A new report from the sales intelligence platform, Owler, showed 57 percent of respondents labeled their burnout level at a medium or higher. Perhaps this is unsurprising given the past two years have brought a global pandemic, rising geopolitical tensions and now an unstable economy.
Despite the high figure of stress, the report showed just 6 percent of respondents considered therapy as a means to manage burnout. Despite the feelings of burnout, 72 percent of respondents said they plan to stick with their current company for the next year, a possible sign that employees may no longer be looking for burnout relief from new employment.
With ‘stay’ numbers being relatively high, Owler’s report illustrates that companies will need to pivot their attention from surviving the ‘Great Resignation’ to instead alleviating burnout of their workforces amid a shaky global economy
These findings are based on Owler’s Know-It-Owl Report, where data was gathered through ‘micro surveys’, drawn from a community of 5 million users. This was in order to get a pulse on the current state of today’s business professionals.
It is of concern that the report suggests that mental health is a low priority in managing burnout. Much of the response is left to the individual employee. Here, when asked what avoiding burnout would look like, only 6 percent of respondents are considering therapy. Most (57 percent) considered taking time off as their best option and 25 percent said getting more sleep is how they avoid burnout.
However, the response of taking annual leave or sleeping to do not address the longer-term issues, ither relating to mental health or in terms of addressing the undercurrent of the workplace organizational culture.
One factor that employees think will work is improved flexibility. The location where employees work is the most sought out benefit. Nearly half of respondents would prefer the ability to work from anywhere as their top benefit.
Yet such measures are often expensive. The current situation is that economic concerns are high in workplace. This leads to companies making some adjustments to their business operations in response to economic uncertainty with 47 percent of respondents admitting their company has taken cost cutting measures. Additionally, nearly two-thirds of respondents knew their company has instituted a hiring freeze, layoffs or both.
Many employees are also keen on the four-day work week concept. With this, 59 percent of respondents thought it was possible to do their job in the span of four days, whereas 34 percent did not.
