Being stressed about your finances can lead to burnout at work. (PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock)
In a nutshell
- Current money management stress increases workplace burnout, which in turn lowers job satisfaction. When you’re worried about today’s bills, it can drain the mental resources needed to stay engaged at work.
- Feeling secure about your financial future directly improves job satisfaction, even without affecting burnout levels. This suggests employees who see their job as contributing to long-term financial security tend to be more satisfied.
- Effective workplace financial wellness programs should address both immediate financial stress (through counseling or emergency assistance) and future financial security (through retirement planning and career development). Each approach affects job satisfaction through different pathways.
ATHENS, Ga. — In today’s world, the boundaries between our personal and professional lives often blur. Many of us try to keep financial worries separate from our work life, but a new study from the University of Georgia suggests this separation may be wishful thinking. Research reveals that our financial well-being significantly impacts our job satisfaction, with workplace burnout playing a key role.
The study, published in the Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health, shows that when employees experience financial stress, it follows them to work, affecting their performance and satisfaction through increased burnout.
The Hidden Cost of Financial Stress at Work
The U.S. Surgeon General recognized this connection in 2024 by naming workplace well-being one of the top public health priorities. Yet remarkably, 60% of employers don’t consider employee well-being a top 10 initiative. This disconnect is costly with dissatisfied employees reportedly costing the U.S. economy around $1.9 trillion in lost productivity in 2023 alone.
“Stress from work can often leave people feeling tired and overwhelmed. Anxiety in other parts of life could make this even worse,” says lead author Camden Cusumano from the University of Georgia, in a statement. “Just as injury in one part of the body could lead to pain in another, personal financial stress can manifest in someone’s work performance.”
While previous research has examined connections between compensation and job satisfaction, this study takes a more holistic approach. Rather than focusing merely on salary figures, researchers investigated how employees’ overall assessment of their financial health impacts their workplace experience.
When Money Worries Follow You to Work
Their research distinguishes between two dimensions of financial well-being: current money management stress (present concerns) and expected future financial security (future outlook). Both of these affect job satisfaction in different ways.
“We call them different life domains. There’s the work domain, there might be the family domain, things like that,” says Cusumano. “But sometimes there’s spillover from one to the other. My finances might impact the way I’m feeling about the stress in my family, or if I’m working long hours, that might cause some conflict with my family as well.”
The researchers used the Conservation of Resources theory as their framework. This theory suggests people experience stress when they lose resources, face threats to their resources, or fail to gain new resources despite their efforts. In this context, financial well-being represents a crucial resource: a sense of security and control regarding one’s finances.
Burnout Beyond the Workplace
For the study, the researchers surveyed 217 full-time U.S. employees who earned at least $50,000 annually. This sample was deliberately chosen to focus on workers not predisposed to financial insecurity due to low income.
Burnout shows up in three main ways: feeling detached from yourself or others, feeling constantly tired, and feeling like your accomplishments don’t matter. All three combine to make employees tired and disengaged from their work.
Current money management stress didn’t directly affect job satisfaction but operated through increased burnout. In contrast, expected future financial security had a direct positive association with job satisfaction that wasn’t mediated by burnout.
These findings highlight that financial stress doesn’t just create problems at home; it fundamentally alters how employees experience their work. People feeling stressed about making ends meet today are more likely to experience burnout, which in turn reduces their job satisfaction. Meanwhile, those who feel secure about their financial future tend to be more satisfied with their jobs, regardless of burnout levels.
Future financial concerns may also play a role in job satisfaction. If a worker is feeling stressed about their current position, believing their financial situation may improve could enhance their views on their job.
Creating Better Workplace Support Programs
Employers often focus on compensation as the primary financial factor affecting employee satisfaction. However, if an employee’s financial struggles are leading to burnout and job dissatisfaction, addressing work-related factors alone won’t fully resolve the problem.
This research highlights the importance of developing personal financial management skills alongside professional development for employees. Building financial resilience may not only improve the quality of life at home but could also enhance workplace experience and career success, especially in today’s workforce where remote and hybrid work have further blurred the boundaries between work and personal life.
“Some companies are actually providing financial counseling to some of their employees,” says Cusumano. “They’re paying attention to how finances can really permeate different areas of life.”
Organizations could benefit from broadening their wellness initiatives to include financial well-being resources. Providing tools and support to help employees manage current financial stress and build future security could yield significant returns through improved job satisfaction and reduced burnout.
In the end, money might not buy happiness, but financial stress certainly seems capable of diminishing workplace satisfaction. By understanding these connections, both organizations and individuals can develop more effective strategies for navigating the complex relationship between financial health and workplace well-being.
Paper Summary
Methodology
The researchers collected data through an online survey in November 2022. From a broader sample of 857 U.S. adults, they focused on 217 full-time employees earning at least $50,000 annually. Financial well-being was assessed through two dimensions: current money management stress (using five items about present financial concerns) and expected future financial security (using five items about confidence in future finances). Burnout was measured using seven items from the Emotional Exhaustion section of the Maslach Burnout Inventory. The researchers also collected demographic information including age, sex, and income to control for their potential influence. They then analyzed the relationships between these variables using Structural Equation Modeling, a statistical technique that examines complex relationships between multiple variables simultaneously.
Results
The study found that current money management stress and expected future financial security impact job satisfaction through different pathways. Current money management stress didn’t directly affect job satisfaction but operated through burnout. Employees with higher financial stress were more likely to experience burnout (β = .488, p
Limitations
The study focused exclusively on individuals earning above $50,000 who worked full-time, so the findings might not apply to part-time workers, gig workers, or those with lower incomes who might experience financial stress differently. The cross-sectional nature of the data prevents establishing causality—while financial well-being appears associated with job satisfaction through burnout, the direction of these relationships can’t be definitively determined. The sample was also predominantly male (65%), which might limit generalizability to more diverse populations. Additionally, the study didn’t explore potential differences across demographic subgroups or industry sectors. As with all self-reported data, participants’ responses might be influenced by social desirability bias or limited self-awareness about their own financial well-being, burnout levels, or job satisfaction.
Discussion and Takeaways
The study challenges aspects of the Conservation of Resources theory by showing that actual resource loss (current financial stress) and threatened resource loss (future financial insecurity) operate differently, with only the former strongly associated with burnout. The findings suggest that workplace programs addressing financial wellness should differentiate between initiatives targeting current financial stress (like counseling or emergency loans) and those building future financial security (like retirement planning). Current financial stress reduction programs might indirectly improve job satisfaction by decreasing burnout, while future security initiatives might directly enhance job satisfaction without affecting burnout levels. The researchers also emphasize the importance of taking a holistic view of employee well-being that considers multiple life domains rather than treating work as isolated from other aspects of life.
Funding and Disclosures
The study received ethical approval from the University of Georgia Institutional Review Board (Project ID: PROJECT00006623). The researchers declared no potential conflicts of interest. The paper doesn’t explicitly state funding sources for the research. The data was collected through an online survey using the Precision Sample research panel to identify participants across the United States.
Publication Information
The study “Mind the gap: Investigating how financial well-being shapes job satisfaction through burnout” was authored by Camden Cusumano and Dee Warmath from the University of Georgia’s College of Family and Consumer Sciences. It was published on December 13, 2024, in the Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health.
