The coronavirus pandemic has caused huge shifts in the workplace, with millions moving to a work from home format and many workers with public-facing jobs experiencing a heightened level of anxiety and stress in the face of the pandemic.

With the sudden switch to working from home, many companies had to hastily adapt to a format of working that most of them hadn’t been able to fully prepare for. This meant that there was a lack of formal work from home policies in place, leaving both management and employees struggling to get into routines and balance their work and home lives. By August 2020, according to research carried out by Glint, employee burnout risk reached a two-year high, no doubt due to the uncertainty and stress that the pandemic brought on.

The uncertainty that the COVID-19 pandemic brought to people’s working lives only exacerbated workplace stress and created another, more acute sense of stress that only increased the probability of burnout.

To understand exactly how the coronavirus pandemic, in particular, has exacerbated the issue of burnout, we need to explore these new factors, and see how some companies have responded to these.

Pressure to perform well from home

Many consider working remotely to be a perk of the modern working world. In reality, working from home offers increased flexibility to all, particularly staff who have caring responsibilities. This increases job satisfaction and overall employee happiness as they feel that their company is invested in helping them feel more empowered at work and work to suit their lifestyle.

However, working from home during the coronavirus pandemic hasn’t been so much a privilege but a necessity, with Stay At Home orders issued to workers worldwide last year. And with this sudden change came pressure to maintain pre-pandemic productivity levels. For example, we can see this in practice, as Indeed’s Employee Burnout Report stated that 38% of employees who have been working from home during the pandemic feel pressure from management to work longer hours.

With such an unexpected change in the workplace and the danger that COVID-19 posed to us all, the pandemic understandably affected people’s ability to work, as well as their mental health and job satisfaction. Many employers realised that they needed to adjust expectations and be more flexible with workloads, with some implementing regular catch ups with teams to understand what they were able to achieve in a workday.

Work-life balance when working from home

People with children or other caring responsibilities have had to deal with work stress and care commitments side by side throughout the pandemic. A study in Belgium found that parents also experience “parental burnout”, which suggests parents and carers could be at greater risk of burnout. And women’s work-life balance has been the most affected, as shown by Lean In and Survey Monkey research. Their study showed that women have been impacted the most by the pandemic, spending:

7 hours more than men on childcare.

At least another 7 on housework each week over the pandemic.

This extra 14 hours inevitably eats into their personal lives, leaving little room for rest and leisure.

A lack of space also impacts work-life balance when working from home. Many people are working, eating, sleeping, and living in the same space, blurring important boundaries between work and play. It is all too easy to check emails during dinner or log on during the weekend to ease the workload during the week.

The office provided a regular routine for many and a refreshing change in environment. Part of why home workers struggle with work-life balance is because there is no physical ‘off’ switch that is usually triggered by leaving the office that ends the work day. Indeed’s research indicates that 61% of remote workers find it difficult to unplug after work.

When working from home in the same space that you are supposed to rest in, it is extremely difficult to switch off, only adding to the potential strain of work.

The mental and emotional toll of COVID-19

The last risk factor that COVID-19 brought about for professionals was one that the whole world was experiencing: an increased sense of general anxiety and isolation. Having to stay at home and being unable to see loved ones and friends impacted everyone’s mental health. According to research carried out by Qualtrics on a group of over 2,000 people from Australia, France, Germany, New Zealand, Singapore, the UK and the US in April 2020, 44.4% of those who moved to working from home say their mental health declined.

Aside from isolation, there was also anxiety about health and the safety of loved ones. With deaths from COVID-19 soaring globally, workers did not have to simply contend with staying at home but also worrying about the health of themselves and their friends and family. Qualtrics’ research also reported that 65.9% of people reported higher stress levels off the back of the pandemic’s outbreak, citing fears of contracting the virus as a key reason for their stress. This provides a unique insight into the sources of stress for workers during the pandemic, specifically that some of it wasn’t even coming from work.

Some companies responded to this by implementing regular meetings or updates where they provided employees with the latest information regarding COVID-19 to help keep everyone informed. A small act such as this can do wonders for relieving some anxiety around the pandemic, and create a sense of community in the company.