What causes burnout? A study by Rob Cross, Associate Professor of Global Leadership at Babson College, Massachusetts, suggests burnout comes from hyper-collaboration, which leaves us overwhelmed and overworked.
“Pre-pandemic, about 85% of most people’s work was spent on the phone, on email, or in meetings. As we’ve gone through the pandemic, that number has gone up about five to eight hours a week, with people working in collaborative activities on email, Slack, and organizations’ own apps, and employees are on earlier in the morning and later into the night than ever before.”
I’m sure we could all benefit from a bit of breathing room. How can workplaces improve?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-27/work-life-balance-excessive-collaboration-is-burning-out-workers
Replies
An over stimulated brain, we must learn to swith off from apps and quieten the brain.
How true Siobhan Jaffray and it can be a real challenge to switch off. I know that the only way I can recharge my batteries when taking time off work is to switch off all notifications to social media, email, apps etc. Otherwise the temptation is always there to 'just check' that everything is OK!
The main cause of overwhelm I find to be caused by lack of clarity regarding processes. It creates extra steps that ultimately are not required in a well oiled machine. Training on correct use of processes/systems helps cut this down too. Once staff can rely on the data available in business systems there is less need to ask for the answer from others or contantly be verbally telling people updates.
Thanks for commenting Tim Waters having clear, concise procedures/systems in place certainly helps staff understand what is expected of them and can help stop the feeling of being overwhelmed.