What if your brightest engineers are too burned out to work? A recent study by Wakefield Research, DataWorld, and DataKitchen revealed that among 600 engineers surveyed, a staggering 97% reported experiencing burnout in their day-to-day jobs. 70% indicated they were likely to leave their current company within the next 12 months due to unrelenting stress and inefficiencies. In a high-pressure work environment where mistakes can lead to costly delays, the industry has largely neglected the mental health and well-being of its workforce. One cause for this is the increased about of manual processes in a world that is increasingly digital.
Manual processes
Unnecessary manual processes like managing points of connection data and handling technology updates can drain your team’s creativity and ability. Some engineers often manually track thousands of POCs using spreadsheets, which can be overwhelming and prone to errors. Another cumbersome manual process is multiple design iterations and revisions. Contruction Engineers manually cross-check layouts to ensure compliance with regulations and safety standards, which becomes exhausting when technology changes mid-construction.
Many engineers find tool installation and coordination a tedious task. Engineers must manually align tool specifications with facility layouts, which involves reviewing vendor data, facility data, and utility requirements. All of these manual processes are factors in destroying job satisfaction and pushing talent out the door in the process. What can we do to combat these issues?
Increased Burnout
There is a connection between burnout and unnecessary manual tasks.. The aforementioned Wakefield Research survey draws a direct link between increased levels of burnout and the prevalence of unnecessary manual processes in engineering roles. From data engineering to project engineering, the mental toll of these cumbersome tasks is felt across the board. These low-value tasks—such as repetitive data entry —leave engineers drained and disengaged from the more meaningful aspects of their work.
Numerous studies confirm the connection between monotonous work and professional burnout. A Gallup study found that employees who perform repetitive, low-value tasks are more likely to experience emotional exhaustion, leading to higher rates of stress and burnout. We all know how critical precision is in engineering, and as engineers grow more exhausted, the quality of their work diminishes, leading to costly errors and increased dissatisfaction from higher management.
Decreased Innovation
There are also hidden costs of increased burnout, costs that won't show up in an end-of-year report.
In modern engineering, creativity is a cornerstone of innovation. As engineers face increasingly complex challenges, designing innovative solutions is not just beneficial—it is essential.
Younger engineers, especially those coming out of college, are far more likely to be tech-savvy and creative problem-solvers. However, this creativity is at risk of not reaching its potential if these engineers follow the status quo and become engulfed in unnecessary manual processes. In modern engineering and construction, just saying, "This is how we’ve always done it," doesn’t cut it anymore.
This creativity is often crushed when engineers are bogged down by repetitive manual tasks. Instead of spending time innovating or optimizing processes, engineers might find themselves focused on basic data entry or system maintenance.
Just imagine engineers constructing a semiconductor fab becoming progressively occupied with repetitive tasks. As a result, those engineers would be unable to dedicate their time to the tasks that truly matter, leaving the project behind schedule with increasing costs.
Higher Turnover Rate
High turnover rates among engineers are a growing challenge, driven in part by the mental strain and dissatisfaction caused by manual processes. It is crucial, in competitive fields like engineering, to retain talent.
According to the Data.World and DataKitchen study, 70% of data engineers stated that they are likely to leave their current company for another data engineering job within the next 12 months.79% have considered leaving the industry entirely. Additional challenges highlighted by the study include:
- 91% frequently receiving requests for analytics with unrealistic or unreasonable expectations.
- 89% reporting frequent disruptions to their work-life balance due to unplanned work.
These pressures, compounded by repetitive manual workflows, not only demoralize engineers but also push them toward other industries with more innovative environments.
From an organizational standpoint, this directly equates to unnecessary costs associated with constant new employee training and integration. Additionally, the departure of skilled employees creates serious gaps in knowledge and expertise, which are difficult to replace.
For example, if several engineers leave during a critical production phase , the ripple effect could disrupt workflows, delay project timelines, and increase costs as companies scramble to onboard replacements.
This highlights the broader consequences of high turnover—lost productivity, institutional knowledge, and increased recruitment expenses. These issues can be mitigated by reducing reliance on unnecessary manual processes and fostering a tech-savvy, AI-driven culture of digital transformation.
Impact on Team Dynamics
The harsh effects of burnout due to manual processes go far beyond an individual engineer. Job dissatisfaction radiates to other team members, significantly impacting team dynamics and collaboration in high-pressure environments. When engineers are burdened with low-value manual tasks, their willingness and ability to contribute to high-value problem-solving diminishes significantly. As a result, team meetings that should focus on strategic planning and innovation often devolve into discussions about delays and error reduction.
New team members may also find it challenging to integrate due to the overwhelming workloads and inefficient processes. For example, when engineers spend excessive time reconciling errors from incompatible data systems, project timelines can slip, leading to heightened stress and interpersonal tension.
So, what is the solution?
Implementing AI tools can reduce the unnecessary workload on engineers, enabling teams to shift focus away from error reduction and inefficiencies and back toward innovation, collaboration, and the tasks that truly matter. Empowering engineers with modern resources not only enhances job satisfaction but strengthens team cohesion, creating a healthy work environment.
Conclusion
The severe over-reliance on manual processes like managing points of connection and tool installation coordination within engineering environments not only hampers the personal job satisfaction of an individual engineer but also significantly affects team cohesion and dynamics. The data provided by Data.world and DataKitchen clearly demonstrates how these inefficiencies contribute to decreased innovation, high turnover rates, and ultimately burnout.
It is evident that if you want to ensure that your team's morale and cohesion aren't affected by unnecessary manual tasks and arduous workloads, utilizing the benefits of digital transformation and AI innovation is the way to go.