After months of COVID-related lockdowns, it’s pretty clear that a percentage of technologists are feeling some burnout. Dice’s ongoing Sentiment Survey has shown that many saw their workloads increase, with 12 percent saying it had doubled. But not all companies (and workloads) are created equal; are technologists feeling more burned out at some companies than others?
Blind, which anonymously polls technologists, has attempted to answer that question. Its latest poll asked respondents to answer whether they felt burned out on a daily basis. Blind then broke out the responses by company and found that, at some firms, close to half of technologists are pretty much constantly fried. Take a look at the chart:
Burnout seems rampant at Intuit, LinkedIn, Walmart, and Expedia; it drops off substantially at some of the largest tech firms, including Google, Apple and Facebook. This isn’t Blind’s first attempt at determining technologists’ mental crispiness, either; earlier this month, in another survey, it found that 73 percent of technologists reported feeling burnt out—up from 61 percent in February, before the pandemic really began for most of the U.S. In an extra-worrisome twist, some 20.5 percent of respondents told Blind at the time that they had an unmanageable workload.
Of course, there’s more than one reason for burnout. Job uncertainty is certainly a factor, in addition to workload; an unsettled routine also does nobody good. Microsoft recently found that its workers had to shift their schedules to accommodate their remote, geographically-dispersed teams—and that many ended up working four hours longer per week.
For managers tasked with seeing their teams through the pandemic, the establishment of a set schedule, the clear communication of expectations, and continual contact with every team-member are all keys to mitigating burnout. In fact, regular 1:1 communication is vital not only to ensure that projects keep moving forward, but also for morale.
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