Yahoo Finance Christmas burnout: Aussies crawling to the end of 2022
It’s almost the end of another year, but many Aussies are struggling to make it to the finish line.
New research by LinkedIn revealed more than three in five Aussie workers (63 per cent) were feeling burnt out from working too much this year.
More than half (53 per cent) felt like the crawl to the holiday season started earlier this year, with LinkedIn labelling this feeling the ‘Christmas Crawl’.
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“It’s that sense that work is feeling harder. A job that should take you 20 minutes is stretching out to an hour,” LinkedIn work expert Cayla Dengate said.
“There’s just that overall sense of exhaustion.”
One reason Aussies were feeling burnt out was because they weren’t taking time off work, Dengate said, with LinkedIn research finding half of Aussies were worried about taking leave.
“The main reason is they are worried they will fall behind on their work, too many people are already on leave so they can’t get time off, or they don’t want to burden colleagues with their workload,” she said.
“There is this need for people to take leave, but they’ve got all these excuses.”
Recent research found almost half of workers (46 per cent) had more than four weeks of annual leave banked up.
And even when Aussies do take time off, it can be hard to switch off. LinkedIn found more than half (51 per cent) of Aussies had been contacted for work over the Christmas break, with emails, texts and phone calls the top ways bosses got in touch.
At the same time, Aussies were keen to improve their work-life balance and listed this as their top new year's work resolution for 2023.
“Don’t wait until the new year to improve your work-life balance,” Dengate said.
“Start today and have that conversation with the people you work with and your manager to set boundaries over the Christmas break.”
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