You’re not alone if you’re fatigued from sitting in back-to-back virtual meetings all day. Meeting burnout is a growing problem, with serious consequences for both individuals and organizations.
Burnout is now recognized as a workplace phenomenon by the World Health Organization (WHO), which has included it in the International Classification of Diseases.
Employees’ mental health is being affected by burnout, specifically meeting burnout, all around the world. In-person meetings have become rare, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic, with most of us working from home and our new normal consisting entirely of virtual meetings.
In this post, we’re going to be looking at 15 signs of meeting burnout and how to avoid them
Make sure you read this article carefully as it’ll be super helpful.
What Is Meeting Burnout?
Burnout is a debilitating mental health condition that develops as a result of mismanaged professional stress. This results in certain sorts of burnout, such as meeting burnout, which is chronic stress caused by the number, duration, substance, and design of meetings.
As a result, meeting fatigue causes a breakdown in the relationship between the individual and their organizational obligations.
Due to a large rise in screen time, the widespread use of video chats and video calls since the epidemic began has resulted in even higher levels of stress and meeting burnout.
Meeting burnout occurs when people become distracted and weary from their meeting commitments, which has been more widespread since the start of Covid-19.
Burnout is a mental and physical tiredness that can take away the joy from your job, friendships, and family interactions. Repeated exposure can cause this stress condition stressful conditions, such as caring for an ailing family member, working long hours, or watching disturbing news about politics or school safety.
On the other hand, burnout isn’t always obvious. Burnout is far more difficult to deal with than ordinary exhaustion since it makes it difficult for people to cope with stress and manage day-to-day tasks.
Burned-out people often feel as if they have nothing more to give and hate getting out of bed in the morning. They may even have a negative attitude on life and despair.
Burnout is a condition that does not go away on its own and, if left untreated, can lead to serious medical and mental disorders such as depression, heart disease, and diabetes.
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Signs of Meeting Burnout?
Are you concerned that you may experience burnout but aren’t sure what to look for? We’ve put together a list of symptoms to help you out.
1. After a Meeting, You’re exhausted Or Tense.
If you feel tired or stressed after a video conversation or video meeting, it’s because they need a lot of focus and energy. With so many stimulants at the same time, such as chat notifications, digital replies, delivering resources or papers, listening to people speak and responding appropriately.
Not to mention all of the other distractions that come with working from home. Furthermore, participating in virtual meetings requires you to be concerned about your internet connection, app crashes, and other technical faults.
2. You’re Irritated By The Prospect Of A Meeting.
When the mere concept of a meeting makes you angry, you’re probably attending far too many of them. Because so many of us now work from home, it’s almost as if we’re expected to be “on” all the time because we’re more available in an online environment.
Weakened by frequent video conversations, we need to take pauses from our screens to maintain our mental health and sanity. Because people are more likely to refuse or not attend team meetings, the anger we feel becomes disruptive and unproductive.
3. You Easily Lose Focus During Meetings
You lose focus during meetings, which is another indicator of Zoom fatigue or meeting burnout. You’re not alone if you switch off your camera because you can’t stand being visible all the time.
You are not present and are unable to maintain enough productivity throughout the day if you are unable to focus during meetings.
4. Excessive Close Eye Contact Is Distressing.
Do you become absolutely overwhelmed when you make close eye contact? This is another indicator of meeting burnout. The quantity of eye contact we make while watching video is unnatural.
Individuals may only gaze at the speaker, take notes, or glance at other participants’ in-person, real-time meetings. On call, though, you must maintain constant eye contact with someone, which is exhausting to say the least.
5. Tension, Muscle Ache, and Insomnia
Pay attention if your physical body is in distress. Many people endure muscle soreness, tension, and discomfort in their bodies as a result of virtual meetings, forcing us to stay in the same position for long periods of time.
Remote work puts greater strain on our eyes from staring at screens all day, and having to look at so many things at once only adds to the headache. They will harm your capacity to focus and be productive as a result of your physical discomfort.
6. It Becomes Challenging To Manage Responsibilities.
Another important indicator of meeting burnout recognizes that your typical tasks have become too onerous to handle.
When burnout sets in, it’s nearly impossible to keep up with the workload you’re used to, especially if you’re also dealing with other mental health issues like anxiety and despair.
7. Isolation.
Burnout causes people to feel overwhelmed. As a result, individuals may withdraw from social situations and confide in friends, family, and coworkers.
8. Escape Fantasies
People with burnout may fantasize of running away or taking a solo trip because they are dissatisfied with their work’s never-ending responsibilities.
They may use drugs, alcohol, or food to dull their emotional agony in extreme circumstances.
9. Frequent Illnesses
Burnout, like other forms of long-term stress, can weaken your immune system, putting you at risk for colds, the flu, and insomnia. Burnout can also contribute to mental health issues such as sadness and anxiety.
10. It’s Tiresome To See Yourself In Video Chats
Do you get tired of looking in the mirror all day? Everyone else feels the same way. Imagine being able to watch yourself at every one of your in-person meetings.
We become more critical of ourselves than normal, which exhausts us mentally.
11. You’re Feeling Overburdened With Data.
When compared to in-person meetings, there is a lot to consider when attending an online meeting.
You’ll have to put in more effort to make motions and nonverbal indicators that show you’re following along or paying attention (even if you aren’t).
12. Declining Work Performance.
Simple tasks that you’re used to performing efficiently in the workplace become very difficult to execute. You can’t just seem to give any task your very best anymore.
13. Increased Absenteeism and Accidents
For no just cause, you deliberately miss meetings or make silly mistakes that you shouldn’t make. This is one of the most common signs of burnout that people rarely notice.
14. Loss Of Confidence In Work-related Responsibilities And/or Goals.
Because you’re already overwhelmed by these meetings and have made certain mistakes, you begin to lose confidence in your ability to deliver.
What this does is simply make things worse. Because without confidence, you can’t effectively deliver what you naturally can.
15. Increased Negative Attitude And Sensitivity.
Once negative attitudes set in, you’ve probably gotten to a very terrible stage of burnout. Here you begin to not care how things turn out. You pick offence in everything, even positive compliments.
How to Avoid Meeting Burnout
1. Provide Stress-Reduction Techniques.
Make stress management strategies available to your staff. These can include things like increasing the frequency of breaks or engaging in healthful habits, they have found both of which to help with mental health.
Increase the number of breaks between online meetings so that people can relieve eye strain and maintain better focus. Incorporate healthy practices such as mindfulness exercises, meditation, and yoga into the breaks between online meetings.
2. Allow Employees To Be Active Participants In The Creation Of Their Work.
Giving your staff more autonomy and control over their responsibilities will improve their job happiness. Here are some suggestions to help you get there:
- Allow employees to negotiate their duties with freedom and flexibility.
- Allow employees to choose assignments that play to their strengths while yet presenting a challenge.
- To avoid boredom, provide both skill and work variation.
- Provide amazing development possibilities.
3. Encourage And Cultivate Social Support.
Social support is especially important for employees at stressful periods, like the Covid-19 pandemic. This entails creating a safe environment for employees to express their concerns and challenges so that appropriate help may be provided. Here are some suggestions for how to accomplish this:
Build trust through cultivating genuine connections with colleagues, using empathy to put yourself in their shoes, and providing ample opportunities for coworkers to talk about or reflect on their job.
Reduce the number of stressful or unnecessary social contacts. As a kind of social support, encourage time spent with non-work friends, family, and the community.
4. High-Quality Performance Management Should Be Implemented.
When employees are experiencing symptoms or full-blown burnout, having a high-quality performance management system is critical. Here are some examples of how you can provide your team with high-quality performance management:
Give clear, frequent, detailed, and consistent strengths-based feedback. Establish developmental targets and encourage employees to define their own ambitions.
Assign monetary and non-monetary rewards to performance management. Implement a performance management system that is fair and equal for everyone in the team.
5. Employees Should Be Involved In Decision-Making.
When you involve employees in decision-making, you show that their input is appreciated and significant. Individuals will be empowered and motivated if they feel heard by management.
Here are some further suggestions:
- Determine the resources employees require in order to perform at their best.
- Provide avenues for employees to contribute to decision-making and include them in these decisions by communicating clearly about how decisions are made.
Conclusion
Burnout is no laughing matter. It’s something that serves as a reminder that you’re doing too much for everyone else while neglecting yourself. If you want to make this work, you need to take the time to deal with the burnout you’re experiencing.
We hope you found this post very helpful. Feel free to let us know what you think.
FAQs
Burnout can make people weary, unmotivated, nervous, and cynical, with potentially disastrous effects. Research reveals that severe stress levels can damage social skills, overload cognitive ability, and eventually lead to changes in brain function, in addition to affecting professional advancement.
You’ll require eight to ten hours of sleep, plus three 15- to 30-minute naps or retreats, once you’re “burned out.” If you ignore these guidelines, your body will soon find itself lying still — in your bed, a hospital, or a morgue.
Face-to-face interactions need more mental processing than video calls. Nonverbal clues such as facial expressions, voice tone and pitch, and body language require more effort to process. This extra focus requires a lot of energy, which could explain why you’re tired.
Meeting anxiety can trigger a variety of unpleasant emotions and thoughts. You may feel concerned about being judged. Fear of speaking up in front of the group.
However, if you feel this way all of the time, you may be burned out. Burnout happens over time. It isn’t something that happens over night, but it might sneak up on you. The signs and symptoms are mild at first, but they worsen over time.
People who are persistently burned out suffer brain damage similar to those who have been traumatized. Burnout affects brain connectivity, which can lead to diminished creativity, working memory, and problem-solving abilities.
Memory and concentration problems, sleeplessness, widespread aches, intense weariness, impatience, worry, and a persistent feeling of being emotionally depleted are just a few of the symptoms of burnout.
Reference.
- healthline.com – A Guide to Burnout
- fellow.app – 8 Signs of Meeting Burnout and How to Combat it
- bravowell.com – Know the Signs of Burnout in Employees: How to Help Prevent Stress
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