaps counterintuitively, that they are doing little more than busy work—or, on some days, nothing at all. While boredom at work is nothing new, some observers have coined a term for it, “boreout,” that plays off the burnout issue that has become rampant in the workplace. And according to one recent study, boreout may rival burnout in terms of its financial cost to companies. In particular, the study cites the mental-health toll: Bored employees can cost an average 1,000-worker firm $5 million in lost revenue annually. “Boredom has been running rampant across organizations for decades,” says Jamen Graves, global leader of CEO and enterprise leadership development at Korn Ferry.

Experts say burnout isn’t just the product of normal employee disengagement. With companies facing slowing growth while gaining efficiencies from AI, more workers find themselves with less to do. Indeed, a recent study found that AI was saving 7.5 hours of work a week, leaving even conscientious types with little do if the pace of business is slow. “Business is tough right now, and the big, interesting, exciting projects aren’t coming in,” says Craig Rowley, a senior client partner who specializes in retail for the Consumer Products practice at Korn Ferry. Economic forecasts project weaker growth over the new few quarters, for instance, and surveys show executives are planning to scale back spending and investments. Due to the pullback in hiring college graduates and entry-level workers, Rowley points out, senior employees are doing more of the routine but boring work.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. In fact, it was supposed to be the exact opposite—AI promised to take over repetitive, mundane tasks to free people for more interesting, creative, and challenging work. But in some cases at least, AI’s capabilities are advancing so fast that it is absorbing not just the most boring responsibilities, but also the most interesting. “Disengagement is a real risk. People are just going to lose interest in their jobs,” says Purbita Banerjee, senior vice president of product management of Korn Ferry digital and RPO.

Part of the problem is that when employees are faced with so much change and disruption in their jobs, they tend to lean into familiar tasks they know they can do well, says Dennis Deans, global human resources business partner at Korn Ferry. To meet this challenge, Graves says, leaders need to do a better job of connecting employees to more impactful, meaningful, strategic work, as well as demonstrate how partnership with AI can create more engaging tasks for them. “It is a crucial test of leadership to show people how AI can make their jobs more impactful, and thus less boring,” says Graves.

Learn more about Korn Ferry’s Leadership and Professional Development capabilities. 

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