In a bid to pivot or maintain profitability, too much pressure may be placed on employees who are anxious about the security of their jobs due to the pandemic’s impact on businesses. COVID measures keeping workers at home are critical to surviving the pandemic. However, they are taking a toll on employees and disproportionately affecting women, people of color, and those with caregiving responsibilities. Employee burnout has been exacerbated by the pandemic, as daily work stresses were compounded by the challenges of balancing home life and work in the same setting. Studies show record levels of daily stress and worry have persisted from the start of the pandemic.
Unfortunately, the majority of workers (70%) feel that their employers aren’t doing enough to help stop the effects of burnout. On the contrary, they feel that their employers are making their burnout symptoms worse. Learn more about building a foundation for sustainable and healthy remote employee experiences in our guide to creating remote work cultures. You may need to ask for time off, fewer responsibilities, or to set boundaries about the time you’re spending at work. Have you ever heard the saying, “If you don’t take a day off, your body will take a day off for you? When your body is constantly flooded with adrenaline, and you aren’t well-rested, you’re more likely to fall sick.
Switchboard: Get ahead of remote work burnout
For example, you might want to announce when you ‘arrive at the office’. Similarly, at the end of the working day, let people know you are going home – which is daft really, because you’re already at home, but you get my point. In this way, a person’s personality can contribute to the development of burnout when working remotely. remote working fatigue These personality factors have a potent influence on our behaviour, but they don’t determine it entirely. Disagreeable people learn how to compromise, or at least to be more diplomatic in their conversations. More agreeable colleagues learn to be more assertive, even if being assertive makes them feel uncomfortable.
- For example, many people who are not very conscientious gravitate to highly structured corporate organisations that help them manage the disorganised and ‘lazy’ aspects of their personality.
- It can help you to build processes at work that support your self-care, which helps you avoid falling into the same situation again.
- You should also plan to talk to discuss the problem with someone you trust.
- In Chapter Two, I described what to look out for in people who are struggling with mental health problems, the obstacles to helping and what you can do to help.
- For instance, my team pulled together a video about the importance of time off to show our managers how they can encourage their teams to take PTO.
“Green” employees might talk about whatever personal or professional win is fueling them. Burnout is more likely to happen when people feel like they’re not working toward the same goal or don’t know what their team members are doing. By contrast, employees who have clarity about roles and priorities are 4.5x as likely to say they’re happy than in companies where they lacked it. It’s the same for employee wellbeing in a remote or hybrid workplace. For your team to be able to go the distance, you need to create the right conditions to keep them running at a steady, sustainable pace rather than exhausting themselves with continuous sprints. To prevent remote work burnout you need to recognize the red flags.
Create a routine and stick to it
To help remote workers avoid burnout, FlexJobs compiled 5 key tips to consider to create healthier remote cultures that promote work wellness. Without face-to-face communication, many miss having a sense of shared purpose and are more indifferent to their employers. At the same time, companies are struggling to retain and recruit talent in a highly competitive environment. Potentially even more important than abstract data are the surprisingly deep feelings of a great many workers about holding on to at least some degree of flexibility.
