In this comprehensive analysis, we present the most recent remote work statistics that are shaping the professional world and working environments across the nation. To reiterate, the biggest factor that protects people from burning out is the ability to switch off from work. Successful people work very hard when they’re at work, but when they finish, they can immediately switch their attention to things outside of work, such as family or hobbies.
Isolation and social disconnection are big problems in remote working. So, as a leader it’s important that you encourage opportunities for informal chitchat. This will support team cohesion and a sense of belonging, which otherwise can quickly dissolve in a crisis. Pair people up to have 15-minute online coffee breaks where the only rule is ‘no talking about work’. The most important thing you can do to motivate your staff is to be more psychologically and emotionally present for them. In a very helpful article in the Harvard Business Review (Larson et al., 2020), Barbara Larson and colleagues emphasised the importance of establishing scheduled, structured daily check-in meetings for managing remote teams.
Utilize Your Vacation Time
In this way, a person’s personality can contribute to the development of burnout when working remotely. 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. This is an important point, because behaving in a manner that doesn’t fit with our core personality make-up is exhausting. An extrovert loves giving a presentation because it gives them energy.
In this article, we’ve collated the most up-to-date statistics on burnout and stress in the workplace, exploring its frequency, causes, and implications. Hispanic and Latino employees report a 45.3% burnout rate, reflecting its prevalence across demographic lines. These statistics paint a vivid picture of an environment where stress is not just an occasional inconvenience but a persistent hurdle affecting a vast majority of the workforce. Moreover, 21% of workers say that their employer offers no program for preventing or aiding burnout in the organization or company. The latest trends suggest the proportion is again declining as the UK nations continue along their various roadmaps for easing restrictions. The Labour Market Survey (LMS – an experimental online-only household survey) is being developed as a replacement for the LFS.
How can HR and Management Help with Employee Burnout?
The primary difference is that you will communicate with them over Zoom or telephone rather than face to face. This will result in much of the subtlety and nuance of the conversation being lost. So, bear this in mind when talking to the person you have concerns about. It might be easier to have this conversation using the telephone rather than video calling. Most people didn’t have time to prepare for this massive change to their work and home life. They had to find somewhere quiet to work, which involved negotiating with their families or others who shared their living space.
A 2022 survey by the APA into work and well-being is particularly enlightening. It found that employer-provided support for mental health has increased overall, with 71% of employees reporting that their employer is now more concerned about the mental health of employees. Yet, only 31% believed that mental health and safety initiatives had improved following the COVID-19 pandemic. Gallup’s 2023 State of the Global Workplace report has suggested that, while the world is recovering from the impact of the pandemic, employees are still experiencing record-high stress levels. 44% of respondents said they experienced a lot of stress the day prior, showing no change from the previous year. In 2012, only 36% of employees reported experiencing a lot of stress the day before.
What Remote Work Burnout Feels like
Collaborative remote workplaces and coherent organizational resources optimized work engagement and job performance, decreasing cognitive and emotional demands, behavioral stress, time pressure, and professional requirements. Stress-related mental health issues and perceived levels of physical and cognitive burnout affected job satisfaction and the work–life balance. Remote workers struggled with occupational burnout, daily job stressors, emotional labor, and work–life balance issues. COVID-19-related organizational changes led to enhanced team creativity and innovation; to operational looseness and autonomy; to social isolation and loneliness; and to employee job burnout.
Social work tends to consistently have higher burnout rates than other professions. With high emotional demands and work overload in an oftentimes thankless job, it’s no wonder that burnout rates in social workers continue to increase. One of the most common causes of remote work burnout is tracked to too many meetings. remote working fatigue Many remote organizations tend to schedule multiple meetings every day. Before we jump into how preventing remote work burnout works, it’s critical that you identify the common causes to get more clarity. Again, this usually happens as remote employees work on the same job in the same company for a long time.
Perpetuating the problem is a prevalent culture where managers often message remote employees even during off hours via email and text. While stress is prevalent in any workplace, for remote workers, this is usually exasperated due to the lack of a structured working environment. Working overtime, social isolation, constant distractions and poor work life balance all pave the way to faster burnout.