Industry segments like the BPO are witnessing high levels of employee attrition. Retention management of employees in the knowledge sector is therefore a live issue. This paper, which is based on a Management Research Project (including fieldwork), highlights and defines `burnout' and related terms in a layman's words. It then analyzes the symptoms, types and phases of `burnout', followed by the findings of a field survey and recommendations. The authors discuss a few practical remedial measures, both at the individual as well as organizational levels, to reduce the employee `burnout', so that the sunrise sector of Indian industry the BPO Industrie scan prosper in the global arena.

In today's world, who is not stressed? Corporate executives, housewives, children, students-all suffer from stress of one kind or the other. Stress is known to be a psychological phenomenon with immediate and direct physiological manifestations as well as experience of discomfort.

Over the years, a few psychological concepts have been developed, burnout being one of the controversial concepts. Burnout is known to be a response to interpersonal stressors on the job, in which an overload of contact with people results in changes in attitudes and behaviors towards them. Several studies have been done on burnout. But the two classic works that remain in this area are the Maslach's Burnout Inventory (MBI) by Maslach and the burnout inventory developed by the eminent behavioral therapist H Freudenberger. Burnout involves physical, emotional and intellectual fatigue. This generally translates into weakened stamina, emotional exhaustion and feelings of despair and helplessness, which in turn causes the appearance of a negative attitude. Such negative attitude develops towards oneself, as well as towards one's work, life and people (www.burnout.com).