Our Boundaries Between Work and Life Are Dissolving. And We're Exhausted.

Corporate leaders are facing a confluence of events challenging how we manage our workforce going forward. We’re emerging from a Great Resignation – or Great Reshuffle, depending on your perspective. Market volatility reminds us that cash is king. When they’re not resigning (or reshuffling), top talent is even more difficult to retain because of wage inflation due to a “white hot” labor market. And then there’s ESG and stakeholder activism – previously unheard of on shareholder calls, now mentioned regularly. 

For employers caught in this vortex, understanding how to optimize each employee’s potential has assumed greater importance. Employees seek the flexibility they’ve gained in the last few years – but also feel burned out by the dual demands placed on them in a work from home economy.  Pre-covid, work/life balance meant keeping work out of life at home. Post-covid, work/life balance means keeping home life out of work. 

Whether employers can provide nuanced solutions to these competing challenges is critical to defining their success in the next few years. That’s where Elon Musk’s blanket “return to the office now” approach could fall short. 

Low unemployment and high inflation has created an interesting dynamic for leaders. In the same week Microsoft announced increases in compensation to retain highly talented employees, they reduced their forecast and slowed hiring. 

Then there’s the raging debate over returning to the office. Some Business leaders like Musk championing his call for a 40 hour office work week view this as a sign that worker power is decreasing. Others say WFH is a luxury of the elite, and that the bulk of people still have to go to work to serve others or make things.For a substantial portion of the workforce, remote work is not, and never has been, an option. 

Whatever your position is on the WFH v. Get-back-to-the-office debate, one should not underestimate that power is shifting, and the “co-shareholder model” is stronger than ever. Coming off the largest social movement in American history, workers are not done flexing their muscles. Just look at worker organizing efforts happening at the world’s strongest brands – Starbucks, Amazon and Apple. What do they want?  They want greater control over their lives, and they want a voice.

Balance this with leaders rightly concerned about softer economic markets and decreased productivity from remote work.  The result?  An intense corporate environment. 

Some commentators (typically in exec roles) are lauding Musk’s candor, as his bold statements say what others might be secretly feeling. Are my teams as productive as they would be in the office? Could we create more innovation in person? Are people working hard (enough) from home? And what about that HBR study that suggested WFH might lead to more mistakes, more delays, and less creativity? 

The argument might have merit. Microsoft’s latest report shows that the plurality of workers desire a hybrid (some days in office, some days remote) with 21% saying they had quit a job because of the lack of flexibility. Yet the same report also says that most workers (61%) worry about lack of socialization and many (42%) fret over lower visibility to leadership. Perhaps this means people want to work from home but they also recognize it comes with some costs.

It would be wrong to assume workers aren’t fully committed to their jobs. The truth is that workers are more burned out than ever, partially because of the dissolving boundaries between work and home. Glint's February 2021 Employee Well-Being Report (Glint 2021) identified three top contributors to employees’ sense of burnout. Among the survey respondents who reported feeling burned out, the most common stated reasons were: 

• Feeling disconnected from colleagues (41%)
• Overwhelming workload (38%) 
• Conflict between demands from home and work (35%)

Or put differently – we want choices and we want flexibility, but the results are blurring boundaries, making us feel isolated, and burning us out. 

This brings us to the core issue and biggest risk:  trust.

In a large global survey by Microsoft, 80% of employees report being as or more productive since going remote, but 54% of business leaders reported fearing that productivity was negatively affected since the shift (Microsoft WTI 2022). But again, the survey likely focused on the luxury offered to (as Bill so succinctly stated) the creative class and the knowledge class. 

The latest Edelman Trust Barometer indicates as trust declines for government and media, businesses are the last remaining trusted institution. But leaders should recognize that the trust placed in them is neither unconditional nor without a request.  In return, workers want leaders to trust them in return.

Employees want flexibility, but it comes with costs, and they want your help managing those costs. Yes, the flexibility is also causing more burnout, but they refuse to give it up.

At Syndio, we are building trust and combatting burnout in a few ways:

1. We conduct pay equity and median pay gap analysis on ourselves (using our own software) and share a summary of results with the company.
2. We use AllVoices, an employee intelligence platform to get employee feedback which they can share anonymously.
3. We have a headcount solely focused on remote employee engagement.
4. We created Free Think Fridays, a once a month gathering where we book temporary office space in our hubs around the country, order takeout and give people the opportunity to meet in person with colleagues and work on a shared problem.
5. Twice a year, for one week, we shut the company down so employees can take a break from the constant barrage of Slack, Email, Zoom and recharge.

Leaders must recognize that they are among the last trusted “institutions.” Resist the temptation to institute a blanket one-size-fits-all approach to a return to the office. Your people seek your help setting boundaries and incorporating time for thinking and focused work. Whether or not they are more productive, they are spread too thin, often on unfocused and low value work. How do you solve that? Sounds like a leadership issue to start, not the other way around. 

So, leaders, do you trust your people? Because they trust you, at least for now.