Lessons in combating workplace stress from top companies: Bumble, Lloyds, Google and more

Organisations have had to cope with a crisis beyond COVID-19 in recent months. The crisis of burnout has been sweeping employees, causing low moods, poor performance, depression, and time off work.

Just as workplaces have been revolutionised at the hands of the pandemic, they now too must overhaul their current systems in order to combat workplace stress. Otherwise, they risk losing employees, time, money, and damaging their reputation.

The signs of burnout

Workplace stress has increasingly been rearing its ugly head for years now, but the pandemic has really put the icing on the cake. Online searches for ‘signs of burnout’ have increased 24 percent throughout 2020 compared to the year before. The pressure to be at peak performance all the time is a key factor causing burnout. The ‘always on’ culture and expectation for employees to be available around the clock, along with money worries, uncertainty about the future, emotional exhaustion and more are also contributing factors. The unfortunate truth is that these all likely culminate in mental health issues.

Even before 2020, the boss of Lloyds Banking Group, Antonio Horta-Osorio warned that “