Burnout is real.
A lot of people don’t accept that or don’t have a support system which can support this acceptance. So they don’t accept it. It was real pre-covid (but we had more support systems) and it is real and more visible post-covid.
According to these statistics, in the post covid era —
69% of remote employees are experiencing burnout (CNBC).
53% of virtual or work from home (WFH) employees are working more hours now than they were in the office: Nearly one-third (31%) say they are working “much more” than before the pandemic (Indeed).
48% of employees working from home say they lack emotional support (Mental Health America)
38% of employees suffer remote work burnout because they feel pressured by management to work more hours (Indeed).
21% say it’s a toss-up between pressure from managers and customers or clients (Indeed).
86% of remote employees have experienced high levels of exhaustion (TinyPulse).
35% of employees working from home say they are participating in too many virtual meetings every week (Honest Paws).
61% of remote workers now find it more difficult to “unplug” from work during off-hours (Indeed).
80% of workers are experiencing 'Zoom fatigue' (Honest Paws).
Moving from full-time office to full-time remote work increases loneliness by 67 percentage points (The Atlantic)
In the pre-covid world, most companies required you to work from an office. There used to be a burnout situation at that time too but people had few things which they don’t have right now: in-person support, ability to cut-off from work once you are out of office, in-person hangout events like happy hours, festival celebrations etc. All these things, even though seemed trivial (and a waste of time for some people) were, in hindsight, really important to keep that mental health in check and make us feel human.
During covid, a lot of work went remote and people started to work from home. But companies realized that this model might work for them and started going partially or fully remote (lowering their real estate cost). Initially people really liked it. Few reasons: flexibility, less travel (especially people living in tier 1 cities with a lot of traffic), more time with family and of course nobody wanted to get covid.
But over time in post covid era, this changed and people started becoming less productive and more burned out at home (For detailed analysis, refer to this article, which has some good data about this). Why did it happen? My guess is less support system from work, especially for people who are new to the job ecosystem and didn’t know how to navigate their day to day work and expectation.
So the million dollar question: What can you do about it if you are working remote all the time? Here are few suggestions which I find very useful:
Take a break once in a while. Everyone is working hard and trying their best but that doesn’t mean you can’t take a break
Take Fridays/Mondays off sometime to have a long weekend if you can. It really helps
Go out in nature if you can. Go for a walk/hike and just enjoy the peaceful nature around. It clears your mind
Spend some time with your family (who are not in your household) and friends. Talk to them about work and how you are getting along. You will be surprised to hear that people are facing similar situations everywhere. Having a trusted and close set of friends is really helpful
Meet your co-workers in person if you stay in the same city. Make that conscious effort. Once you meet the, you can understand that they are also human and study their behavior which helps when you go back and have meetings with them later
Have some concrete goal around cut-off time from work. I go to gym every day at 5pm, no matter what and that helps me set expectations at work and I get a good cut off time.
If you can, separate your work place from your living room, bedroom. It makes a clear separation in mind (Please don’t take your work laptop to bed)
If you have a hobby, don’t forget to pursue it
Take vacations. Work never ends so don’t hesitate to take vacations even if you are new to the job. Nobody is really out there scolding you for taking vacations
All these suggestions are sometimes hard to implement, but if you can put some conscious effort and make yourself accountable for it, trust me it’s worth it for your long term mental peace.