By Sarah Abraham (21-22)

Living in a post-Covid world has meant significant changes in the workplace, meaning that more and more employees are spending their working hours at home. However, how engaged can you truly be with your company and work if you never see the inside of the office or have any face-to-face meetings with your colleagues?

A new study aimed to understand how different work locations, such as onsite, hybrid, or remote, impact employee behaviour and how employers can ensure their teams feel engaged, even if they are not working fully from the office.

During the pandemic, over 3.4 billion people in 84 countries were forced to work from home^[1] as it was the only way for organisations to function. At the height of the pandemic, severe issues affected both management and employees worldwide, such as financial loss and job insecurity, social isolation, a decline in well-being and mental health and a decrease in WE. Interestingly, research has suggested that engagement has stagnated since the pandemic, costing the world $7.8 trillion in lost productivity, equal to 11% of the global Gross Domestic Product[2].

WE is a motivational construct, defined as a state of mind where employees feel enthusiastic and vigorous about their work. Research around this area is commonly grounded in the Job-Demands Resources model^[3] (JD-R), which proposes that organisations can cultivate WE through characteristics divided into resources and demands. Job resources, such as autonomy, feedback, social support, and psychosocial safety climate, are associated with higher WE and well-being^[4]. This study focused on perceived supervisor support, which is an employee’s belief that they are valued by their supervisors^[5]. According to the JD-R model, an employee’s supervisor is a crucial job resource as the relationship provides social support, feedback for growth, achievement of goals, and even coaching^[6]. Psychological safety, another job resource, which refers to the belief that an individual can express themself without fear of consequence, was additionally assessed as it is a fundamental enabler of learning behaviours in work settings^[7].

How the research was conducted

To gain some answers, an online survey was undertaken amongst full-time workers over the age of 18, who had been in their role for at least 3 to 6 months. These respondents were recruited from personal networks and online platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn. They were asked to complete questionnaires on their WE and location, their perceptions of supervisor support and whether they felt psychologically safe within their organisation. Some examples of questions asked include “I am enthusiastic about my job” and “It is safe to take a risk in this organisation”, where they were asked to rate how strongly they agreed with the statement.

The outcomes of the study

One of the study’s main findings was to discover that onsite employees had higher WE than those who worked remotely. However, hybrid employees did not show higher engagement than those who work remotely, suggesting that onsite workers have the highest levels of engagement. The results also revealed that psychological safety and WE are closely correlated, regardless of working location. The same results apply to supervisor support and WE as they were positively related.

The reason remote employees are less engaged than their onsite counterparts may be due to some negative factors that can affect employees working from home^[8]. These factors include:

• Social isolation.
• Difficulties in knowledge sharing.
• Work-home conflict.
• Supervisors having less control which can lead to difficulties within teams.

Similarly, there are potential reasons why hybrid workers have equal levels of lower engagement, such as difficulties in adapting to a changing work environment or difficulties in communicating with colleagues and line managers^[9].

What can organisations understand from this study?

The good news is that employers and employees can use the results of the study as a way of ensuring better levels of engagement for those who work remotely or hybrid. Some ideas have been suggested, such as:

• Ensuring that supervisors have the skills to support their workers, even if they are not in the office, particularly through coaching or training sessions.
• Understanding what makes a work environment psychologically safe and then implementing any necessary changes.
• Cultivating an inclusive workplace for all, regardless of work location.
• Implementing a complete human resource management system so that policies and practices are readily available and easy to understand.
• Continual training and development opportunities for employees.
• Ensuring communication is clear and transparent, particularly if it is online, as misunderstandings are harder to resolve remotely.
• Making sure that supervisors are easy to reach through working platforms such as LinkedIn and Slack, and that employees are encouraged to use these ways of contacting colleagues.

There is no doubt that the workplace is constantly evolving, and supervisors will continue to be an important resource in keeping employees engaged, not matter their work location. Hybrid and remote working seem to be the new normal, and although some companies are insisting on a full return to the office, these are few and far between. More employees are seeking companies that adopt a flexible working policy, and if implemented with the correct policies and strategies, it could also benefit organisations.  It will also be interesting to track these behaviours as the working world evolves, particularly as the Generation Z start to move up through the workforce, as they are already experiencing a different working environment.

Final thoughts

To summarise, the study provided a snapshot of attitudes into the relationship between WE and different work locations after the great shift of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings are incredibly useful for employers and supervisors to ensure that they are providing necessary support to their employees in order for them to feel as engaged as possible, even if they are not working onsite. The importance of psychological safety and supervisor support cannot be neglected, as it is clear that both are drivers in engagement, no matter where the employee is working from.

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[1] Bouziri, H., Smith, D., Descatha, A., Dab, W., & Jean, K. (2020). Working from home in the time of COVID-19: how to best preserve occupational health?. Occupational And Environmental Medicine, 77(7), 509-510. https://doi.org/10.1136/oemed-2020106599

[2] Gallup (2022) State of the Global Workplace: 2022 Report. State of the Global Workplace Report – Gallup

[3] Bakker, A., & Demerouti, E. (2007). The Job Demands‐Resources model: state of the art. Journal Of Managerial Psychology, 22(3), 309-328. https://doi.org/10.1108/02683940710733115

[4] Crawford, E., LePine, J., & Rich, B. (2010). Linking job demands and resources to employee engagement and burnout: A theoretical extension and meta-analytic test. Journal Of Applied Psychology, 95(5), 834-848. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019364

[5] Eisenberger, R., Stinglhamber, F., Vandenberghe, C., Sucharski, I., & Rhoades, L. (2002).               Perceived supervisor support: Contributions to perceived organizational support and employee retention. Journal Of Applied Psychology, 87(3), 565-573. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.87.3.565

[6] Schaufeli, W.B.; Taris, T.W. A Critical Review of the Job Demands-Resources Model: Implications for Improving Work and Health. In Bridging Occupational, Organizational and Public Health: A Transdisciplinary Approach; Bauer, G.F., Hämmig, O., Eds.; Springer: Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 2014; (pp. 43–68). ISBN 97894-007-5640-3. 

[7] Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work                 Teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350-383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999

[8] Lippe, T., & Lippényi, Z. (2019). Co‐workers working from home and individual and team performance. New Technology, Work And Employment, 35(1), 60-79. https://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12153

[9] Saatçi, B., Rädle, R., Rintel, S., O’Hara, K., Nylandsted Klokmose, C. (2019). Hybrid Meetings in the Modern Workplace: Stories of Success and Failure. In: Nakanishi, H., Egi, H., Chounta, IA., Takada, H., Ichimura, S., Hoppe, U. (eds) Collaboration Technologies and Social Computing. CRIWG+CollabTech 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 11677. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28011-6_4

By Uneeba Khan (21-22)

What does burnout mean to you?

Burnout is a concept that was first invented and presented by, Freudenberg (1974),  A research initiated in a clinical setting based of what the father of the term burnout observed. Through the years researchers such Maslach (1982) developed the concept further, eventually proposing it as a mental reaction with three outcomes: emotion exhaustion, disassociation and removed strive to accomplishment. However, the current literature only focuses on those that come organisational settings with linked hierarchy. What is also known is that burnout research is commonly associated with the clinical sector or more ideally sectors where customer service is at the heart of the job role (Singh et al, 1994). However, burnout syndrome can be experienced by anyone for instance, those who are self-employed can find themselves at the risk of burnout with stats going up to 88% incorporating no detachment from work and prohibiting recovery.  With much of the literature being conducted years the faces changed by the society now need to be considered (Weber & Jaekel-Reinhard, 2002). Nevertheless, it is a phenomenon that has much left to be understood and as research aims to explore what is burnout or how it occurs, this collated data needs to be exposed to various industries so work can be done to avoid it.  As mentioned, a greater awareness for those in self-employed sector.

Multidimensional: Burnout vs Personality

To place reason burnout as causation of external pressures would be limiting to the exploration of the idea. Shirom (2003) divided burnout across three levels: organisational, occupational and individual. When exploring the individual it seems applaudable to acknowledge the innate make up. Personality an idea brought about by Goldberg (1990) the five division of personality are defined by  vulnerabilities and characteristics. The idea has been developed to allow an understanding of how people with different personalities interact with factors and personalise interaction with others and the environment. 

New Research

A recent study on the topic of burnout acquires a qualitative approach to draw upon individual characteristics and burnout (Khan, 2022). Alongside this the researcher also recruits participants from a sector understudied. The chosen sample was made up of a personal trainer who was self-employed in addition to having contracted hours with commercial gyms. Through the use of semi structured interviews, the participants had the chance to define what burnout meant to them to what their interaction with it looked like this encapsulated their individuality in a topic otherwise presented as number. 

Figure 1: Factors across which individuality influenced how burnout was perceived and received

What did they find?

As visible in Figure 1, post analysis, the researcher presented three dominate themes that represent factors where individual characteristics varied and participants spoke of similar themes yet different ideas. These themes included: Personal definition of burnout, Self-lead stress and personal work ethic. To elaborate these themes were then each theme divided into sub-themes which explains the various factors in good details.

It is obvious that personal training requires the professionals to interact with a wide range of individuals in order to build a client base however much of these regular interaction accumulate to an added stress. Many PTs expressed the nature of these interactions were more than a time for them to train the client but a lot more of emotional involvement took place. Participants used terms such ‘therapist’ and ‘borderline best friend’ were used to explain what this emotional association felt like. As not all were fond of this one, needing to be social day in, day out a result was a extreme emotional exhaustion.

Many of the personal trainers recruited held a role within the gym setting whether this was senior or not varied. However all expressed a level of disassociation with the role they had for the gym compared to their own business as PT. Contrarily, their business over which they had control they expressed how often they would find themselves overriding their schedules to do  what needed to be done. Their goal for this was to develop their business to a higher status than it currently was. This habit led them to go beyond the schedule or plan in too much more than manageable. This habit was not illustrated by all but those who had high aspirations for their business. Khan’s (2022) research resulted in a large body of data and hence many apparent patterns accumulated the following were chosen, to add means to the question being researched.  

To explore this further some personal trainers even expressed their acceptance to the idea of burnout as an inevitable part of the process and that its occurrence was a matter fact and just a point to recover and then get back to work.

Much of the participants demonstrated a high level of self-awareness whereby they expressed how they were aware of where the risk of their burnout may come from and yet they had already experienced burnout instead of attempting to avoid it. What needs to be considered though, is that not all who state having encountered burnout came with an internal reason. Factors such as economic and finance were at play and a reason to work harder than they desired.

Out of the 10 participants only one had experienced burnout to the level of adversity whereby they concluded with their decision to leave the industry. One PT did not feel a supreme attachment to their role as this job was not their desired long-term role. Khan’s (2022) research is useful as it provides a deeper insight into the ideas purposed in the quantitative literature with good explanation.

Looking ahead

Khan (2022) presents potential take aways of this research and how the findings can be incorporated into real life settings. Advise around considerations for future research are also stated with a systematic discussion of how their biases interacted with the research. Though issues correlating to mental health are rarely intentional, the environmental and individualistic factors need to be holistically viewed so when interventions are considered, they fit those affected with burnout.