Preventing Burnout, Boredom & Loneliness for Remote Workers in 2022

Written By Jennifer Young

I was really impressed with the quality of conversation and speakers at Cisco's "Future of Work - How to prevent burnout, boredom & loneliness on the part of remote employees by creating effective wellness" online conference yesterday. The keynote speaker was Aotearoa New Zealand’s own Sir John Kirwan and the conversation and statistics discussed predominantly focussed on Australia, however a lot of it can be applied to Aotearoa New Zealand (although I'd be curious on a te ao Māori perspective on the issues discussed to compliment the pakeha/Western perspective). I intended for this just to be a post, however I think it worthwhile sharing my 5 key takeaways as it may help others so I've turned it into a blog 🙂

5 Key Ideas on Preventing Burnout, Boredom & Loneliness for Remote Workers:

 
 

[1] “Switching off” and Wellbeing

Our brains are supposed to switch off but we've moved away from this, especially with many of us working from home. This is a key element leading to increased rates of stress and anxiety since the beginning of the pandemic. Coincidentally, this is one of the key things that Intentional Generations focuses on working with leaders on and facilitating workshops on for teams.

Struggling with starting helpful wellbeing habits or sticking to them? When it comes to mental health, find your "D.O.T." - do one thing every day for your wellbeing. Mentemia (started by Sir John Kirwan) have a great blog with more on this here.

We need micro pauses every day. We have a great free PDF resource on this that you can download at our resource library here.

 
 

It is critical that workplaces understand mental health and wellbeing in order to retain good people. Leaders can role model good wellbeing behaviours, e.g. providing "psychological bridges" by sharing what they do for their wellbeing. Gone are the times when we leave parts of our personalities at home. Bring more of you into the professional space.

We need “3 safe spaces" to experience human connection in - (1) home, (2) workplace and (3) your "third place" that you go to where you get a sense of connection. For me my "third place" is latin dance classes and being part of latin dance communities wherever I am :)

[2] Hybrid Working and Wellbeing

The future of work is hybrid working: a combination of people working from home and working from the office. Some workplaces have a policy of "work from the place where you'll work and perform at your best". Providing choice and agency to people is critical. It's important to consider the needs of the individual, the team(s) and the clients.

Knowing what each person's "wellbeing one thing/ wellbeing non-negotiable" is important. For me - I don't allow meetings to be scheduled into my calendar before 11am 80% of the time as I'm most productive and creative in the morning AND sometimes I want the morning to focus on my own wellbeing and creative projects. Work, emails and responding to social media notifications can wait 🙂

Numerous speakers recommended having "white space" in the calendar and questioning whether a meeting needs to be a meeting or a phone call. If it is to connect with a person: ask yourself, could this be a phone call? Also have white space in the calendar so there's time for the "water cooler chats"/ chats after the meetings between colleagues. There’s a difference between having a meeting and connecting.

There’s a difference between having a meeting and connecting. Connection is critical for humans.

Bookend your days: have a routine that signifies to your brain that you are switching off from work when you're working from home, e.g. shutting the laptop down. This is to stop the "work blur"

Humans are always looking for the easiest way to get things done, but this isn't always the best thing for us, e.g. fast food. Education and training is important here.

The question was asked: "how do we embed wellbeing into the whole employee experience?". Answers included getting to know about each employee, how the right thing to do can sometimes take more time, leadership role modelling (e.g. not sending emails at 8pm at night, even though they say "no worries on responding to this until morning" - unless it is truly urgent schedule it to be sent the next morning)

[3] Loneliness

Loneliness is a social determinant of health. A 2018 Australian Psychological Society study found that 1 in 2 Australians say they felt lonely at some point in the previous week; 1 in 3 said they felt lonely 3-4 days within the last week and 1 in 3 said they never felt like they were part of a community or group. These are significant statistics and I can imagine are also applicable to Aotearoa New Zealand.

There are negative health impacts of loneliness. Creating a sense of belonging at work is something organisations can do to help their people. Organisations can measure loneliness via inclusion and engagement surveys (to ascertain a sense of belonging).

[4] Burnout

All speakers talked about how rates of burnout have increased over the last 2-3 decades, especially over the last 2 years

The speakers did their best at guessing why Australia is showing statistics of having some of the highest rates of burnout in the developed world:

  • some people fear their own working irrelevancy with hybrid working, e.g. some jobs becoming automated

  • people feeling like they always need to be “on”

  • with people working from home they're feeling like they need to ask permission to take leave, go send a letter, not be contactable online versus pre-WFH days they would just do this

[5] Having Mental Health Conversations and Wellbeing Check-Ins

One of the most common challenges people have come to leaders with during the last two years is a difficulty with “switching off” from work at home. When people say they're having difficulty switching off, what do you say next? A good question is: "What are you doing to get better at switching off?" Switching off is a competency - there are skills involved in doing this and people can be trained up in this. We have a free downloadable resource about the 7 Types of Rest that you can access at our resource library here.

 
 

Many organisations are training up leaders at all levels to be good at having mental health conversations and wellbeing check-ins. For mental health conversations, it is about training up leaders and individuals so that they don't feel they might make the situation worse, that they feel equipped to have a possibly uncomfortable conversation and that they know how to refer the person on to professional help. In Aotearoa New Zealand we have plenty of great training options in Mental Health First Aid. We recommend checking out Coliberate and Saint John’s Mental Health First Aid training.

With wellbeing check-ins it is about more than just ticking a box and saying the leader has checked in with their people. The question is: How do you respond when people say they are not coping, whether it is wellbeing related or workload related? A really simple framework of 2 questions is:

  • First - "how are you?"

  • Second - "how's your workload, and how is it impacting you?" The second part to this second question is the critical part because it can open up a valuable conversation.

It gave me hope was how far the conversation around mental health and wellbeing has come in the last 5 years. Hearing senior leaders talk about meditation, mental health distress, psychological safety, wellbeing check-ins, authentic leadership, loneliness, belonging and micro pauses gave me hope. A few years ago when I introduced numerous of these concepts to leaders, teams or in workplaces it was fresh and uncomfortable for many people to talk about. Wellbeing is a critical part of life, and with the pandemic it has become a true priority for workplaces. It gives me hope for the future 🙂

Looking for support for you or your workplace?

If any of the topics above has resonated and you’d like to know how to apply them to your workplace or you’d like some training for yourself or your team, please fill out the form below or email us at hello@intentionalgenerations.com .

You can learn more about the services we offer here, access our free resource library here and workshops/webinars/training we offer here.

 
 

Some of the valuable support available in Aotearoa New Zealand:


Arohanui (big love) from Jen Y and the Intentional Generations team





Contact us below

Jennifer Young https://www.intentionalgenerations.com
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