Some forms of distress at work are easy to recognize because they interrupt someone’s daily performance and the work of those around them: For example, a person on your team becomes visibly exhausted, they are irritable, or they’re frequently absent. But other forms of distress are harder to see precisely because the work continues uninterrupted.

It’s common to talk about burnout at work and to recognize it in others and in ourselves. But a new paper of mine with David S. Smith examines a less visible and less understood form of disengagement at work: rustout.

Rustout, as we studied it, often involves being underutilized, intellectually stagnating, and feeling a deep-seated sense of unfulfillment. It can arise when people feel their work no longer offers enough meaning or challenge to keep them intellectually and creatively engaged. But because it’s different from burnout, the solutions are also different—both for individuals and for organizations.

Rustout vs. burnout

I’ve presented this research at numerous conferences, and each time I have been approached by professionals who say, “That’s what I’ve been going through, but I never had a name for it until now.”

These people, young and older, are committed to their work, they are hardworking, and they haven’t stopped caring. It is often the case that they care very much, and they meet expectations set before them. They are often the ones who are called upon because they are reliable and highly conscientious.

If you look around your workplace, you probably know many people who fit this bill. The problem is not a loss of effort on the part of the individual; it is a breakdown in the relationship between effort and meaningful work. From my study of this topic, rustout is really about the decline in professional vitality, when a person’s capacities are not used in ways that feel meaningful to them.

In our research, participants described experiences shaped by administrative overload, reduced autonomy, and a misalignment between their professional aspirations and assigned tasks. Many people highlighted feeling professionally stuck: “Sadly, the elements I love about the job . . . are often overshadowed by the other administrative aspects of the role,” “I feel like I’m feeding the machine,” and “I’m a square peg in a round hole.”

They highlighted a sense that the work they were doing no longer drew sufficiently on their talents: “The better you are at it, the more of the administrative side of the job you get. It’s lacking opportunities to be creative.”

Rustout can be quite psychologically disorienting. From the outside, a person may appear successful and competent. There is no question about their productivity; they meet set targets, but could do so “with [their] eyes closed.” However, they may feel increasingly detached from the work that once animated them. Their distress isn’t dramatic; it’s a slow process of psychological erosion.

In many ways, rustout overlaps with burnout, but they are not the same. Burnout involves prolonged negative stress that isn’t adequately managed. It’s about too much—working too much, caring too much, too much pressure, and too little time to recuperate. In contrast, rustout is associated with too little positive stress or challenge over time, too little stimulation, and limited opportunities for individual growth.

However, while burnout is part of organizations’ Mental health literacy, rustout rarely gets a mention. And this is problematic—both for the individual and the organization. “I often feel I have produced nothing at the end of the week, and there is no sense of development,” one person said.

Some will stay in their roles out of a sense of duty (and for other practical reasons like salary or seniority), but others will choose to leave. Another said, “I am functioning at my job, but I’m not thriving, and I am looking elsewhere.”

Why don’t we talk about rustout?

Rustout often hides behind competence, and the reliable person is often given more of the same work. The person who does not complain is assumed to be coping and doing OK. The person who stabilizes others and is a good team player is rarely asked whether they themselves feel developed or challenged.

One person said, “I have no experience of ever having a conversation with anyone around it. No line manager ever named it, it has never been mentioned in a communal setting or in a one-to-one setting. . . . No one has ever asked, ‘Do you feel fulfilled or do you feel you have opportunities to use your skills and talents in a meaningful way?’”

It’s easy to see how doing overtime and being dependable can become a trap. Eventually, the employee becomes valued less for what they might become and more for what they can continue to absorb—they won’t “rock the boat” by opening the can of worms that is their dissatisfaction. “You put up, and shut up,” one person said.

Meanwhile, many workplaces are organized to detect individual or team shortcomings (or failure) more readily than stagnation. If someone stops performing, the problem becomes visible. However, if someone continues to perform while becoming inwardly disengaged, the organization may see no problem at all. And if anyone notices their dissatisfaction, they may not openly discuss it, as another of my interviewees reported. “It suits everyone not to talk about it; when everyone is working and doing their jobs—then don’t disturb anything. Everything is cosy.”

How rustout arises

Participants experiencing rustout described barriers that limited their ability to use their strengths or pursue professional growth, which are particularly important for having a sense of meaning and fulfillment at work.

For many people, their working life gives them a sense of identity and purpose, but when work no longer offers that sense of meaning, their relationship with the job can become fractured or feel “off.” In some cases, they can’t put their finger on what is happening, and that might be why I often hear after presentations, “I never had a name for it.”

Naming rustout won’t solve the issue, but it can help the person to understand why they feel underutilized or dissatisfied. Naming rustout can help people understand this isn’t a personal failure but an experience that is shaped by the design or conditions of work (much like burnout). It is also shaped by the culture of work, particularly when there is a resistance to change or a failure to see the value in helping people to flourish.

From my discussions with participants and colleagues about rustout, it is clear that it isn’t a pre-retirement phenomenon. It seems to arise for those who are experienced, perhaps mid-career, and those who have been in their role for a long time.

One participant explained, “I have been doing [this role] for years. There must be better ways to organize things to ensure the expertise of experienced staff is used in more effective ways.” Others said, “It’s the seven-, eight-, nine-year mark when there isn’t an opportunity to be stimulated,” and “It’s the seven-year itch, you’ve been doing something creative and then you reach a point where you are doing the same thing on repeat.”

In such ways, we can’t dismiss rustout as a consequence of aging in the workplace. It can happen whenever people are pigeonholed into a system that no longer offers them meaningful development. Although some repetition and routine are an expected part of every job, there should also be a sense that your abilities and talents matter in your role. That there is a future and something exciting to work toward.

What to do if you are rusting out

The language of burnout has helped many people name distress that had previously been normalized or dismissed. It has also helped organizations take workplace well-being more seriously. But any dominant Mental health vocabulary can become limiting when it starts to stand in for the whole field of experience. If burnout is the only category available for occupational distress, then recovery is often imagined in terms of rest and resilience.

They may be necessary, but they are not always sufficient. A person experiencing rustout may not simply need less work; they may need different work: work that restores their sense of intellectual engagement and curiosity. As Maya Angelou once said, “We aren’t designed to be static”—that could apply to all aspects of life, including the workplace.

If you are experiencing rustout, it would be good to do an inventory of what is happening for you. Do you feel fulfilled in your role? Do you have opportunities to use your talents? Do you gain some sense of meaning from your role? Are there ways to seek renewal in your work? What might this look like, and can you have this conversation with your line manager or boss?

For organizations, the questions are also direct. Look around your team. Are you giving your most dependable employees opportunities for development? Do you continually lean on their “safe pair of hands” because it is easier than asking someone else to learn the ropes? Are you willing to put the conversation about professional dissatisfaction on the table? How can you help your team to flourish?

That is the unsettling truth at the heart of the rustout. A person can be conscientious yet disengaged, reliable yet underused, competent but unfulfilled. They can be good at their job and still feel themselves receding from it. The silence around rustout allows it to thrive, which is why I often hear the same response after conference presentations: “I thought it was just me.” I think there is a particular loneliness in that sentence, the loneliness of continuing to do the work, while privately wondering why it no longer feels like yours.