Avoiding burnout: knowing the risks and early warning signs for Remote Workers

Research and writing in conjunction with Stella Gonzalez Alfonso.

Before the pandemic, many business leaders would not be so keen on allowing employees to work remotely. Now, as the future-of-work paradigm shift is here to stay, organisations have witnessed how people working from home can be even more productive. In fact, research shows that the average workday during lockdown was 48 minutes longer: employees have been sending more emails, they have attended more meetings and exchanged an increasing number of chat messages. But when the boundaries between professional and personal life become so fuzzy, who is paying the price of such an increase in work-related productivity? 

Photo by Christian Erfurt on Unsplash

Zoom meetings and kitchen-tables-turned-home-offices will continue for some time. Though critical to surviving the crisis, these measures are taking a toll on employees in the form of burnout. 

The World Health Organization in 2019 included workplace burnout in the International Classification of Diseases, defining it as a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. The year 2020, with the offset of the pandemic, has been one of the most stressful years for businesses, increasing the global burden of employee burnout. 

Why we need to talk about remote work, zoom fatigue and burnout

The lesson we had to learn from the forced work-from-home experiment is clear: striking that delicate balance between working from home and living at home can come at a cost with stress and burnout.

According to Gartner Inc (2021), 75% of HR leaders agree that remote employees are at risk of burnout with the increasing virtualization, and a recent study by Digital Ocean shows that burnout has skyrocketed during the pandemic, with 82% of the respondents from the US saying they have experienced it.

Burnout’s top reasons include:

• Budget cuts

• Deadlines

• Working too many hours

• Lack of workplace communication

• Dysfunctional workplace dynamics

• Unclear job expectations

Burnout signs can result in energy depletion, exhaustion, dissatisfaction, lower productivity, lack of motivation, and isolation from other colleagues (Cohut, 2019). Some severe burnout-related health consequences include headaches, chronic fatigue, cardiovascular problems, gastrointestinal disorders, muscle tension, hypertension, cold/flu episodes, and sleep disturbances (Maslach and Leiter, 2016).

Workplace burnout, while often overlooked, has negative effects on the growth of any business. Poor employee wellbeing may lead to physical and mental health problems down the line, which in turn places more strain on the overall business productivity and costs. The challenge for business owners, HR professionals and leader is then is to pivot workplace wellness strategies to improve employee wellbeing and limit burnout. Read our checklist below and learn how organizations can enhance the work performance and health of remote teams:

• Identify the signs first: Employees who miss deadlines, complain about their jobs, reduce their work quality, and are anxious are more likely to feel burnout. A survey by Moster.com found that 69% of remote employees experience burnout symptoms. Thus, consider the workload of people with burnout and help them prioritize or switch tasks with colleagues.

• Burnout can affect different personalities and minorities: Conscientious people are more likely to suffer burnout in their aim for achievement. Even extroverts and outspoken employees can become quiet. Additionally, research demonstrates that minorities, such as women and people of color, hesitate to speak up about their job performance, or their opinion is invisible at work (Phillips, Dumas, & Rothbard, 2021).

• Establish a culture of communication and appreciation in your team: The most important to avoid burnout is to make teams feel comfortable, safe, and open to feedback in working towards a more engaging environment. For this reason, organizations should promote wellbeing, rest, and psychological tools, such as short updates, check-ins/ day, social meetings, and reward systems. 

• Discuss asynchronous workflows to promote productivity: Reducing virtual meetings with asynchronous work can engage teams to work independently but more focused. Consider several collaboration tools, such as GitLab, Trello, and Miro, to promote team efficiency.

• Create Flexible Schedules: allowing your workers to have control over their workday takes a lot of stress off work. Creating flexible schedules for remote workers also means encouraging clear boundaries: help your workforce define work and personal hours, encourage them to take regular breaks and attend to personal activities. This reduces stress and gives them time to recharge without feeling guilty about it.

Overcoming toxicity in the workplace

Burnout does not happen suddenly: although it can take one by surprise, it is the result of exhaustion over a prolonged time frame. It can become manifest after weeks, months or even years of overworking.  

Personally, I developed some really bad habits during the pandemic. I did not see how thin the line had become between my work and my personal life. I started working more hours and spent an increasing amount of time in front of my laptop. Only now, looking back at those weeks, I see that the malaise I was experiencing was due to screen fatigue and mental exhaustion.

How to understand if this is happening to you? Start looking at the big picture: as outlined in this post by Gitlab, “while working one additional hour to move a given project forward is likely not debilitating when viewed in a vacuum, it can trigger a revised baseline where you must continue to overwork in order to maintain the new status quo”. When failing to put your overworking into perspective, the situation can become toxic, especially when fueled by managers who are unable to recognize that a given sprint should not reset the baseline of what is achievable on an ongoing, sustained basis. The post outlines several other factors you need to pay attention to:

• You're constantly tired

• You no longer enjoy things

• Your job performance suffers

• Your physical health suffers (headaches, irregular breathing patterns, etc.)

• Your relationships are strained

• You feel socially zapped

• You disable video for team calls to prevent others from seeing your pain

• You are perpetually concerned with whether you are doing enough

• You worry that your contributions are too few or too insignificant

• You feel unable to choose family first

When I realized I was on the brink of burnout, through reflective writing I started to notice the signs and I immediately took action: I started writing every morning, booking extra days off, blocking deep-work periods, saying no, resetting expectations with clients, talking about it, doing focused breathe and voice work, adding in supports and doing the things that nurture me, like noticing nature.

From an organisational perspective, I strongly believe the first step to taking care of your employees’ mental health is to create a psychologically safe space: a non-judgmental culture where team members feel safe to take healthy risks, openly admit when they make mistakes, and challenge one another in a productive, positive way.