This month, we hit the one year mark since many of us packed up our laptops, said goodbye to our colleagues, and joked, "I guess we have to learn that Zoom thing while we work at home for the next few weeks."
We baked bread, learned TikTok dances, and used that Zoom thing to host family holiday dinners or cocktail nights with friends. And we worked. And worked. And worked some more—in between homeschooling, sanitizing groceries, and trying to keep our loved ones safe and healthy. It was stressful, it was scary, but we channeled that initial adrenaline and common goal of survival to get us through those early days.
Fast forward a year and some are still working remotely, some have shifted back to the office, and others are still figuring out what to do, but the common thread is many continue to work at the same pace as those first few weeks and people are heading towards burnout. In fact, 71% of respondents in Asana's Anatomy of Work Index said they reached burnout last year.
But what is burnout exactly and how is it different than stress? Unlike stress, where you may feel overwhelmed, anxious, emotional, and under constant pressure, burnout happens over time and leads to complete exhaustion, lack of motivation, and feelings of meaningless, hopelessness, disconnection, detachment, disengagement and even cynicism. Stress is the car going faster and faster and starting to shake as the odometer ticks upwards. While burnout is the stalled-out, overheated car that isn't going anywhere.
Here's the thing though. Managers and organizations tend to focus on the symptoms of stress and burnout and not the causes, as well as miss or ignore the subtle signs and symptoms that stress is turning chronic and heading towards burnout. And, in particular, the role organizations play in it.
And this is where we need to take compassion and turn it into action.
Compassion in action moves beyond showing compassion to those experiencing symptoms of chronic workplace stress and burnout—it's acknowledging and remedying the organizational culture, structure, and values that cause burnout.
While managers should be doing consistent wellness checks-in with their staff, helping them to assess the amount of stress they're under, and encouraging wellness activities to reduce their stress, what we hear consistently from employees is that the stress reduction techniques touted by employers are very much focused on the individual and neglect to address the organizational factors that contributed to the stress.
What does this look like?
Think of organizations that offer yoga classes, run lunchtime wellness sessions, and encourage staff to focus on "self-care" all the while doing nothing to address constant overwork, underpay, insufficient resources, and unclear expectations and objectives.
Oh, and here's the kicker: the employees that companies most rely on to pick up the slack are the very ones most likely to burnout. These employees are effectively the canaries in the coal mine, but imagine a scenario where the canaries are also some of your best miners.
At the beginning of this article, I joked about learning the latest Tiktok dances in the early days of the pandemic, but I've come to realize that this app actually provides us with the ability to grasp others' struggles, challenges, and fears through the use of satire, humour, and vulnerability—and all under a minute!
And the message from workforce Tiktok is clear: talk is cheap and many organizations continue to take for granted the goodwill extended to them at the onset of this global crisis when staff moved mountains to get businesses online and serve customers without disruption.
It's time to extend goodwill back to employees and move mountains to address an impending burnout crisis.
Ready to dive in deeper?
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Watch this TikTok for a reality check on what we do to our top performers
Best,
Christine
