Photo: Christian K. via Flickr
You probably think your city has a more burned out workforce than anywhere else, but you might be fooled. New research from compensation, culture and career monitoring platform Comparably, found that D.C. takes the cake for the most “burnout” among its employees.
What’s making people so stressed out? The findings — released during National Stress Awareness Month — show that “unclear goals” are the top source of stress, at 41% of those surveyed — also the top reason as last year.
Survey results were from workers at different American companies of different sizes, mostly in the tech field. So, which cities were feeling it most? Here’s the list:
- Washington, D.C.: 63%
- San Francisco: 60%
- Houston: 60%
- Seattle: 59%
- Los Angeles: 58%
- Boston: 58%
- Atlanta: 58%
- San Diego: 58%
- New York: 57%
- Chicago: 57%
- Dallas: 57%
- Phoenix: 57%
- Denver: 56%
- Fort Lauderdale, Florida: 55%
More men than women feel burned out in the office
The numbers show that 60% of men say they feel this way, compared to 57% of women. In relation to age, 60% of those ages 51-55 felt burned out – the most of any age bracket — with ages 18-25 coming in a surprisingly close second.
In terms of burned-out departments, 70% of those at the Executive level are experiencing the feeling, followed by HR (69%), Communications (65%) and Engineering (61%). Departments filling out the last three slots were IT (56%), Operations (55%) and Design (54%).
What workers are stressed about on the job
There are more sources of stress than “unclear goals,” although it was also found to be the most popular factor among both men (44%) and women (37%) and was the most popular response across every gender, department and age group.
Overall respondents selected both “bad manager” and “commute” as their second source of stress, (each at 16%), “difficult co-worker” at 14% and “too long hours” at 13%. Within the 18-25 age group, “unclear goals” came in first place at 41%, then “commute” (18%), followed by “too long hours” (14%), “bad manager” (14%) and “difficult co-worker” (13%).
“Research shows that decompressing daily also makes a huge difference,” Comparably CEO Jason Nazar told Ladders. “I always encourage my team to spend 15 minutes every morning starting the day with intention or meditation, and to take a 20-30 minute walk in the afternoon so that the daily stresses of the day don’t build up.”
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