Worker well-being has plummeted during the pandemic, with more people reporting feeling burnt out and underappreciated, finds the second annual Community Well-Being Report from YMCA of Three Rivers, which covers Guelph, Waterloo Region and Stratford.
“Employee burnout has always been a challenge but I think a key trend we’ve seen in the last year is that a lot of the top leaders and high-performers are also burning out,” said Dave Whiteside, director of insights. “A lot of the people within organizations that used to be really reliable and help kind of prop up their teams, I think they’re also currently hurting as well.”
Through the survey, 73 per cent of respondents reported experiencing frequent burnout and nearly double the likelihood of mental health challenges. Many attributed that sense of burnout to a need for improved work/life balance and reduced workloads.
Prompted to think back on the previous three months, respondents were asked to rate their overall well-being.
Forty-five per cent of adult workers gave themselves an unhealthy ranking, which holds steady from the 2020 survey. However, the percentage of folks who gave themselves healthy rankings fell by two per cent to 22 per cent.
“Almost the same percentage of people have scores that are unhealthy but their needs have changed,” Whiteside explained. “The huge driver right now is people are having a hard time keeping up with workload and I think a lot of people are also feeling like they’re under appreciated as well.”
More than one-third of respondents reported feeling work burnout “often” or “very often," with more than another third stating they “sometimes” feel that way.
The survey also found 34 per cent of adult workers had started a new job since the pandemic began, with personal well-being (37 per cent) and career or life change (27 per cent) cited as the main reasons.
Another 25 per cent of respondents are planning to change jobs within the subsequent six months. Personal well-being (56 per cent) and career or life change (35 per cent) were also noted as the main drivers.
Whiteside believes many employers are putting in “really downstream” solutions such as employee assistance programs and improving access to councillors to help workers handle their workload.
“I think what a lot of employees are currently asking for is the upstream help. They’re asking for their employers to help them decrease workload as opposed to improve supports to help them manage that workload,” he said, noting the YMCA's goal is to work with employers throughout the area to find ways to improve overall well-being.
The survey was distributed to working adults throughout the YMCA of Three River’s coverage area and collected responses between Sept. 13 and Oct. 4. In all, 1,851 responses were received, with respondents coming from a variety of backgrounds, identities, ages and socioeconomic statuses.
At the time of responding, 40 per cent were working fully from home, with 35 per cent at their workplace and 25 per cent working in a hybrid of the two.
Though “nearly every industry was represented in the data in some way,” as noted in the report, the most responses came from adults working in education (19 per cent), technology (13 per cent) and healthcare (11 per cent).
At the time of the survey, COVID-19 case counts were on the decline and the Omicron variant hadn’t reared it’s head.
“While we don’t have the data, I think it’s only made things worse,” Whiteside said, explaining a lot of people were, prior to Omicron, looking forward to the holidays so they could reconnect with friends and family, while also getting some much-needed rest.
Unless concrete action is taken to address workload and burnout concerns, Whiteside anticipates seeing much the same result in the 2022 study, set to launch in September.
“This is an area where a lot of leaders need to take it very seriously. I think we need to be addressing workload,” he said. “I think we need to be addressing burnout. If we do not handle that in a very purposeful way, I think we’re going to be exactly here in nine months.”
