‘Long burnout’
As we tentatively begin to emerge from the worst ravages of the Covid pandemic — at least in some parts of the world, and of course acknowledging that there may more twists and turns to come — there is much talk of the impact of ‘Long-Covid’. This is a consideration of the how the longer-term health of the millions of people who have contracted Covid and ‘recovered’ from the initial phase of the disease may still be negatively affected in the coming months and years. The increasing rates of vaccination alongside the wider opening of society in the UK may mean that many more of us will contract Covid and experience less threatening initial symptoms, but may still be subject to as yet unknown impacts from ‘Long Covid’.
As well as the physical symptoms, there are of course mental health impacts — both for those who have had Covid directly as well as those who have escaped the physical illness but not the seismic societal changes we have all been living through. Early on in the pandemic I asked a mental health professional if they were experiencing a significant increase in demand as people tried to come to terms with the way their lives had changed. In fact, she suggested, it was the opposite — she speculated there was something about the fact that the pandemic affected everybody that gave it a ‘Blitz spirit’ feel — at its best that everybody felt included and supported, at its worst that people didn’t feel like they should complain because everybody else was going through the same thing. This reflects a key aspect of many areas of negative mental health — the feeling of isolation, that you are the only person feeling a particular way.
I noticed how this played out in a work context as, at the beginning of the pandemic, I saw countless examples of people going the extra mile to get their work done and making quick and significant adaptations to their working routines and lives. For many of us (and I speak as somebody working in a largely office-based environment) the shift from commuting, sitting at desks and around meeting tables, towards working at home and conducting work via Teams or Zoom, happened quickly and with remarkable ease. There were lots of positives to that — cross-site working suddenly felt easier, for example, and for many the lack of a commute gave back time each day.
But there were lots of downsides too. The lack of physical and social interaction was an obvious drawback, as was the fact that many have been working in less than ideal spaces at home. And I don’t think I know of anybody who hasn’t been subject to the incessant creep of more and more meetings. The early promise of extra time for personal activities — using that commuting hour to do some exercise, learn a new language, improve your cooking skills — instead too often got overtaken by the need to move from meeting to meeting without any real break.
And of course the adrenaline that got so many people through the early phases of the pandemic, that led to people sticking up their hand to take on more responsibility, working longer and harder, wore off. But the new patterns of work didn’t necessarily shift to match the way the pandemic has moved from emergency response to being part of our lives.
So as we now begin to contemplate the return to whatever normality will turn out to be, we need to recognise the toll that the last eighteen months has taken on people. In particular, how far has that initial burst of ‘Blitz spirit’ dissipated, leaving the more familiar challenges around mental health and wellbeing to emerge?
Back in April this year, Adam Grant wrote an article for the NY Times entitled, ‘There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing’ in which he discusses the increase in negative patterns of mental health through the lens of sub-clinical aspects, specifically that of languishing. As he describes it:
“Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield. And it might be the dominant emotion of 2021… It is the void between depression and flourishing — the absence of well-being. You don’t have symptoms of mental illness, but you’re not the picture of mental health either.”
Adam Grant specifically distinguishes it from burnout in the clinical sense — languishing lacks the dropping off in energy associated with classic burnout— but I am not sure this quite reflects the reality I see, with a widespread sense of tiredness among almost everybody I know. Put another way, even as we see the lifting of restrictions and experience a sense of the pandemic coming to an end, we are not all rushing out to celebrate. There is still a sense that there are risks and unknowns, and that the prospect of working out how to live with the pandemic as we try to recapture normality is, well, exhausting. Let’s call this ‘Long Burnout’. It may lack the immediacy of classic burnout, but it similar and we will have to adapt to it, just as we will increasingly focus on ‘Long Covid’ as the acute impact of the virus subsides.
So what does this mean as a leader. We are likely to see a change in the coming months as expectations around how people work and what they are expected to achieve shift once again. In particular, as working patterns revert to ‘normal’, what will that mean for productivity? Will the flexible working — which has often been a euphemism for long hours — be replaced with working patterns that require commuting time, or will the workload remain the same? How far will the positives of working face-to-face offset the productivity gains made by longer working hours at home? And what will the impacts be — positive and negative — on mental health and wellbeing?
The short answer to all of these questions is that we just don’t know, and of course they will vary significantly from person to person, organisation to organisation. But it is reasonable to expect and plan for there to be an impact, and to be on the looking out for signs of ‘long-burnout’ in your teams. As well as the classic signs of sub-optimal mental health, look out for signs of languishing.
And consider what you can do pre-emptively, what expectations can you set around working behaviours and patterns that acknowledge the unusual world we all find ourselves in and help to give people the tools to navigate it effectively? I would suggest paying especial attention to actions that focus on protecting and preserving energy — both physical (lots of us will see our step count increase as our working lives become less sedentary) and emotional.
Most importantly, make sure you are creating the time and space to listen and respond. All of us will be coming to terms with the ‘new normal’ in our own ways, ways that will not be logical or linear, so ensure there is the space to adapt and get effective feedback loops in place. Be honest about these challenges (for you as well as your team) and acknowledge that this is not a ‘quick fix’. Share and shape ideas with your team. Work together to offer the support and structures that you need to move collectively from struggling or languishing to flourishing.
