Companies taking new steps to combat worker burnout

Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous and Denitsa Tsekova discuss steps companies are taking to deal with employee burnout amid the pandemic.

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Employee burnout is real, and it's on the rise during the pandemic. And more companies are offering additional time off and more flexibility for scheduling vacation for many workers. LinkedIn and the "New York Times" recently announced more days off to combat burnout, joining companies like Google and Facebook. Yahoo Finance's Denitsa Teskova joins us now to tell us how employees are battling burnout. Denitsa.

DENITSA TSEKOVA: Yeah. So the good news is companies are becoming more flexible. They're offering more time off, they're more flexible with scheduling your time off, which expert says is very important to fight burnout. LinkedIn gave its 16,000 employees a whole week during the Easter holidays. A small group of employees remained working, but the pros of this type of holiday is that most of the company's are working, so you don't really have that normal influx of work emails and catching up.

So this is specifically aimed at combating burnout. And we see similar things in "New York Times." So they're doing a quarterly thing that they call the global days off. So every quarter, they give one extra day on top of their paid vacation time and personal days, where the whole company is not working so people can unplug and take care of their mental health. And these are not the first companies that do that.

We know that Facebook and Google did that before. Google called it a collective well-being day, and they just gave a day in September, while Facebook gave a whole week off during Thanksgiving. So on top of our normal days during Thanksgiving, they got extra three days, which was a really good time-- a really good option for their employees. And then this doesn't really stop here. What we hear from HR experts is the additional time off for those companies, people also, as I said, are more flexible with scheduling those times, but then they're also provided more resources-- coaching, mental health, and all that they need along their journey to combat burnout.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: How is this breaking down, though, in terms of gender or demographics? Is the burnout affecting younger workers? What are you hearing?

DENITSA TSEKOVA: Well, so what we've seen during the pandemic is a really big increasing burnout. Half of workers are actually saying that they feel the burnout. And 2/3 of workers says that it's gotten worse during the pandemic. So there's definitely a real crisis going on here. And yes, younger workers are being affected by it.

We know that millennials are reporting the higher rates. So they report 59% of millennials are feeling the burnout. And this is a significant increase from last year when it was 53%. And the second spot is taken by Gen Z, which last year they were just at 47%. And during the pandemic, their burnout rate increased to 58%. So we really see that those people have struggled a lot in the last year, among with all workers.

And the reasons are paying the bills, lack of free time, but a basic reason is lack of paid time off. And people are feeling that. One in three on-site workers say that this is the main reason. And one in five remote workers says that the main reason for burnout is the lack of paid time off.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Well, I'm glad that companies are definitely focusing on it. Thanks so much, Denitsa Tsekova.