It’s summertime and many of us will have taken a well-earned break from work. Time to recharge and spend time with family and friends. A little bit of distance from the constant pressure of work can also be a good time to reflect on where you are and how it’s going.
Do you ever wonder whether you might be suffering from burnout with work?
It’s the sort of thing that when you’re constantly under pressure and charging from one deadline to the next it can be easy to bury, but when you stop and have a minute to take stock you might think that your relationship with work isn’t that healthy.
A recent report in the Boston Globe pointed out that the burnout phenomenon is becoming more common and organisations are recognising the issue: “As our jobs become all-consuming, with employees answering e-mails around the clock and companies trying to squeeze higher profits out of fewer people, more attention is being paid to the effect all of this is having on workers’ psyches,” it said.
It also reported that the World Health Organisation announced in May “that it is developing guidelines on mental well-being in the workplace and unveiled an expanded definition of burnout based on new research in its International Classification of Diseases. Burnout is a syndrome resulting from ‘chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed,’ according to WHO’s description, characterised by feelings of exhaustion, reduced effectiveness, and negative or disconnected feelings toward one’s job.”
Meanwhile C4 investigative programme Dispatches revealed that 68% of 16-30 year olds think they have had or are currently experiencing a mental health problem and that there has been a 45% increase in referrals of young people to mental health services in the past two years. Over a third of millennials – who commonly define themselves via their workplace role - appear to be suffering from symptoms of undiagnosed depression.
Undoubtedly a shift in work structures is partially to blame. Flexible working – moving core hours to earlier or later in the day, or allowing employees to work from home – has fuelled the drive to be always ‘on’ or always available. The Boston Globe said: “The expectation that workers stay tethered to their jobs after hours can lead to chronic stress and emotional exhaustion, according to a 2016 study that found participants spent an average of eight hours a week dealing with e-mail off the clock.”
Checking emails outside of work hours is massively common (and something my work colleagues would always nag me about), especially now our smartphones ensure that ‘Mail’ is never switched off. But it’s not healthy to never give ourselves that essential down time.
France introduced a law in 2017 that gives employees the right to disconnect from e-mail and smartphones when they aren’t in the office, and the New York City Council introduced a similar measure last year, according to the Globe.
There’s no doubt that email has revolutionised our working lives but it’s also become a ball and chain around our ankles, and what’s worse is that most of us are so inefficient with our emails that it costs unnecessary extra work time, extra messages sent and more frustration caused.
How many times have you been wound up because the email you needed a rapid response to has gone un-opened and ignored? How often do you roll your eyes because a reply has come back that shows your email wasn’t properly read and all your questions weren’t answered? How much time do you think you’ve wasted sending follow-up emails to chase a response or gather the missing information? What a waste of everyone’s time.
When we think about business writing we’re probably not thinking about the emails we send, and yet these are just as representative of your business as any other communication, and messages sent in the virtual world are fraught with potential pitfalls where intent and tone can be easily misconstrued. We look at this in some detail in the Business Writing Skills course, and I offer a special trick to writing your emails which will help ensure they get noticed, opened, read and replied to, cutting down on those frustrating follow-ups and saving everyone some time.
Streamlining your email must be one of the most important ways you can manage your workload and help reduce your risk of burnout, but if you are suffering from work related mental health issues, don’t be afraid to alert your manager and check your company’s guidelines on dealing with workplace stress.