A small study across 40+ countries of just over 2000 employees indicates:
- Workplace burnout rates have risen and now stabilised at 38% (that’s huge) – and the problem is worse for women. The rate of women experiencing burnout has grown to 42% (38% last year) while the rate of men experiencing burnout has decreased to 30% (33% last year).
- People experiencing burnout are twice as likely to suffer from loneliness as those not experiencing burnout.
- There is a wellbeing perception gap. 68% of managers say their people’s wellbeing is the same or better compared to 12 months ago but 45% of participants say their wellbeing is worse in the same period.
- People in a hybrid work arrangement (2-3 days per week in the workplace) report the highest levels of wellbeing and quality of work compared with those working mostly from home or the office.
What does this mean for your organisation and people?
It’s a small study so
- Check with your employees if they are experiencing burnout, loneliness, engagement or disengagement. You can do this via exit interviews and/or employee interviews and focus groups. (Ideally ask me to do this for you and anonymise the results, identify patterns and report back – an independent person will almost always get a more accurate picture of what’s really going on than will an internal person asking the same exit interview questions. I have been told several times in exit interviews “I’m telling you way more than I would have said to them”).
- Get senior leadership buy-in by understanding the cost of burnout and low employee retention rates (I can help you with this and if you don’t have a Strategic Attraction and Retention Plan agreed by the top team I can help your top team develop this on the Attracting and Retaining Talent Masterclass inhouse for your top team).
- Get leaders onboard with a vision to improve engagement, retention and make your workplace a great place to work
- Get expert support on implementing programs to improve workplace wellbeing this could mean shifting to reduced working hours or more hybrid working, assessing organisational structures and reporting mechanisms; building leadership skills and helping leaders understand their role in retention or tackling other challenges causing disengagement.
If you’d like to see some case-studies of how I have helped other organisations improve leadership, engagement and create workplace wellbeing do check out the different parts of the website www.developmentatwork.com.au and look at the testimonials page to see what people said about how I have helped them.
Do you know an organisation needing help? Please invite them to give me a call 0477 016966 or email me at bridget@developmentatwork.com.au To see the many ways I help organisations, please check out the different sections of the website www.developmentatwork.com.au