In 2020 burnout became rampant, seemingly overnight. Within weeks millions of people lost their jobs and faced financial security. A third of U.S. employees started “living at work” — with the kitchen table as their new pseudo-office.
Q4 2020 hedge fund letters, conferences and more
Majority Of Professionals Are Exhausted And Overworked
On Blind, an HR professional asked the platform: "Are you thriving, exhausted, or just overworked?" Here is what we learned from 2,200 professionals:
- 54% of the workforce is "exhausted."
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- 73% of VMWare and Square respondents are "exhausted."
- 59% of Google respondents are "exhausted."
- 68% of Uber respondents are "exhausted."
- 29% of the workforce is "overworked."
- 44% of Doordash respondents are "overworked."
- 45% of NVIDIA respondents are "overworked."
- Only17% of the workforce is "thriving."
- 30% of Airbnb respondents are "thriving."
- 43% of PayPal respondents are "thriving."
See the data here.
Burnout Is A Growing Problem
A user shared, "Completely exhausted and days run together. Slack never-ending, and sometimes it's hard to get going in the morning since I know I won't be moving for 10+ hours. Setting boundaries best I can, but it's just hard."
A user at Lyft shared, "Slack is my top 3 worst things to happen to web."
A user at Microsoft shared, "Moved from Amazon to Microsoft. Went from exhausted to thriving"
A user at VMWare shared, "Overworked and exhausted. I have a problem; I work 5 am to midnight with small breaks throughout the day. I've done it for a year now, so I think I set the bar so high that if I let up, I'll appear to be underperforming compared to my own standards."
Workplace burnout was a growing problem in many professions even before the pandemic. The combination of professionals who are exhausted and overworked should be alarming to business leaders. It's essential to address burnout because it has serious consequences for individuals' mental health. Burnout can also be contagious and often affects entire workplaces.
