This originally appeared on Forbes on March 29, 2021.
We're in the home stretch of the pandemic, and we are all collectively feeling it. In the fall of 2020, researchers studying burnout found that 62% of people were experiencing burnout much more frequently. That same research also found that 89% of people reported that their work/life balance was getting worse.
Businesses are looking for new ways to reduce burnout. Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser has barred internal video calls on Fridays, declaring them to now be known as "Zoom-Free Fridays." Fraser also designated May 28 as a company-wide holiday titled "Citi Reset Day. Google added an extra day of holiday last year before Labor Day in an attempt to help mitigate burnout.
The World Health Organization (WHO) finally included burnout in its Internal Classification of Diseases in 2019, and defines burnout as "A syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed." This burnout manifests largely as exhaustion and cynicism — two behaviors that can often signal if someone is about to walk out the door.
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