Assessment of Clemson Cooperative Extension Agents’ Perceptions of Work-Related Factors Leading to Burnout

Turnover and employee burnout are problems the Cooperative Extension system is facing nationwide, and the Clemson system is no exception. Research within Extension has identified factors contributing to turnover and burnout; however, both remain an issue. To further investigate factors contributing to burnout, this pilot study was conducted with Clemson Extension agents using a burnout assessment not previously used in Extension research to provide a new burnout assessment tool to Extension services. This study aimed to describe Extension agents’ perceptions of six work constructs contributing to burnout to determine if there were any relationships between the constructs and Extension Agents’ generational cohort affiliation. The work constructs studied were workload, control, community, reward, fairness, and values. Findings indicated agents had an overall positive perception of the constructs, and the constructs studied were not rated at a level associated with burnout. There was also no correlation found between burnout risk and demographic characteristics. This study established reliability coefficients for the survey instrument used and identified future implications for the use of the instrument. Since there was only one significant correlation in the data, it is recommended future research be conducted using other factors of work to identify which do contribute to burnout.