An often toxic combination of urgent deadlines, last-minute fixes and an always-on culture is causing tech teams to face burnout at increasingly high levels. No longer relegated to the human resources function, the relentless demand placed on engineers and developers is causing challenges for entire organisations if not appropriately addressed.
In the long term, burnout can lead to unhappy employees who simply don’t have the capacity to take on as much work as they normally would, and staff turnover will likely rise.
In a survey conducted by TeamBlind of more than 11,000 of its users who work in tech, more than half (57%) said they were currently suffering from job burnout. While these numbers are high and the challenges to reduce them are significant, it is possible to reshape workplace pressures and rebuild a new culture after widespread burnout.
If only a few members of staff struggle with burnout, it can be easy for leadership to look the other way and continue operating at full speed. But by the time more and more team members show signs of burnout, it can be far more difficult to address. The first step for tech leaders is to recognise the issue as systemic rather than the fault of workers for not just continuing to work at maximum capacity.
Perhaps the single most impactful driver of burnout can be unrealistic delivery expectations. Delivery schedules that build in no time for delays or unforeseen issues that may arise can leave tech workers feeling intense pressure to deliver and being concerned that even a relatively small delay will have major consequences.
Building a Healthier Delivery Culture
Ensuring that open communication with all staff members is a reality, so that any conditions fostering burnout can be discussed, is essential. All roadmaps should be reassessed to make sure they include time after sprints for a pause, as well as time for focusing on paying down technical debt.
An international poll of IT workers found almost six out of 10 respondents felt overwhelmed with work. According to the study commissioned by GoTo and carried out by OnePoll, there may be a place for AI to take over basic tasks to free up time. A massive 92% of people said they would be willing to delegate simple tasks to AI.
“Despite many feeling overwhelmed, we’re excited to see how IT decision-makers are seeing AI as a beneficial tool that they can use to make IT easier to manage,” said Olga Lagunova, Chief Product and Technology Officer at GoTo. “Many people see AI as this scary entity, capable of taking their jobs. But what this data tells us is that there are many people in this industry across the globe who see it as a way to make their own workloads easier.”
Preventing burnout from becoming a permanent cycle and fostering a culture of sustainability are the central goals for all team leaders. The end result of measures to combat burnout doesn’t have to mean that overall ambition or speed is negatively impacted. In practice, it’s likely that once teams aren’t constantly firefighting and exhausted, they will have more energy to innovate.
