How To Steer Your Team Away From The 2021 Burnout Epidemic

In May 2019, The World Health Organization (WHO) characterized “burnout” as “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed,” and emphasized that the term “burnout” shouldn’t be used to describe experiences in areas of life outside of the workplace.

By the end of 2019, WHO’s focus was on a virus in Wuhan, China that would soon trigger a global pandemic and profoundly change how people work and live around the world. Few could have predicted how the line between work and home life would blur. The pandemic forced work and home to become thoroughly intertwined.

What we experience today as burnout is as novel as COVID-19 itself, and is more prevalent. A March 2021 survey by Indeed.com determined burnout is on the rise, with 52% of workers reporting feeling burned out, up from 43%, pre-pandemic. Sixty-seven percent believe the pandemic has “worsened Employee burnout.”

To combat burnout, we must understand how COVID-19 changed it. We can’t apply pre-pandemic solutions to a pandemic-caused problem and expect those old solutions to work.

Pre-Pandemic Burnout

The term “burnout” was coined in the 1970s to describe the exhaustion, listlessness, and inability to cope experienced by workers in “helping professions,” such as doctors and nurses, due to the severe stress and high ideals associated with their work. In following years, use of the term broadened to describe similar conditions suffered by workers regardless of profession.

Just before the pandemic hit, a Gallup study found that 23% of workers surveyed reported feeling burned out at work “very often” or “always.” An additional 44% reported feeling burned out “sometimes.” Those feeling burned out “very often” or “always” were 2.6 times more likely to leave their employer. In a disturbing twist, those same employees were 23% more likely to visit hospital emergency rooms.

According to Stanford University researchers in 2015, workplace stress — one of burnout’s main contributors — was responsible for $190 billion in health care costs and 120,000 deaths a year. This far exceeds the $28 billion in health care costs and 95,000 annual deaths the Center for Disease Control attributes to excessive alcohol use today. Workplace stress and burnout are costing us more money and killing us in greater numbers than alcohol abuse.

Pandemic-Related Burnout

So how did COVID-19 worsen an existing burnout epidemic? A contributing factor, unfortunately, was a response to the pandemic aimed at protecting employees’ health. Soon after the pandemic was declared, businesses adopted remote work policies to observe social distancing requirements.

The U.S. The Bureau of Labor Statistics states that by May 2020, 49 million workers — about 35% of the employed workforce — were working at home due to the pandemic. Compare this with 6% of Americans who worked primarily from home in 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

In 2020, many workers’ homes suddenly became their offices — as well as their spouses’ offices and their children’s classrooms. Instead of meeting in conference rooms, we Zoomed, and no one was surprised when a toddler or the family dog interrupted. And while more family time had its benefits, working from home also meant that home life crept into work life and vice-versa more than ever.

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With social distancing protocols in place and travel discouraged, work life and home life were mashed-up into pandemic life — a blur of days, weeks, and months without a vacation, a night out, or a break on the horizon. 2020 Gallup data reveals that Americans’ life evaluations fell to their lowest levels since the Great Recession of 2008. Today, some COVID-19 restrictions may have loosened, but variants of the virus keep us on our guard and mostly close to home.

Distinguishing between work and home stress hardly matters anymore — we’re all stressed about pretty much everything: the health of loved ones, our inability to unplug from work, the threat of layoffs, kids returning to school, kids not returning to school, cabin fever, and so on.

Those working outside the home are affected by many of the same stressors and have to deal with additional ones such as once-lively workplaces gone sadly quiet, increased workloads to compensate for employee attrition, possibilities of contracting COVID-19 in the workplace, and the worry of passing it on to others.

Signs of Burnout

One positive response to the current burnout epidemic has been the abundance of attention paid to recognizing signs of burnout, understanding its causes, and recommending actions to take against it.

Forbes highlights three burnout warning signs to look for in individual employees:

• Decreased productivity and performance — a lack of motivation and an increase in uncharacteristic mistakes.
• Increased cynicism towards coworkers and clients — negative talk about colleagues and the company, being aggressively argumentative, and unaccepting of feedback.
• Detachment from the company — is frequently late to meetings and doesn’t engage in discussions.

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Causes of Burnout

Pre-pandemic, a Gallup survey identified these top causes of employee burnout:

• Unfair treatment at work.
• Unmanageable workload.
• Lack of role clarity.
• Lack of communication and support from their manager.
• Unreasonable time pressure.

Add to those causes these factors affecting employees new to remote work:

• Not enough space or quiet time at home to focus on work as effectively as in the office.
• Increase in calls, emails, Slacks, and texts to facilitate remote work.
• Challenges in getting support when needed — from HR, IT, etc.
• Weight gain and other health issues due to lack of adequate movement daily.

And this is only the tip of the iceberg. This pandemic is a new phenomenon, even if it doesn’t feel like it, and hasn’t yet been studied at length. There are likely burnout causes and contributing factors not yet recorded.

Clear signs that show your team is sick with the burnout fever

Avoiding Employee Burnout

Dr. Christina Maslach at the University of California, Berkeley has studied burnout for decades and has expressed apprehension about WHO’s new description of burnout focusing on “workplace stress.” Maslach interprets the revision as, “providing definitions for what is wrong with people, instead of what is wrong with companies.”

Harvard Business Review puts it bluntly: “Leaders take note: It’s now on you to build a burnout strategy.” Jane Fraser stepped into her role as Citigroup CEO in March 2021 and took swift action, sending a memo to 210,000 Citigroup employees worldwide that:

• Prohibited internal video calls on Fridays.
• Encouraged workers to set boundaries for a healthier work-life balance.
• Instituted a company-wide holiday allowing employees to reset.

She also described her vision for the workplace once employees could return. Her plan outlined which roles would split time between home and office, which were required to report to offices, and which few roles would remain remote, giving employees a glimpse of a post-pandemic future and reassurance that they won’t be stuck in their current situation forever.

Fraser demonstrated strong, compassionate leadership which no doubt heartened employees after a year of steady bad news. Don’t underestimate the effect of good news. It can give hope to employees teetering on the edge of burnout and reassure them that circumstances at work and home will be different soon.

Instituting an appropriate amount of company-wide time off is also a good idea. Making it a mandatory holiday could force even the most workaholic employees to decompress and enjoy family life without the intrusions of work or feelings that they should be working.

Another of Citigroup’s new policies undoubtedly brought much relief to workers overwhelmed by conference calls. No internal video calls on Fridays? That’s a gift. Limits on email, Slack, and text are also sensible next steps. Manager-assigned interruption-free work hours would surely be appreciated by teams. A solid chunk of productive, communication-free hours each morning could help workers find some of the balance they need to avoid burning out.

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If the road to burnout is paved, it’s paved with emails — emails overflowing employees’ inboxes, pinging them at all hours, and causing email fatigue. Employees have multiple responsibilities and juggling them with inbound emails can feel hopeless. Fortunately, organizations can empower employees to manage their workflows using software services like:

ProofHub

ProofHub’s collaborative features like Notes, Discussions, instant messaging, and group chats, pave the way towards productive and efficient working. An in-built chat within a project management tool can help you eliminate the need for emails all together.

SaneBox

SaneBox’s artificial intelligence sorts a user’s email into folders, separating important emails from those less important. Investing in smart, user-friendly, stress-busting tools is an area where employers can feel confident that they’re contributing to employees’ well-being.

Reflecting on the signs and causes of the current burnout epidemic, it’s clear that organizations need to provide adequate support for employees suffering from poor mental health.

A June 2020 study by telehealth company Lyra found that 40% of workers surveyed “don’t believe their employer cares about their mental health, beyond their ability to be productive.” Twenty-five percent of respondents said their employer does not support their mental health at all. And 47% said their employer had not communicated any message of support addressing the pandemic in the previous three months.

Employees are unlikely to discuss burnout with their managers. A recent study found that 73% of workers believe it’s their own responsibility to manage it. It’s important, especially to high-performing employees, to be perceived as capable. Conducting an anonymous survey is one way to gather unvarnished feedback from employees. Employers would find this feedback invaluable when creating a plan to preserve workers’ mental health.

Encouraging Employee Self-Care

While fighting burnout isn’t solely an employee’s responsibility, individual workers hold many of the keys to their own mental and physical health. Employers can help workers understand the value of taking these actions recommended by Mayo Clinic:

• Discuss specific concerns — such as unrealistic deadlines — with managers.
• Take advantage of relevant employee assistance programs.
• Explore relaxing activities such as yoga or meditation. Practice mindfulness.
• Exercise.
• Get enough sleep.

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Combat Burnout With Actions and Optimism

Despite the sobering news and statistics we receive all too frequently these days, American workers are optimistic. One survey finds that 58% of respondents believe their negative feelings will improve soon.

Optimism is powerful, but it won’t get us through the COVID pandemic and burnout epidemic on its own. Employees and employers must actively fight burnout. Current circumstances call for innovative solutions and bold actions.

Author Bio:

Dmitri Leonov | VP of Growth at SaneBox

Dmitri Leonov is an internet entrepreneur, leading growth efforts at Sanebox. He has over 10 years of experience in startups, corporate strategy, sales strategy, channel development, international expansion and M&A.

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How to Steer Your Team Away From the 2021 Burnout Epidemic was originally published in ProofHub Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.