Employee Burnout Burns Brighter than Ever

According to an ABC News/Washington Post poll, 70% of Americans report personal stress as a result of the coronavirus crisis, exceeding the highest level of stress caused by the Great Recession (61% in March 2009). And as if the emergence of the coronavirus wasn’t enough, Census Bureau data reported by The Washington Post show the tragic event of George Floyd’s death has spiked mental health concerns among Black Americans to new heights.

Needless to say, this is an extraordinarily challenging time to try to get back to a “new normal.” So as employers announce their plans for how employees — including racially traumatized employees — are going to be returning to physically safe and healthy workplaces, they need to focus on the wide reaching emotional stress so many are suffering. 

Of course, stress is nothing new for the average working person — particularly the working parent. But there’s a very particular kind of stress we need to consider: employee burnout, defined by the Mayo Clinic as a “state of physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity.” The global health crisis, a major economic downturn, massive socio political upheaval, and the violent clashes between law enforcement and BLM protestors being witnessed in the streets make for an incendiary combination that is fueling unrest and morphing what was a feeling of malaise into a collective sense of societal burnout. 

A national poll found that nearly half of US employees (45%) are feeling burnout and 1 in 4 feeling that way due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. In particular, employees are attributing these feelings to workload; juggling personal and professional life; lack of communication, feedback, and support; time pressures; and performance expectations. And now, compounded by broad based civil unrest and tensions surrounding race relations at a boiling point in the aftermath of the George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshard Brooks killings, the mental health of Black Americans, whose already heightened anxiety and depression symptoms shot from 36 percent to 41 percent within a week of the video of Floyd’s death becoming public, is in even greater peril. 

On top of all these substantial social, political and cultural issues, we are still largely working from home and simultaneously filling in as substitute teachers and daycare providers, putting us at increased risk of burnout in general. What’s more, as we continue to be disconnected from our usual support systems and grapple with fiscal uncertainty and unprecedented medical uncertainty (should I wear a mask, should I send my child to school, can I hug my mom), our employers have a disproportionately powerful role to play in our personal wellbeing. 

People are feeling a general loss of control across multiple aspects of their lives, and as a result, they may be underperforming and disconnecting, personally and professionally. The time is now for employers to acknowledge that burnout is real, and demonstrate a proactive commitment to supporting employees through systemic changes to employee benefits that foster wellbeing, community, and inclusion. 

For starters, you can introduce and normalize new routines that work for your employees. You can ask managers to check-in on employees’ emotional health. You can ask that managers don’t schedule back-to-back meetings. You can ask employees to schedule time in their work calendars each day to take a 15-minute wellbeing break, no questions asked and provide short for them to do each day as inspiration. You might abolish internal meetings one day of the week, introduce 50-minute meetings to allow passing time or institute flexible schedules. Finally, you can encourage employees to work with their manager or teams to redistribute work that’s not as enjoyable or causing more stress than necessary.

The reality is that many employees are still working with kids at home without a nanny or stay-at-home spouse, so they need the flexibility — and, importantly, permission — to develop new routines that work for their families (and employers) without loss of productivity or connection, for anyone involved. Without adequate support and accommodation, the consequences can be extreme. For instance, my brother-in-law had an employee take a medical leave because, with children under 8, she couldn’t keep up with the work demands of daily early morning international video meetings while also trying to get her children set up for their school day while sheltering-in-place. Overwhelmed with these competing priorities day in and day out, she began to burn out and felt she had no other option than to take drastic measures and seek a leave to take care of herself and her family.

Aside from these practical considerations, employers need to provide mental health tools like Grokker to help employees reduce stress. Employee wellbeing has taken on new meaning in this work from home world — something our clients have experienced first hand and continue to bring to our attention as world events keep employees in a state of extended uncertainty. As soon as SurveyMonkey’s employees from Portland to Amsterdam to Silicon Valley couldn’t go to the gym anymore, they started creating Grokker group “yoga sessions,” “workout sessions,” and “meditation sessions” three to five mornings a week to get together over video conferencing and feel more connected. SurveyMonkey’s CEO, Zander Lurie, called me just one week into California’s Shelter-in-Place to tell me he had received 5 heartfelt thank yous from various direct reports from around the world for providing Grokker as an employee benefit. It was one of my proudest moments as a founder and CEO. 

Employee burnout was a problem long before the events of recent months — and sadly, at this rate, it will reach a critical breaking point as both the pandemic and civil unrest wears on, unless employers proactively address it. In fact, a SHRM survey examining COVID-19’s impact on workers’ mental wellbeing found that more than one-third of employees said they have not done anything to cope with their feelings, suggesting now is the perfect opportunity for employers to step in and help. That’s why employee-focused companies are prioritizing employee health and wellness, arming their workforce with the tools they need to weather the storm, and take care of themselves during this challenging time, and beyond. 

For instance, one Grokker client has group Mindfulness Moments scheduled at set times during the week where they watch stress reduction and resiliency training videos together and discuss how they are feeling before and after the video plays. Another is running a “Healthy at Home” initiative that provides employees with resources to help them create and share a variety of home-based routines to feel their best. I am inspired by these and so many other creative acts of corporate caring.

Employers are no longer focused on physical movement alone, and are now demanding holistic content to support their employees with resilience, burnout, time management, and mindfulness. In response to the increased struggle of balancing the demands placed upon working parents and caregivers, employers of choice have evolved their benefits to match today’s realities. Josh Bersin’s ongoing research examining HR professionals’ response to COVID-19 found 32% of employees are craving help with work-life balance and physical wellbeing — citing requests like highly flexible meetings, letting people have time to take care of their kids, and digital on-demand fitness options. Let’s face it, the days of corporate gym subsidies or on-site yoga instructors are as dated now as lunchtime highballs and ashtrays. 

We simply can’t ignore the new kind of burnout that’s emerged during the first half of 2020, and we can’t pretend that employees can treat it themselves. On an organizational and strategic level, employers need to provide resources that help employees recognize and manage the factors contributing to burnout — and we need to take action now, during this time of crises, so that everyone can survive and thrive moving forward.