Classification and Interpretability of Employee Burnout Using Linear Discriminant Analysis

Abstract

Employee burnout has become a critical challenge in modern organizations due to its negative impact on employees’ mental well-being, work performance, and organizational sustainability. In many workplaces, burnout identification still relies on subjective assessments and retrospective surveys, limiting the effectiveness of early intervention strategies. This study aims to develop an employee burnout risk classification model that achieves high predictive performance while maintaining strong interpretability. Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) is employed as the primary method because of its ability to separate classes optimally and provide explicit discriminant coefficients for explanatory analysis. The study utilizes a secondary dataset from the Mental Health in Workplace Survey, consisting of 3,000 employee records and 15 variables related to job characteristics, psychosocial factors, and individual conditions. The dataset is divided into training and testing sets with an 80:20 ratio. Experimental results show that the LDA model achieves an accuracy of 96.17%, with a precision of 89.50%, recall of 100%, F1-score of 94.46%, and an AUC value of 0.9988, indicating excellent classification capability. Further analysis of discriminant coefficients reveals that individual burnout indicators, job roles, work–life balance, and career growth opportunities are the most influential factors in determining burnout risk. These findings demonstrate that LDA offers an effective and interpretable approach for early burnout detection and supports evidence-based decision-making for human resource management.