Report: The pandemic’s impact on worker wellness is directly linked to shift length

A study from The Ohio State University of nurses during the COVID-19 crisis shows how workplace stressors—already causing fatigue and burnout—were exacerbated by months of crisis response.

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The pandemic has sparked a deeper conversation for business leaders about worker health.

Stress, fatigue and burnout have been the natural conclusion of a process that has seen employees pushed to their limits to combat a relentless pandemic over almost two years. However, research shows that the aspects of the workplace that lead to burnout and employee departures are not caused by the pandemic itself. Rather, the crisis highlighted poor organizational design, sometimes across an entire industry.

Health care workers have been particularly hard hit. The Boston Globe recently shared reporting how the crisis has worsened chronic workplace stress for those workers on the front lines fighting a deadly virus.

It reported:

“It is not new that there is burnout in health care,” said Dr. Kevin Tabb, president and CEO of Beth Israel Lahey Health. “But it has just really exploded and is now causing a crisis on top of the crisis.”

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