Burning the candle - strategies to combat workplace burnout

Today, millions of professionals are part of a global burnout culture. As they try to climb the career ladder, they are faced with more and more messages encouraging them to rise earlier, work harder and even sleep less. As one popular business influencer asserted, “I’m grinding while you’re sleeping,” a troubling implication that even the act of sleep is a vice.

Of course, burnout isn’t a new phenomenon — it was identified as early as 1974 — yet only as recently as May 2020 has the World Health Organisation (WHO) officially recognised burnout as a legitimate medical diagnosis in its eleventh edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). It couldn’t have come at a better time, too, as stress and pressures brought on by the global coronavirus pandemic have exacerbated the problem.

The reason we should all be concerned about the culture of chronic stress is that its effects are many and far-reaching. From poor mental and physical health across the global workforce (and as a result, millions of sick days taken), to the massive tolls on productivity, burnout is a problem that impacts employer and employee alike.

View All

Hiring Advice

Burning the candle - strategies to combat workplace burnout

Hiring Advice

Act Like a Start-up and Recruit the Best Talent

Today, companies are no longer competing for talent with their direct competitors nor within industry, and while big brands, deep pockets, great employee benefits used to make for an attractive proposition, it seems that today’s workforce values more than just perks and financial rewards and are fin

Hiring Advice

Symptoms of Dysfunction in Hybrid Working

The COVID-19 pandemic forced employers and workforces to scramble towards hybrid working: a mix of office and offsite working. But while necessity is the mother of invention, it’s not always the mother of perfection. Many organisations are now operating with hastily constructed working models that c

Burning the candle - strategies to combat workplace burnout

Share this article

Related articles

Graduate Trainee Programme 2024