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Balancing Burnout: How Workplace Connection Protects our Mental Wellbeing

As organisations navigate today’s complex working landscape, wellbeing initiatives have rightfully become a priority. Many workplaces now offer valuable mental health services, flexible schedules, and wellness programmes that employees genuinely appreciate.

Yet research consistently shows that the quality of our workplace relationships serves as a powerful shield against burnout – enhancing effectiveness beyond these formal interventions. 

The Connection Advantage

According to the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, the quality of social connection at work predicts burnout recovery more effectively than reduced workload alone. Gallup’s research reinforces this, finding that employees who have a “best friend at work” are 40% less likely to experience burnout.

When designing wellness initiatives, we often reach for obvious levers – reducing workload, offering mindfulness apps, encouraging time off. But we might be overlooking our most potent resource: human connection.

Where you Show Up = How Burnout Shows Up

Burnout affects everyone, but different working arrangements come with their own challenges.

Remote workers describe a peculiar paradox – never quite at work, yet never fully away from it. Without deliberate boundaries, work invades home life.

In-office workers face less flexibility, energy-sapping commutes, and fragmented interactions with colleagues.

And hybrid workers get a mix of both worlds. Although hybrid seems to strike a good balance, with fewer reports of burnout, inflexible required days, switching between environments and mismatched routines can still trigger anxiety. 

Regardless of working arrangements, burnout rates are on the rise, with a 20% jump in the last two years, affecting 63% of employees in 2024.

Building a Culture of Connection

Connection isn’t just nice to have – it’s essential infrastructure for wellbeing. 

There’s a fundamental mismatch in how employees experience mental health support. Research from Deloitte suggests that while 40% of employees expect to receive help from their organisation and senior management, it’s actually direct managers and colleagues who make the difference.

This gap presents an opportunity. Organisations that build cultures of connection can address feelings of burnout before they take hold. 

  • Prioritise connection time – Senior managers who make space for non-work conversations send an important message about investing in relationships. Add connection time into meeting agendas or use unstructured rituals like coffee breaks to normalise relationship-building as part of work.
  • Create accountability – Make human connection a shared responsibility. “How are we maintaining our relationships during this high-pressure period?” should be as standard a question as “How are we tracking against our targets?” Teams that regularly assess their connection quality are more resilient during stressful periods.
  • Audit your digital communications – 69% of remote employees report increased burnout specifically from digital platforms. Creating clear policies on use, response times and availability helps manage the overwhelm, and meeting or email-free blocks of time provide much-needed space for deep work.
  • Empower Boundary Champions – build a team of people who model genuine connection and sustainable ways of working, disconnecting during holidays, avoiding sending emails outside working hours, and openly discussing how they manage their energy – turning policies into lived cultural norms.

Connection, not co-location

In our new working environments, the most successful organisations know that embedding connection into their core ways of working serves as a critical buffer against burnout. This structural support forms an essential foundation for employee wellbeing.

As we grapple with increasingly sophisticated workplace technologies and ever-changing location strategies, our most powerful tool against burnout remains refreshingly consistent: each other.

Check out our upcoming webinars to learn more about the core skills that underpin effective cultures of connection, and take away practical tips you can use with your team today.

References: Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 27(2), 135-147. Gallup Workplace. (2022). State of the Global Workplace Report. Future Forum. (2024). Future Forum Pulse. Forbes. (2023). Remote Work and Digital Burnout Report. MHFA (2024), Mental Health and Employers. Deloitte (2024)

Photo by Ilyuza Mingazova on Unsplash