The great ‘WFH’ experiment: how home working has impacted burnout
The Covid-19 pandemic has triggered a mass social experiment into working from home. Almost overnight, half of Americans and 40% of Europeans ditched offices for kitchen tables, colleagues for family members.
The legacy of this unprecedented shift is likely to be profound and permanent. But what of its impact on work related burnout?
The answer is obviously complex and by no means universal. That being said, if recent surveys conducted by anonymous professional networking platform Blind are to be believed, it’s not going all that well.
Whilst many initially felt the benefits of a domestic workspace, its novelty was quick to wear off as the reality of extended lockdowns set in across the world.
In June 2020, 64% of 3,279 professionals surveyed reported feeling lonely whilst working from home. This represents an 11% increase on the same metric during the early stages of lockdown in March. The problem is particularly bad among employees of tech giants Amazon and Apple, where 70% and 67% of workers are in need of company.
Loneliness isn’t the only negative side effect of working exclusively from home during a pandemic. Anxiety too is up by 5% during the same period - with 61% of professionals feeling increasingly jittery as lockdown has progressed.
The impacts of these trends on the individual are obvious - workers are generally unhappier, more worried and mentally distressed than they were six months ago. As a result, we’re starting to see a drop off in productivity which could make business leaders sit up and take notice.
On average, 58% of professionals believe their productivity has suffered at home - a 5% increase since the pandemic’s early phases. Again it’s the tech industry that leads the way, with 70% of Facebook and 66% of Google employees perceiving themselves as less effective.
Perhaps not surprisingly, working parents juggling childcare commitments have it particularly bad. Of the 6,136 surveyed, 61% are regularly working an 3+ additional hours to complete their daily deliverables.
With work related burnout already a huge problem even before the pandemic began, these statistics make for alarming reading. Whilst the solution is far from straight forward, perhaps a recognition of the problem is the only way we can adapt to a world where our work and home lives have been forced to coexist at a bewildering rate.
This article is based on data gathered in surveys to over 6,000 professionals conducted by anonymous professional networking platform Blind between February and July 2020. Read Journify’s full report on the impact of Covid-19 on workplace burnout here.
About the Author:
Robi O’Cleirigh is a writer, keen traveller and long time journaler based in London, UK. When not keyboard bashing or jet lagged he can be found pounding the tarmac in the futile pursuit of running PB’s and exploring a passion for history.