*Mic drop*
We couldn’t quite believe it ourselves. After sifting through our own polling data, we found that 58% of employees are regularly contacted outside of office hours.
While this is much higher than any one of us would like, it does help us understand why people are feeling increasingly stressed, and eventually, burning out. 👎
Here’s what you can do to help:
📕 Set-up clear rules about communication
This doesn’t have to be a labour-intensive exercise. You can just spend 15 minutes in a team meeting, asking each other: “when don’t we contact each other about work?” It really can be as simple as:
❌ Not on weekends
❌ Not after 5pm
❌ Not before 9am
💬 Avoid using personal messaging services for work
We’ve all been there. Inexplicably, we’ve been added to a work WhatsApp group, using our personal phone number. Even, with the best intentions, we’ve bombarded with work related things on our personal device. This makes it incredibly hard for us to “switch-off.” Especially if we receive a message from our manager late one evening or on the weekend.😬
💻 Make sure everyone has a work laptop and phone
This will help everyone create healthy boundaries at work. Once the day is done, the work devices can be turned off and tucked away. That way we know that we are unreachable until our next working day. This allows us to focus on non-related things, without the fear of an impromptu work related call outside of working hours. 🙌
This Beating Burnout tip polled 171 working professionals between September 2021 and February 2022.
