2020 Recap Part 2: Remote work anxiety and burnout

As remote work prolongs, work from home anxiety and burnout are growing.

By August, you began to sense the shift in tone. While professionals started off eager and happy to be working from home, by the end of the summer, many of them felt their stress level increasing from at-home distractions, no work-life balance, isolation, job insecurities, and lack of networking.

Burnouts & Productivity

Even as early as in February, 61% of surveyed professionals on Blind were already experiencing burnout at their workplace. 

This same Blind survey reported that the top three job functions suffering from burnout are marketing and communications, finance and accounting, and sales and support. By March, as professionals moved away from the initial panicked reaction, deeper emotions began to settle in. The “new normal” consisted of digital interactions and socializing. So much so that Walmart said it had seen a boom in sales for tops but not for bottoms as our new collective work dress code is strictly waist-up. On Blind, there was an influx of posts regarding COVID-19, layoffs, and other challenges tied to the pandemic. As a result, we wanted to gauge the platform’s emotional well being in terms of their anxiety levels, feelings of loneliness, and productivity during social distancing.

In May, Blind followed up the original burnout survey to see how mental health in the workplace had evolved throughout the pandemic. 73% of surveyed professionals said they are experiencing burnout at their company, which increased from 61% back in February. 88% of Lyft employees said they are burnt out, making them the most burnt-out company within our study.

From a survey that ran from 3/24 – 3/30, 52.9% of participated professionals answered they are experiencing increased loneliness during work from home and social distancing, with more Facebook employees feeling lonely at 58.1%. Additionally, 56.4% of surveyed professionals experienced increased feelings of anxiety during work from home and social distancing. An anonymous Cisco employee posted, “Most of the folks have now spent enough time to digest what social distancing means. Now that reality is accepted, we need creative ways to occupy ourselves.” 53% of professionals also have their productivity levels been impacted due to changes in your mental health while working from home.

Major U.S. employers postponed return-to-work plans because of the bumps in coronavirus infections. In August, 33% of surveyed professionals state that their company postponed its return-to-work plans until Q1 2021. Along with postponing returning to the office, many companies provided additional resources to make remote work more productive.

• An employee at Facebook says they were given $2,000
• An employee at Capital One says they were given a chair, monitors, and back up daycare
• An employee at Intel Corporation says they were given $800+ office equipment; subsidized home utilities
• An employee at Google says they were given expense allotment, equipment, and  12 weeks to

While it’s undeniable that every professional was struggling to adjust as work-from-home became the new normal, these adjustments are even trickier when your new coworkers were under the age of 18. In April, we asked 3,285 working parents how they were feeling in terms of productivity, time spent trying to do their jobs, and unfair performance evaluations. 61% of surveyed working parents said they are working 3+ additional hours to complete their typical workday deliverables.

• • 68.8% of Google’s working parents are working 3+ additional hours
  • 65% of Facebook working parents are working 3+ additional hours

51.6% of surveyed working parents feared their performance is being inequitably compared to their colleagues. 

• • 71.4% of Lyft
  • 60.8% of Google
  • 62.3% of Facebook
  • 57.2% of Microsoft employees

With no end date in sight for remote work, working parents are currently working two full-time jobs. Blind opened up a working parent channel to provide a safe place for parents to share their gratitude, frustrations, and unfiltered truths about what it’s like to have a career and a child during a pandemic. We are all ironing out the hiccups of what this new “normal’ is. It is important to see the humanity in your team and acknowledge that they have dynamic lives outside of someone you bumped into in the kitchen or shared your workspace with.

Working From Home and Career Growth

Postponing the return to the office is messing up some career plans. In October, we learned that 29% of professionals claim their relationship with their manager has deteriorated. According to the survey that ran on October 12 – 19, 29% of 1,800 participating professionals claim their relationship with their manager has deteriorated. 46% of them said their likelihood of being promoted during WFH has decreased. Prolonged working from home also made it a bit difficult for new hires.

A user at Uber posted on Blind, “Developing relationships remotely at work? I’ll be joining a big tech company as a PM soon (obviously remotely like everyone else). I’m concerned it’ll be hard to quickly develop meaningful and strong relationships with team members/stakeholders since we’re all remote. The classic methods of getting lunch together and having side chats aren’t available these days and doing a side chat zoom feels weird and forced. Do you have any advice on how to quickly and organically develop strong relationships with new teammates in a new role in this post-COVID world?”

A user at Facebook also sought advice, “Hi, I recently joined and as a new hire, it seems difficult to build relationships with the team members. What are your thoughts on this? Any suggestions?” 

Many of us are now living in the largest distributed workforce experiment ever, with millions of employees around the world becoming remote workers practically overnight. In another survey, 59% of professionals find remote work to be alienating with 59% concerned about losing potentially career-boosting benefits of office life. Additionally, 66% of professionals said they are NOT able to build strong social and professional networks while working remotely.

Working remotely has opened the potential for the social media trend Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) to take place in a business environment. According to responses from 4500 professionals, 57% said they were afraid of missing opportunities to network with more experienced colleagues. 

• • 61% of Microsoft respondents said they were afraid of missing opportunities to network with more experienced colleagues
  • 73% of Nutanix respondents said they were afraid of missing opportunities to network with more experienced colleagues

13% were afraid of missing access to mentors, and furthermore, 30% were missing the ability to pole their coworker neighbors for help.

• • 50% of Capital One and Goldman Sachs respondents said they were afraid of missing the ability to poke their coworker neighbors for help
  • 42% of Uber respondents said they were afraid of missing the ability to poke their coworker neighbors for help

85% of professionals say their company is offering emotional well-being initiatives. 87% of Google employees say their company is offering emotional well-being initiatives, contrasted by 88% of Capital One respondents that say their company IS NOT is offering emotional well-being initiatives.

Layoffs, Pay cuts, Furloughs, and Insecurities

The coronavirus outbreak has triggered mass layoffs and furloughs. The economic crisis by the pandemic is far from over. According to Blind survey that ran in March 2020, 57.1% of 3,000 participants feared being laid off and 24.9% have looked for new ways to supplement their income. The anxiety over job security was not baseless. In another survey, 23% of  6,000 participating employees said their companies have had COVID-19 related layoffs.

• • Airbnb, Booking.com, and Expedia all have high layoff percentages
  • 34% of finance professionals have been promised not to have COVID-19 related layoffs
  • 14% of finance versus 20.8% of tech professionals have seen COVID-19 related layoffs
  • 11% of Apple professionals have seen COVID-19 related layoffs

18% of professionals perception of their company has worsened since the start of the pandemic

• • 23% of Uber professionals perception of their company has worsened since the start of the pandemic
  • 28% of Oracle professionals perception of their company has worsened since the start of the pandemic

In May 2020, Blind surveyed 960 professionals, and 24% shared that they were laid off. More surprisingly, 71% said they were not laid off, but their coworker was. 45% said they were told 1:1 via Zoom. By July, 46% of surveyed professionals feared being laid off, slightly decreased from the March result.

Blind is excited to bring you our new 2020 rewind series. Our 2020 rewind ranges in general topics that were prevalent in the past year. We explore each chapter with our data aggregated and collected over the past year. Check out our 2020 Recap Part 1: The start of pandemic and Working from Home, recapping companies’ response to the pandemic and WFH.

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