Top 7 causes of stress during lockdown

The Colour Works has been running webinars lately on how to help people cope with working during lockdown and the sessions have yielded some very interesting data. We asked 300 participants from over 200 companies to tell us what’s causing them the most stress during lockdown, and here’s what they told us:

1. Lack of personal connection with friends, family and colleagues 
2. Not knowing – future outcome, money, economy, job, lack of control
3. Work-life balance – home schooling, baby, interruptions, annoying partner!
4. Too much going on – To Do list getting longer, so many new projects, always ‘on’ & available
5. Too much screen time / Zoom / sitting in one place
6. Lack of purpose / direction / focus / motivation
7. Lack of exercise / time outdoors

There’s nothing in our list that’s a surprise, exactly, but taken together it tells us loud and clear that work-life balance is taking a hammering and that lack of connection – meaningful connection, especially – is taking a heavy toll on our lives. For those of us needing to work from home, the shock of the change is substantial and has caused a degree of stress during lockdown to us all. Not only have we had to observe social distancing in our personal lives, but work routines and relationships that once punctuated and regulated our day are now pretty much non-existent. One day blurs into the next and contact with colleagues has become a seemingly endless stream of one disembodied meeting after another – Zoom, for example, has recorded a 700% increase in evening meetings since February, and a 2,000% increase in weekend meetings.

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Clearly, people are flexing their working hours, so they can accommodate competing needs like childcare, home schooling, exercise, and social time with loved ones, however remote that has to be. According to NordVPN, which tracks when users connect and disconnect from its service, workers in much of Europe and North America have added between two and three hours to their working day, with spikes in usage between midnight and 3am that were not present before the Covid-19 outbreak. But does all this activity simply reflect a shift in how we’re using the hours available in our day, or does it point to something more troublesome? That maybe there’s just too much to cope with during lockdown and businesses have not fully grasped or adapted to this new state of affairs?

In contrast to the difficulties many locked down homeworkers outline some, at least, are reporting improvements in productivity. They say they can stay focused on what they’re doing without the interruptions common to office life, such as meetings, huddles, training and socialising. Homeworking clearly offers benefits to some, then, but it’s by no means typical.

Not everyone is working from home, of course, and the feedback we have is that those still working in office environments are also working flat out to cope with everything that’s being thrown at them. With many colleagues locked down or on furlough, many office staff report feeling overloaded, stressed and unappreciated as they struggle to get things done whilst also supporting the needs of home-based colleagues. Work-life balance is proving to be a cause of stress during lockdown for them, too, as they work longer hours not just to maintain the status quo and cover for or support colleagues, but take on new initiatives, all with little or no let-up in pace – an issue raised by homeworkers, too.

If these are the major difficulties and causes of stress during lockdown, what might businesses do to ease the pressure on homeworkers and office staff alike, so they can maintain a healthier work-life balance?

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1. Reduce expectations and demands

The first and most obvious thing is for companies to somehow set their sights lower and reduce the workload employees are expected to cope with right now. Even in a ‘business as usual’ environment, so many companies seem to take on more than they can handle and end up struggling to deliver everything on time and to the standards required. Now, more than ever, available resources – reduced resources! – need to be focused tightly on priorities and not peripherals.

2. Come back to core purpose / business essentials

Delegates on our webinars talked of being pulled in too many different directions, with To Do lists getting longer by the day as they try to maintain some kind of business as usual, take on new projects, get to grips with remote working and tend to family commitments. There just aren’t enough hours in the day and established systems and processes in place to deliver on the things we were already struggling with pre-Covid-19, so it stands to reason that something has to give. Better it be non-essential initiatives than the people who run the business.

3. Beware of over-communicating and micromanaging

It’s tempting to try too hard to exert control over a situation that’s largely beyond our control, and scheduling meeting after meeting via Zoom, Teams, Cisco et al is proving to be draining and time consuming. Remember, it’s not just whole-team meetings people are attending, it’s one-to-ones and sub-team project team matrix team meetings, too, not to mention family calls. Ease up. Keep things simple and trust your people.

4. Mend nets & get in shape for the future

Rather than forge ahead with non-core and new initiatives, focus effort on getting your ducks in a row and the business in good shape for a post-lockdown / post-coronavirus world. True, this is not exactly about doing less during lockdown, but it will be time very well spent and will pay handsome dividends when the time comes. Think of all those things that already slow the business down or don’t position it well for the future – will you ever have a better time to tackle them than now?

5. Family / social / leisure / exercise time is a priority

Most of us – not all – had a line that we drew between our work and home lives. With lockdown, and homeworking in particular, that line has been blurred and, for many, almost erased. It’s vital that people are encouraged to throw a ring around their non-work time and that the ring doesn’t end up being tightened by too many work demands.

We mustn’t underestimate the pressure people are feeling right now to keep the business going or even thriving, while at the same time meeting the needs of immediate and extended families and their own wellbeing. Without  disregarding the difficult times many many businesses are going through, it’s vital that employee work-life balance is regarded as a priority and not an afterthought or even something employees should manage solely at their own discretion. Every business and business leader needs to signal loud and clear that they understand the pressures we all are facing and do their utmost to accommodate and support employees as they struggle to cope with these unprecedented times.