Karasek demand-control model
The Karasek demand-control model is the dominant occupational-stress framework, developed by Robert Karasek in 1979 and extended with Töres Theorell in 1990. It frames psychological strain as the joint product of job demand (workload, deadlines, complexity) and decision latitude (autonomy, control over how work is done). The two factors form a 2×2: high demand × high control = active and engaging; high demand × low control = strain (the burnout precursor).
The Karasek model predates the Maslach burnout framework by two years and explains the mechanism behind it: burnout is not the inevitable consequence of high workload alone but of high workload combined with low autonomy. The empirical literature (extensive across occupations) supports the model: high-demand low-control jobs produce burnout, cardiovascular disease, and depression at significantly higher rates than high-demand high-control jobs of equivalent workload. The applied implication for engineering organisations: increasing autonomy (engineer-driven sprint planning, team-owned process choices, decision authority on technical approach) typically reduces burnout more reliably than reducing workload — particularly for senior engineers whose perceived autonomy is already part of why they joined.
Related terms
- Maslach Burnout Inventory
The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) is the most-cited clinical instrument for measuring occupational burnout.
- Emotional exhaustion
Emotional exhaustion is the first dimension of burnout in the Maslach framework: the chronic depletion of emotional and physical resources from sustained work demand.
- Process debt
Process debt is the accumulated friction from team processes that no longer fit the work they govern — sprint structures that produce overcommitment, retrospectives that surface action items without follow-through, on-call rotations that never get re-tuned, estimation rituals that produce false confidence.