TODAY’S NEWS. TOMORROW’S INSIGHTS.A daily newsletter from McKinsey & Company
Brought to you by Liz Hilton Segel, chief client officer and managing partner, global industry practices, & Homayoun Hatami, managing partner, global client capabilities
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Worrying about work. People may experience the greatest job-related stress when they’re not even at work. Thoughts about work can often intrude during moments of relaxation, when nothing else is competing for time or attention. But ruminating about work issues is unproductive and associated with family conflict and poor-quality sleep. One strategy to prevent these thoughts is to track hours spent worrying in a journal and consider them unpaid overtime. Changing clothes can also help set a clear end to a workday. [NYT]
Burned out and unemployed. It’s not just full-time workers who are getting burned out: people looking for work are also on edge. Many may spend countless hours applying to jobs, networking, and interviewing—only to be rejected and end up having to start over. One careers expert advises job hunters to set aside a specific time every day to create job alerts, reply to emails, and submit applications. Establishing a routine can help to ease the mental burden of a lengthy job search, the expert adds. [BBC]
A worldwide challenge. When there’s a chronic imbalance between the demands of a job and the resources available to tackle them, workers may become depleted, cynical, and emotionally distant. Employee burnout is a widespread challenge. Between February and April 2022, McKinsey conducted a global survey of nearly 15,000 workers and 1,000 HR decision makers in 15 countries. On average, one in four employees surveyed reported experiencing symptoms of burnout, McKinsey partner Erica Coe and coauthors found.
Toxic work environments. In all 15 countries surveyed by McKinsey, toxic workplace behavior was the biggest predictor of burnout symptoms and intent to leave—by a large margin. Employees who report experiencing high levels of toxic behavior at work are almost eight times more likely than those who don’t to experience burnout symptoms, according to the 2022 survey. Explore our McKinsey Explainer to learn the steps employers can take to effectively target toxic workplace behavior and address employee burnout.
— Edited by Belinda Yu, editor, Atlanta
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