Burnout: In Partnership With Journify

Blind has partnered with Journify, an audio journaling and burnout tracking app, to discuss burnout during COVID-19. Learn more at https://journify.co

About Lamia Pardo

Lamia is the founder of Journify – the audio-first app to track your life’s journey and vent freely totally off the record! Lamia designed it for millennials, the app allows users to record voice notes on the go, organize them with tags and comments, and track their burnout score. All “conversations” with Journify are encrypted so you can speak your mind in a judgment-free zone. The audio journals can also be shared via text, Whatsapp, email, etc (totally up to you). #3 Product of the day on Product Hunt.


Why do we need Journify? First, because it’s fun to keep a timeline powered by your own voice. But mainly, effortless journaling allows for effortless mental wellness. Journaling has been clinically linked to our brain’s health and our generation is living a crisis of stress, anxiety, and depression. Already, 7 in 10 millennials are suffering from burnout and the World’s Health Organization estimates this is costing companies a total of $550B in productivity losses. Last year, half of millennials quit their jobs due to mental health reasons, and 27% of burnout cases lead to another health problem. In addition to our app, we have a free content hub (the Burnout Lab) with resources to help you get started on your journey to chill. We eat well, we exercise, we hydrate ourselves, and we’re finally starting to take care of our mental wellbeing and happiness.

Prior to Journify, I built and scaled Growth Marketing, Product, Finance and Analytics teams for startups in the US and Singapore. I love building brands with a strong personality, stripping the BS to make things more fun, and inspiring authenticity.

Burnout describes the long term build up of chronic, energy-sapping, efficiently depleting, mood crushing workplace-related stress. Unlike Covid-19, it has been part of our lives for years and was declared a legitimate workplace diagnosis by the World Health Organization in May 2019. Prior to the global pandemic, we were seeing a preoccupying trend, which is what inspired the need for a mental wellness solution like Journify. However, given the recent lifestyle adjustments and uncertainty caused by Covid-19, building resilience and monitoring burnout is more crucial than ever. This report aims to shed light on the impact on workplace burnout caused by the recent societal changes and workplace dynamics. This report is based on data gathered in surveys to over 6,000 professionals conducted by anonymous professional networking platform Blind between February and July 2020.

Burnout was a big problem even before the pandemic, but recent events have clearly exacerbated its effects. As a collective, we are more stressed, unhappy, fearful, frustrated, bored and unhealthy than we were six months ago. In May 2020, 75% of finance professionals and 73% of tech industry counterparts confessed to feeling burnt.

Those are staggering figures. What’s even more alarming though, is that in those same professional groups – 58% of financiers and 61% of techies, reported feeling burnt out in February of this year – several weeks before the first European countries and US states enacted lockdown measures. What that means is, even in relatively normal times, well over half the workforce in key economic sectors are suffering prolonged, habitual and damaging mental distress at work on a daily basis.

The effects of workplace stress on the individual are also stark. Studies have consistently linked burnout to a plethora of physical and psychological diagnoses – including cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal pain, depressive symptoms, anxiety, and insomnia. In the US, burnout is responsible for up to 8% of national spending on healthcare and contributes to 120,000 deaths per year.

The Covid-19 pandemic has triggered a mass social experiment into working from home. Almost overnight, half of Americans and 40% of Europeans ditched offices for kitchen tables, colleagues for family members. The legacy of this unprecedented and pronounced shift is likely to be profound and permanent. Whilst many initially felt the benefits of a domestic workspace, its novelty was quick to wear off as the reality of extended lockdowns set in across the world. In June 2020, 64% of 3,279 professionals surveyed reported feeling lonely whilst working from home. This represents an 11% increase on the same metric during the early stages of lockdown in March. 

The problem is particularly bad among employees of tech giants Amazon and Apple, where 70% and 67% of workers are in need of social company. Anxiety too is up by 5% during the same period – with 61% of professionals feeling increasingly jittery as lockdown has progressed. On average, 58% of professionals believe their productivity has suffered at home – a 5% increase since the pandemic’s early phases. Again it’s the tech industry that leads the way, with 70% of Facebook and 66% of Google employees perceiving themselves as less effective. 

Perhaps not surprisingly, working parents juggling childcare commitments have it particularly bad. Of the 6,136 surveyed, 61% are regularly working an 3+ additional hours to complete their daily deliverables. With work-related burnout already a huge problem even before the pandemic began, these statistics make for alarming reading. The impacts of these trends on the individual are obvious – workers are generally unhappier, more worried and mentally distressed than they were six months ago. As a result, we’re starting to see a drop off in productivity which could make business leaders sit up and take notice.

We all have days when we feel low, run-down, disengaged, or unmotivated. Even Michelle Obama has said in her latest podcast episode she has been feeling a form of “low-grade depression”.The thought of yet another day’s tasks and objectives weighing on us long before we even make it out of bed. Usually, a weekend of rest is enough to give us back that pep in our step. However, if you still feel this way consistently even after a good amount of rest, then you could be suffering from burnout. Psychologist Christina Maslach described the unique progression in working individuals as follows: 

  • You start to feel stressed and chronically fatigued as a result of excessive work demands. 
  • You become detached and cynical towards your job, with a lack of interest, enthusiasm or concern. 
  • You start to doubt your ability to perform a task well, with little desire to and reduced feelings of accomplishment and attainment as a result.

Burnout has severe consequences and while a severe case might be easier to spot, early signs of burnout tend to be overlooked (or confused with stress).

 To learn more, visit our Burnout Lab at Journify.co. You can also take the free burnout assessment on the website or download the Journify app to track your sleep, energy, motivation, and burnout levels over time. 5 minutes of journaling per day will also help you calm your mind, regain clarity, and boost your mindfulness.

Links:

Additional Reading: