Long story short: Employees are on edge this summer

July 30, 2021 11:42 AM

The unrelenting uncertainties of COVID-19, endless screen time, overwork and burnout are putting your employees on edge.

Harassment has been on the rise throughout the pandemic, and more than a quarter of employees report that they’ve experienced online abuse. Some of that behavior can be connected to the skyrocketing mental health issues employees are grappling with. It is up to employers to quash this behavior before it spirals out of control.

“Harassment can happen in any environment, whether face-to-face or online,” says Christina Gialleli, director of people operations at Epignosis. “What is most important is to create an anti-harassment culture — and companies should do everything in their power to prevent and combat it, in all forms and environments.”

But monitoring employee behavior comes with its own risks to employee morale: remote workers are fearful over the idea that their employer is reading their messages or tracking their internet usage, according to research by Elements Global Services. Three-in-four remote workers are concerned about their employer tracking when and how much they work, and feel they must hide things from their employers.

Our top stories from the week explore the messy world of work more than a year into the COVID pandemic, as employers and employees grapple with bad behavior, mental health strain and the blurry lines of work and home life.

How to prevent employee stress from spiraling into harassment

Workplace harassment

is on the rise and has been exacerbated by the pressures of remote work, according

to a study

by Project Include, a diversity advocacy firm. A quarter of employees say they have experienced gender-based harassment or toxicity, and of those, 98% were women and non-binary employees.

The pandemic amplified many of the stressors and discontent workers had been feeling. Eighty-five percent of employees say they experienced increased anxiety during COVID, the Project Include study found. Eighty-five percent of employees say they are unhappy with their current job, according to data from Gallup.

Read more:

How to prevent employee stress from spiraling into harassment

Is big brother watching? Employees are more concerned than ever about employer surveillance

As employees continue to get used to the new

hybrid work environment

, their main concern is how their company is monitoring them. Three-in-four remote workers are concerned about their employer tracking when and how much they work, according to the Elements Global Services research.

As a result of those concerns, 53% of the employees surveyed admitted to deleting slacks or other messages so their employer couldn't see them and 64% have deleted their browsing history to hide lack of productivity.

Read more:

Is big brother watching? Employees are more concerned than ever about employer surveillance

Before and after: Why your sexual harassment training should look different post-pandemic

More than one in four employees say they

have experienced unwelcome sexual behavior

online since the start of COVID-19, whether via Zoom or Google Hangouts, text message, email or internal chat programs, according to a survey conducted by global learning tech company Epignosis and non-profit The Purple Campaign. Despite a quickly changing workforce, the discrepancies surrounding sexual harassment between men and women remain the same.

Sexual harassment training has proved to be successful in the past when deployed correctly, the survey found — 90% report that after receiving training they are more aware of how to report an incident of sexual harassment, 70% report training makes them more likely to stay with their company and 61% report training makes them feel more productive in their role. All that’s left for companies to do is make sure it’s

applicable to their employees' current situation,

or else they’re risking the emotional safety of their employees.

Read more:

Before and after: Why your sexual harassment training should look different post-pandemic

8 ways to boost motivation and pull employees out of a summer slump

Employee productivity has managed to stay relatively high throughout the pandemic and work-from-home policies — in fact, 41% of respondents say they are

getting their work done in fewer hours per week

than when they worked in the office, a survey by Nintex found.

But an overly-productive workforce often means a

burned out workforce

, and with several weeks of summer still ahead, employees may be in need of some supplemental support to help them make it to the fall. In the span of a year, employees have been forced to find sustainable methods to balance their work life and their homelife, all while working through the emotional complexities of experiencing a global pandemic. That kind of stress — conscious or unconscious — is slowly draining workers of their motivation, and it only worsens over time.

Read more:

8 ways to boost motivation and pull employees out of a summer slump