How To Avoid Burnout as Teams Return to the Office

Many aspects of life are changing as restrictions caused by COVID-19 ease, including restrictions in the workplace. But with the ability to bring employees back, many employers and workers have mixed feelings: Some are eager, while others are hesitant.

Regardless of your employees’ attitudes regarding a return to the office, even the most excited can still experience adverse mental health effects of re-entering the workplace. Research cited in the Harvard Business Review demonstrated that nearly one-third of employees admitted that their mental health was negatively influenced by their return.

Effects of Returning To The Office

These effects included depression, general distress, and anxiety — especially social anxiety. The mental health toll, or simply the toll of anticipating a return, contributes to both burnout and retention. During 2020, reported mental health concerns rose from 11% to 42% in the U.S. People reported depression and anxiety symptoms, and burnout rose to include 76% of all workers.

These baseline mental health concerns and the stresses of work perhaps contribute to the fact that 40% of employees said they would be more likely to resign if required to return to full-time office work. So, if your company wants to return to the office but wants to avoid these adverse effects, what can you do?

Ways To Avoid Burnout

Fortunately, the following steps can help support your employees as they transition back to the office:

●?????Socialize employees gradually. Instead of hosting large “Welcome Back” parties or requiring all employees to return simultaneously, ask employees about their boundaries and comfort levels regarding a return. Then, host smaller get-togethers (maybe without food) and ease workers back into the office in shifts.

●?????Implement scheduled support. Taking the concepts of post-traumatic growth can help your employees grow through the stress of the pandemic positively together. One way to do this is through support groups in which employees can share their experiences of the pandemic, creating community and trust. For example, ZenDesk held “empathy circles,” and 95% of the participants said it “increased their sense of safety at work.”

●?????Monitor job description boundaries. Many workers returned to work with a heavy backlog of tasks and fewer employees to accomplish them, which extended responsibilities to other employees. As a result, overwork can be a top contributor to burnout. A way to avoid this is by asking employees which tasks they had before and after the pandemic, then determining which ones should be temporary and which should stay.

●?????Promote deep work. Communicating through digital means became even more utilized than it was before the pandemic. However, this constant reachability contributes to interruptions, which detract from employees’ concentrated, “deep work.” Here are some ways to promote deep work: consider a “no-meeting Wednesday” (Airbnb, Asana), “Zoom-Free Fridays” (Citi), and “Get S#!t done day” (workers excused from emails, calls, and meetings at Atlassian).?

●?????Allow recovery time. With a propensity toward burnout stronger than ever, it is essential to allow your employees time to rest and recharge. Many companies, such as LinkedIn, Nike, Bumble, and IPG Media Brands, opted to give employees monthly paid days off and a global week off.

Employees have gone through a time when mental health struggles and burnout have become a “baseline state.” As a result, it is important to consider how they are feeling when designing a return to the office — you might benefit from these steps, as well.

Implementing Return Interventions

Besides burnout and social anxiety, returning to the office and ensuring well-being for your team can be challenging. Further, promoting team productivity and creativity can be challenging, even without factors introduced by the pandemic.

Are you trying to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of your teams? At Boston Business Growth, we specialize in strengthening teams because we believe that teamwork is, as Patrick Lencioni stated in his book Five Dysfunctions of a Team, “the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.”

Boston Business Growth is a member of the Pinnacle Business Guide community. We are a community of entrepreneurial guides with real-world, hands-on experience running businesses. Our job is to help other entrepreneurs build the right people, processes and profits to create a business of legacy rather than legend.

You want your company to grow. To do that, you need the best people, priorities, and processes to get there. Most days, you wake up feeling defeated — you’ve invested time, energy and resources in preparation for a well-deserved celebration.

Put an end to the wrong turns and dead ends. Get clear on your vision, align your people and create a business with a lasting future.

● Build the right team

●?Define the right vision

● Design the right plan

● Execute the right priorities

● Enjoy your progress

If you would like help building the structure, roles and definition of your teams in this “new normal” of remote work, we at Boston Business Growth would love to help. Simply contact us for a consultation.