To solve burnout address RTO mandates, AI and loneliness

What's tanking your business? How to fix RTO, AI and more in 2024

January 23, 2024 2:08 PM

A Black man with a headset is on a video call with colleagues at his desk in his living room.

It's a new year, but that doesn't mean old issues are going away. Are employers prepared to take on the continuous consequences of return-to-office mandates, AI acceleration and disconnection in the workplace?

The last four years have completely transformed the traditional 9-to-5 office job, as COVID and tech advancements changed where and how people work. And yet, a precarious economy and the revoked flexibility that came with an influx of RTO mandates have left employees feeling even more stressed and alienated from their workplace. Nearly 60% of workers are experiencing burnout at their current jobs, and only 48% believe their employers care about their mental health, according to Aflac.

"When our well-being suffers, we are not productive and engaged at work," says Dr. Gabriella Rosen Kellerman, chief innovation officer at BetterUp, a coaching platform for employees. "This translates into poor organizational performance, poor financial returns, and poor stock performance."

If employers want to thrive, employees must thrive, and addressing the root causes of distress — namely RTO mandates, anxieties surrounding AI and disconnected work cultures — is the only way to confront these challenges head-on. Dr. Kellerman shares how employers can finally fight burnout effectively and come out with a stronger workforce on the other side.

RTO mandates have to go

Dr. Kellerman believes the key to a productive, healthy workforce is fostering a sense of agency, meaning employees can choose the best way to work without punishment or alienation. RTO mandates actively work against that, and it's making employees unhappy. According to a BetterUp survey, workers forced to return to the office in some capacity are 2.4 times more likely to cite resentment as an obstacle to their ability to work well.

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"When these mandates are put in place, employees feel a significant loss of autonomy," says Dr. Kellerman. "It becomes a challenge to how they engage with work and their enjoyment of work."

This doesn't mean that employers should get rid of the office altogether, but instead, employees should be able to choose when and why they come to the office. For example, if employers want workers to come in every week, workers should at least get to choose what days would work best for them, notes Dr. Kellerman. Employers should also consider creating an office space that naturally attracts their employees, whether that means including something as extravagant as a child care center or offering lunch perks.

AI is a tool, not the enemy

As AI continues to develop at a rapid rate, office workers are getting increasingly nervous about whether employers will begin cutting down their employees to make room for tech that works without salaries or benefits. However, Dr. Kellerman warns employers and employees that this mindset is misguided: AI is ultimately a tool, not a person. Instead, she advises employers to give employees the time and resources to learn about AI platforms that could make them more efficient, so that their workforce will upskill themselves and companies can begin adapting the technology more organically.

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"The path to agency is not handing down a new suite of tools and eliminating 100 jobs on the same day," says Dr. Kellerman. "Employees should get the chance to figure out ways to get more done, find tools and creatively figure out how to improve the outcomes they're interested in."

Disconnection is dangerous

Between high turnover rates and globalized hiring, many companies' workforces are becoming increasingly less centralized. Even if employees are asked to come to the office, it's possible part of their team is in another state or country, or they have only known their teammates for a short time because they're new, says Dr. Kellerman. She believes this phenomenon plays a part in a loneliness epidemic — according to a Meta and Gallup survey, one in four adults in the world have reported feeling fairly or very lonely.

"People don't feel socially held, supported, connected and aligned to their organization," says Dr. Kellerman. "So we end up with individual employees floating off in space and outside the social center of gravity that these corporations once were."

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And while office mandates may seem like the easy solution, forced socialization will not stop people from feeling lonely, notes Dr. Kellerman. Employers will need to make an effort to provide remote and in-person opportunities for teams to connect with each other and other teams across the organization through collaborative projects and social activities employees can choose to sign up for.

"We need to get out of this mindset of living crisis to crisis, because we are going to be facing major crises multiple times a year for the foreseeable future," says Dr. Kellerman. "Help people thrive across all these crises, rather than reactively responding to one thing after another."