Over one in four (27%) of staff report burnout due to chronic work stress, according to a new Barco ClickShare survey.
As hybrid work becomes a permanent fixture within the modern workforce and employees continue to take advantage of flexible working policies, a hidden mental health crisis could be on the horizon, as excessive device usage and poor management lead to severe challenges for staff engagement across the hybrid environment.
The new research reveals that one in three workers (33%) who mostly work in the office found it easier to tell when a colleague is experiencing burnout or stressed when seeing them face to face, leaving remote workers at risk of struggling under the radar of management teams.
This comes as over one in four (27%) of staff report experiencing burnout over chronic work-related stress that has not been managed successfully.
Is hybrid working desirable?
Overall, seven in 10 (72%) workers reported holding some negative views towards hybrid working, with over a quarter (28%) pointing to tech overload – when excessive use of devices reduces their capacity to accomplish their work, as a major cause for concern.
The same number also reported an inability to “switch off” from their devices in their own personal time, due to work commitments.
A further quarter (25%) of workers report feeling stressed out by all the meeting technology they are expected to use and just under one in five (19%) state that hybrid working has had a negative influence on their collaboration with colleagues, with over a third (35%) of remote staff stating they miss in-person interactions with co-workers.
Burnout: what about quiet quitting?
Following almost three years of familiarity with remote and hybrid work, the survey found that 65 percent of workers are either back in the office full time or spend more time in the office than remote – but almost a third (31%) wish they could work from home more often.
That said, quiet quitting has begun to take hold, as almost a quarter (23%) of workers explicitly reporting disengagement from work due to poor management and tech overload (14%).
Recent research suggests that quiet quitting is a growing phenomenon in the hybrid workplace and one which employers will have to keep a firm grip on in order to manage staff wellbeing and productivity levels. According to a June 2022 study by global analytics firm Gallup, 50 percent of the U.S workforce is made up of ‘quiet quitters’, while only 14 percent of European employees are engaged at work.
Barco’s findings suggest that there could be a cohort of people whose stress levels and workload pressures are going unnoticed by their colleagues and managers – which could create a ticking mental health time bomb.
“While it is clear that the hybrid model is here to stay and enjoys great popularity with workers due to the flexibility it can offer, businesses must be careful to ensure that it does not become a double-edged sword,” said Yannic Laleeuwe, Segment marketing director for the workplace at Barco. “As hybrid has become a professional mainstay, remote colleagues may feel less able to communicate the pressures they are facing, masking work-related stress and overwhelm that may build into a larger disengagement issue if left unaddressed.”
Laleeuwe continued: “With many employees reporting disengagement from their work, or “quiet quitting” due to poor management and overwhelm caused by the various tech tools they’re being told to use, it is clear that the learnings from the last three years of hybrid work need a more concerted effort to be implemented correctly, to the benefit of all. If businesses expect to get the best out of their teams, they must provide them with the tools they need to feel supported and heard, wherever they are remote or in-office.”
Amelia Brand is the Editor for HRreview, and host of the HR in Review podcast series. With a Master’s degree in Legal and Political Theory, her particular interests within HR include employment law, DE&I, and wellbeing within the workplace. Prior to working with HRreview, Amelia was Sub-Editor of a magazine, and Editor of the Environmental Justice Project at University College London, writing and overseeing articles into UCL’s weekly newsletter. Her previous academic work has focused on philosophy, politics and law, with a special focus on how artificial intelligence will feature in the future.
