This one overlooked factor is contributing more to burnout than any other

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BY? Henry S.

Quiet quitting ?is the latest trend in workplace productivity paranoia. In the context of a market for tech talent that is?still immensely crunched , coupled with the emergence of broad work-from-home policies (and a decisive correction in public markets) there is renewed angst from employers that their employees are simply starting to check out en masse.

But Dr. Natalie Baumgartner, a chief workforce scientist specializing in employee engagement, suggests it’s just the opposite. Most quiet quitters aren’t “noncompliant or unprofessional”–they’re actively trying to?feel less burnt out , get motivated, and be more engaged in a chaotic work life.?

While there has been?no ?shortage ?of?theories ?on why quiet quitting has become so prevalent among workers, and certainly no shortage of hypotheses on how to address it, very little data has been brought to bear on the issue. So we set out to learn more by asking the people who are being impacted by this phenomenon.

We surveyed?over 700 busy professionals ?across many roles, and asked them two questions:

What are the top factors that contribute to your feelings of burnout?

What are the top factors that would prevent it?

What this study revealed was that time management—above all others—was the biggest driver in burnout. More than 63% of respondents ranked a lack of time for focused work as the biggest contributor, followed closely by notification fatigue, work-life balance, meeting overload, and workday length. Meanwhile, only 23.2% cited company culture as a factor, and 22.1% cited pay.

We asked those same workers about what would help to alleviate their burnout, and they essentially gave us the same answer: 69.1% said more time for focused work would fix it, followed by work-life balance, notification fatigue, workday length, and meetings. Only 24.5% said that company culture improvements would help, and a slightly higher number, 30.5%, said that increased pay would help.

In short, we found that employees aren’t quietly quitting because they need a better mission statement, or because they want a raise, or because they just want to get promoted faster. They want a better schedule that gives them more focus, fewer meetings, less chaos, and improved flexibility to live their lives.?

Fortunately, these are solvable problems, but they require some big shifts in how employers adopt tooling and processes to support their teams. Tens of thousands of companies who use our product,?Reclaim , to orchestrate their calendars have used these five strategies to effectively support a workweek with better balance and humanity.

ADOPT CORE COLLABORATION HOURS FOR MEETINGS

I’ve banged this drum in a previous?writing , but it remains my number-one piece of advice to employers looking to reduce their meeting load. There is a ton of chatter about meetings and how to eliminate them, but the reason I love core collaboration hours is that it simply changes the equation. By reducing the total number of hours in a day where meetings can occur, you naturally reduce the number of overall meetings in the company.?

It’s a simple practice. You set a four- to six-hour period each day where meetings are allowed to be scheduled, and outside of those hours employees are given the flexibility to set their own schedules and focus on their priorities across their work and life.?

If core collaboration hours on a large scale intimidates you, try starting small. Pilot it with a team or two in the company, and maybe even restrict it just to 1:1 meetings—one of the most popular (and flexible)?types of meetings in the organization —and see what they think.?

ALIGN DIGITAL PRESENCE TO THE CALENDAR

We often forget that tools like Slack aren’t just for chatting—they’re also a means to communicate when we’re available, and when we’re not. Setting boundaries around the workday goes beyond the calendar. It also requires that the tools we use to synchronously communicate showcase when we’re free and when we’re not.

Encourage a culture of setting Do Not Disturb outside of working hours to reduce off-hours pings. Better yet,?automate it .

ENCOURAGE DEDICATED TIME FOR ROUTINES AND TASKS

In tandem with core collaboration hours, dedicated focus time is a must for organizations that are looking to reduce burnout. It’s imperative that the calendar isn’t just a “debt” that employees have to pay down each week just to get their real work done on the weekends and the evenings.?

Even just allocating two to three hours per workday can make a massive difference here, not just for one-off?tasks , but for the?routines ?that people need to make time for in their work and lives.?

ENSURE THAT PERSONAL TIME IS REFLECTED ON WORK SCHEDULES

Most professionals have two calendar personas: One for work where a ton of inbound scheduling happens, and another where they commit to family obligations, date nights, doctor’s appointments, and so on. Ensuring that your team always has their?personal calendar blocked out on their work schedule ?is imperative to building a culture that genuinely embraces work-life balance.?

MAKE THE CALENDAR A REFLECTION OF REAL PRIORITIES

The calendar is too often an ignored cost in organizations. Given that it governs how we end up spending the vast majority of our workdays, it’s still bewildering to me that companies don’t recognize it for the cost center that it is. Our calendars shouldn’t just be an assortment of random meetings, but a true roadmap for where our time goes, both for our lives and our work.

By encouraging a culture where the calendar is a reflection of true personal and professional needs, you can avoid a lot of the burnout and pain that ultimately leads to quiet quitting and save the pay raises and mission statements for another day.

Henry?Shapiro is cofounder of Reclaim.ai.

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