By Jonathan H. Westover, PhD
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Abstract: This article explores how digital workplace cultures can enable or diminish employee burnout and retention. The article argues that the rise of constant digital connectivity has blurred boundaries between work and personal life, enabling overwork as the norm. Two key stressors exacerbated by digital workstyles - the inability to disconnect from work and information overload - are shown to directly contribute to burnout risks like emotional exhaustion. The impacts of burnout on individual well-being as well as organizational costs relating to disengagement, turnover and lost intellectual property are examined. The article then discusses how systemic culture change interventions focusing on boundary setting, workload management, supportive leadership and collective well-being can help companies address burnout by shifting priorities towards sustainable employee engagement.
As a management consultant who has spent over two decades advising organizations around the world, I've observed firsthand how dramatic shifts in technology and work styles have impacted not only productivity and results, but also employee engagement and well-being. A topic I've been personally researching and discussing with clients more and more is how digital workplace cultures can enable or diminish employee burnout and retention. Through my experience and research, I've come to understand that there is a missing metric in how companies evaluate success - that of individual and collective well-being.
Today we will explore how digital cultures specifically impact burnout risks and turnover intentions, as well as offer actionable recommendations for rethinking workplace norms and support structures with well-being and retention top of mind.
How Digital Cultures Enable Burnout
Existing research shows that digital connectivity, while enabling new forms of collaboration, has also blurred boundaries between work and personal life. A survey of over 4000 US knowledge workers found that 77% check work emails during non-work hours and 46% respond to these emails (DeSalvo, et al., 2019). The expectations of "always-on" availability, constant notifications, and after-hours engagement take a toll over time. What was meant to increase productivity and flexibility is actually enabling overwork. Another study of 30,000 employees across seven countries found strong associations between high work intensity, email volume, and burnout symptoms (Demerouti et al., 2019). Industries like consulting, technology, and finance have notoriously demanding digital workplace norms that celebrate round-the-clock work without setting limits.
There are two important stressors enabled specifically by digital workstyles that contribute directly to burnout. First is the inability to truly disconnect and find respite from work. Always having work "in pocket" through smartphones and laptops blurs boundaries and makes decompressing virtually impossible. Second is information overload - the deluge of emails, messages, notifications and alerts across various platforms creates anxiety and overwhelm. Together, these bring about a constant state of heightened physiological arousal that is unsustainable long-term. In such environments, burnout risks like emotional exhaustion, cynicism and reduced accomplishment are high.
Burnout, of course, doesn't just harm individuals' well-being and quality of life - it directly impacts an organization's bottom line through disengagement, absenteeism, turnover and health costs. Mid- to senior-level departures can also mean a significant loss of institutional knowledge, client relationships and intellectual property that new hires must rebuild. For knowledge industries in particular where talent is the primary asset, the costs of digital burnout culture can far outweigh perceived productivity gains.
Addressing Digital Burnout through Culture Change
Given the direct impact of digital norms and expectations on individual and organizational well-being, the most meaningful solution lies not in one-off wellness programs but systemic culture change. Some key interventions I've seen work well include:
Boundary Setting: Clearly communicating expectations around availability, response times, out-of-hours communications and respecting personal time helps recalibrate behaviors at scale (Eriksson, 2018). Tools like scheduled email disabling/forwarding and calendars can enforce these boundaries.
Workload Management: Digital connectivity enables overwork, so processes need to manage work distribution, capacity planning and avoid unplanned "always-on" availability that leads to overwhelm (Meijman & Mulder, 1998). Automated workload tracking and capping notifications can maintain control.
Supportive Communication Styles: Leadership communication emphasizing humanity, non-judgmental awareness over constant critique and praise focused on behaviors/impact rather than work volume can encourage more sustainable and output-oriented engagement at work (Eisenberger et al., 1986).
Collective Norm Setting: Establishing buy-in around new norms through open dialogue on creating a sustainable digital culture can prove more meaningful than top-down policies alone. This builds accountability to collectively care for well-being (Burke & Ng, 2006).
Upskilling Managers: Line managers are key to supporting individuals and enforcing policies successfully. Their training on well-being, workload management, empathetic communication is vital for embedding cultural changes at team-level (Bakker et al., 2005).
Applied within a supportive human-centered framework, these interventions help move companies beyond just compliance to actual paradigm shifts where digital habits prioritize sustainable engagement and wellness as core metrics of success. Industry examples below illustrate this in practice.
Examples from Technology and Consulting
A few leading firms stand out in their holistic approaches. At Anthropic, an AI startup in San Francisco, efforts to curb digital burnout included formalizing asynchronous working hours, scheduling email blackouts for evenings/weekends and coaching managers on balancing workloads through 1:1 check-ins (Olsen, 2021). Researchers were provided with tools to schedule "heads-down" focus time free from meetings as well. Through this approach, they've seen a 41% reduction in weekly work hours without impacting productivity or business goals.
For professional services giant PwC, burnout risks were high given travel-intensive client engagements and "always-on" partner expectations. Their Human Experience transformation aimed to change this through supportive initiatives like booking "recharge" days between projects, encouraging flexible hours, limiting internal emails after hours and partnering senior leaders as well-being mentors (Yost, 2022). Early indicators like higher retention and engagement levels suggest positive impact on over 200,000 employees worldwide.
Both examples demonstrate that sustainable cultures emerge not from isolated fixes but comprehensive organizational development focused on wellness from individual to systemic levels. By making well-being a strategic priority through empathetic leadership, digital policies, manager training and collective norm setting, the firms moved beyond crisis management of burnout to prevention through cultural redesign. Outcomes of healthier, longer-term engagement benefit individuals as well as business continuity and talent retention overall.
Conclusion
In today's knowledge economies, work is increasingly integrated into our personal lives through digital connectivity. While intended to increase flexibility and productivity, constant connectivity if left unmanaged enables overwork as the norm. This has taken a toll on well-being as seen through growing rates of burnout globally. For companies whose core assets are human capital and intellectual property, sustainability must move beyond financial metrics alone to also encompass the sustainability of their people. Reducing burnout risks and improving retention requires meaningful culture change interventions focused on healthy individual engagement versus constant “busyness”. Strategically rethinking norms, boundaries, communications and support structures company-wide helps shift mindsets from presenteeism to more human-centered outcomes over the long-term. By making wellness a business priority on par with other goals, organizations can create digital work environments that maximize productivity without diminishing our shared humanity.
References
DeSalvo, T., Puopolo, T., & Nelson, A. (2019, August 7). 2019 Workforce Culture Report. Calm. https://www.calm.com/blog/take-back-your-inbox-2019-workforce-culture-report
Demerouti, E., Derks, D., Bakker, A. B., & Rispens, S. (2019, August 20). Workaholism and Work Engagement: A Study on the Role of Daily Recovery. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000136
Eriksson, T. (2018). Boundaries and mental health in the digital age: A population-based study on social media use, boundaries, mental health, and parental mediation. Computers in Human Behavior, 82, 179–186. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.12.037
Eisenberger, R., Huntington, R., Hutchison, S., & Sowa, D. (1986). Perceived organizational support. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71(3), 500–507. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0021-9010.71.3.500
Meijman, T. F., & Mulder, G. (1998). Psychological aspects of workload. In P. J. D. Drenth, H. Thierry, & C. J. de Wolff (Eds.), Handbook of work and organizational psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 5–33). Hove, England: Psychology Press.
Burke, R. J., & Ng, E. (2006). The changing nature of work and organizations: Implications for human resource management. Human Resource Management Review, 16(2), 86–94. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2006.03.006
Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., & Verbeke, W. (2004). Using the job demands-resources model to predict burnout and performance. Human Resource Management, 43(1), 83–104. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.10028
Olsen, R. (2021, July 15). Reducing burnout at Anthropic through asynchronous work hours. Anthropic. https://www.anthropic.com/blog/reducing-burnout-through-asynchronous-work-hours
Yost, A. (2022, January 6). With mental health at a turning point, employers must reinvent their well-being programs. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyysteiner/2022/01/06/with-mental-health-at-a-turning-point-employers-must-reinvent-their-well-being-programs/?sh=11ddf5b35fce
Jonathan H. Westover, PhD is Chief Academic & Learning Officer (HCI Academy); Chair/Professor, Organizational Leadership (UVU); OD Consultant (Human Capital Innovations). Read Jonathan Westover's executive profile here.
Suggested Citation: Westover, J. H. (2024). Burnout in the Digital Age: Rethinking Workplace Culture for Well-Being and Retention. Human Capital Leadership Review, 12(3). doi.org/10.70175/hclreview.2020.12.3.2
