Avoid Worker Burnout during COVID Recovery

According to Forbes, the COVID Pandemic created a new kind of worker burnout that is trickier to recover from than employers might imagine. During the pandemic, we saw heroes in our collective staffs that rose to the occasion of extra hours, more responsibility, and harder work during the early days.

Now that the pandemic is ‘sort of over’ a previously unseen level of exhaustion has descended on many of these heroes and regular employees alike. The yo-yo effect of the good news/bad news over the last year has stopped, leaving a void of news and a new uncertainty about the future.

Because your staff has been barraged with emotions nonstop for 16 months, they are tired, burned out, and correspondingly… often not as productive.

So how do we move forward? The first thing to recognize as an employer is that the team is tired. They are probably also disconnected after the quick shift to virtual work last March. There is also a lingering reminder of the pandemic in the form of an extended work schedule that comes with working from home.

There are no quick and easy answers for this issue. Employers should keep the lines of communication open with employees to learn from individuals about their experience. Because the pandemic hit us all differently as individuals, recovery will look different throughout team members.

Listen to teammates, try to accommodate where possible, and work hard to reconnect the group into a cohesive unit. DII is here to help with additional benefit incentives and other employee benefit programs to help ease the transition back to pre-pandemic work.

Reference material: https://www.forbes.com/sites/nazbeheshti/2021/04/15/the-pandemic-has-created-a-new-kind-of-burnout-which-makes-well-being-more-critical-than-ever/?sh=4e5195352f01