How to Avoid Work-From-Home Burnout

Ran out of fuel. Candle burned from both sides. Hit a wall. Whatever you call it, workplace burnout is a slippery slope that can steepen from working at home.

As our young ones run in and out of Zoom meetings, many of us find pockets of time to take care of children, our employees, and ourselves. Maintaining a work-life balance gets difficult as we juggle home and work responsibilities from a home office.

This article may be for your employees your colleagues, or even yourself. We are all human and working from home takes a real reckoning to adapt. For this blog, we have signs of burnout, risks of burnout at home, and preventative tips from our own team compiled in an infographic. Let's dive right in.

What is Employee Burnout?

The seriousness of burnout became so intense in 2019 that the World Health Organization declared burn-out an occupational phenomenon. The global standard for diagnostic health information defines burnout as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace that has not been successfully managed”. Unmanaged stress results in symptoms including the following:

Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion
Mentally distant from work, or feelings of negativity towards one’s job
Reduced professional efficacy

Check in with yourself and your employees if they are displaying any of these symptoms. Practice compassion, seeing if something is wrong can go a long way, and reward progress.

Risks of Employee Burnout

Burnout often means diminishing returns. When employees experience burnout, surviving the day-to-day becomes the main focus instead of developing for the future. As you champion your organization’s goals, your employees and their wellbeing should be at the forefront of your efforts to ensure everyone thrives.

In addition to reduced efficiency at work, burnout may compromise the immune system. According to Gallup’s study, people who say they very often experience burnout are 63% more likely to take a sick day and 23% more likely to visit an emergency room. This is the last thing anyone on your team needs right now! You can play a large role in their mental and physical health.

Surely the lack of commute time means that workers have a bit more time to themselves? Wrong. Unfortunately, former commuting time has now trickled into the workday. A recent study by the Harvard Business School revealed that the workday has increased by 48.5 minutes since April 2020.

As we all work from home, the time becomes blurred between home life and work life. When your personal computer is also used for work, tasks are left in view and take up emotional energy during off-hours.

Our Team's Work-From-Home Strategies

Strategies for working from home are so important that we've touched on this before. See our blog for 10 Ways to Boost Remote Employee Morale and Engagement to keep your team from wearing thin from home. Multiple touchpoint and communication is very important for maintaining engagement. Check out our tips on helping Remote Employees Work Efficiently. Now, we will dive into keeping a healthy work-life balance from home. As burnout can affect any one, our tips aim to boost engagement, productivity, and general wellbeing at your workplace.

Our ultimate guide can be used for your entire team in working better from home. Better yet, we encourage starting a dialogue on your team challenges and successes! What better way to find out how they are doing aside from booking a quick chat? Collaborating on strategies to help productivity can alleviate stress and foster a culture of support.

See our infographic for 7 tips for how our team stays engaged and maintains their A-game from home.

There are endless possibilities for avoiding burnout, but practicing compassion is the most important thing. Encouraging your team to try their best will help build resilience.

Physical Distance, Social Connection

The future of remote work remains uncertain but one thing remains clear: there is always room for connection. In writing this blog, I was reminded of how important it is to have these conversations with your team. Through talking about our challenges, we can collaborate on ways to be successful. Can your team create your own list of tips to share?

We hope this article helps you and your remote employees recognize and combat the effects of burnout. Have any other tips or ideas? Feel free to share what has worked for your team in the comments below.

Guusto makes recognition simple and impactful! Our free employee recognition platform streamlines manual processes, allows employees to nominate colleagues, provide budgets to employees, tracks all spending, and most importantly, drives employee engagement. It's not just about recognizing employees, it's about building a culture of recognition. Reach out to our team anytime if interested in learning more.

What's Next?

Burnout and management go hand in hand. Your leadership decisions has a bigger impact on employee wellbeing than ever. So, our next blog will explore 7 Tips to Efficiently Manage Your Remote Team. We will dive into the following: