Early burnout: Why South African workers are exhausted by June

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JEREMY MAGGS: By the middle of the year many employees, I would suggest to you, are not burnt out completely, but are running dangerously low on energy.

Ask yourself that question. That January momentum has faded, deadlines are piling up, economic pressure remains real, and the next proper break can feel a long way off.

Now, marketing agency Penquin says mid-year fatigue is becoming more common across South African workplaces. It shows up as mental fog, lower motivation, emotional exhaustion and reduced productivity.

But the warning, I think, is that this is not simply about being tired. It may also be a sign that people and organisations need to reset before fatigue turns into real burnout.

Annemie Burger is HR director at the company. Annemie, a very warm welcome to you. You’re suggesting that mid-year fatigue is now a real workplace problem. It’s not just a new label for being tired, is it? It’s a real thing.

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ANNEMIE BURGER: Yes, Jeremy, 100%. And thank you so much for the warm welcome.

It seems, I think, every year everyone says the year just goes by very quickly. But you always feel that you can kind of settle in from January, February. But we have experienced – as I think a lot of South Africans or people worldwide have – that everything starts with such a bang.

Whereas you normally start seeing people getting a little more tired and potentially a little more irritated around August, September, it just feels like all of that is happening earlier.

Even though you try and manage it as best possible, from a workplace point of view people are just dealing with a lot. It’s not just about work anymore. There’s so much more that is influencing people from a day-to-day perspective.

JEREMY MAGGS: And, as an HR practitioner, you are close to the centre of this. What are the clearest warning signs that you’re seeing that someone is no longer just busy, but is really depleted?

ANNEMIE BURGER: I think you normally see it in work-out, fit people. Those are usually your top performers that you can pick up. I’m not saying deadlines are being missed and things like that, but [it’s] just the level of work potentially; and their behaviour often changes a little as well.

People just come in, already saying, ‘Gosh, guys, I’m tired already’. By Wednesday they feel like they’ve already worked for two weeks non-stop.

I think it’s not that people don’t want to work hard; I think expectations in general are quite [heavy] on people.

And I think normally the first thing where we would see it is in a bit of a change in behaviour – not normally the people who are coming in with a spark and a bit of energy, and who bring that to a meeting.

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You can feel it. Energies are a little low. People are a little more irritated. And just generally people are actually saying out loud, ‘Guys, I’m exhausted. I feel like I just can’t function every day the way that I normally could.’

JEREMY MAGGS: Tell us how much of this you think is caused by that workload that you’ve referenced, or how much is it external – in other words driven by real economic anxiety outside the office, which so many of us are experiencing?

ANNEMIE BURGER: Yes. Jeremy, I think it’s a bit of both at this stage. Obviously we work in the advertising and marketing industry which by nature is a very pressurised industry. Things happen very quickly.

We know, from a digital marketing point of view, the introduction of AI tools and timelines are just getting shorter and shorter. People are expected to do more in shorter timelines, because I think people think technology, yes, it does help us, but there’s also a lot that goes into the creative process – in our industry specifically.

But then, yes, I think of the reality of where we’re sitting from an economics point of view and I think of the last three months and the increase in the fuel price – and how big an influence that has had on people’s normal income.

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And I think money stress for all of us is probably one of people’s biggest stresses – around how I’m going to cope through the month. I think we all hear the statistics around people taking on more credit to buy basic things. We’re already getting a lot of requests.

We are already in a hybrid working model, but can we maybe go even to a point where we only come to the office twice a week to help – and save from a fuel point of view?

So I think it’s really both. People are going through a lot. From a work perspective, I think employers are expecting a lot from their people in general. Especially from a South African point of view, I think there’s so much pressure on the labour market to keep up to date with global standards.

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And in our industry we also compete with global agencies – they love employing South Africans and they’re able to pay them in dollars and euros, which a South African company can’t always compete with.

But yes, I think it’s unfortunately a bit of both.

People have a lot of things that are influencing their energy – being home, just being a mom and trying to get through a normal working day, and now you have extra costs because we all know when petrol goes up food goes up.

Your normal basic products are going up.

That stress is just constant. And then obviously, yes, work in general is often very busy, especially at this time of the year, so people have to actually do a lot and be able to function properly. You can see the difference.

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JEREMY MAGGS: Let me quickly circle back to hybrid work. That’s an interesting one. Do you think it helps people manage fatigue – and I’m not a fan of hybrid work; I need to put that out there – or do you think it has made work feel more constant and harder because it is so difficult to switch off?

ANNEMIE BURGER: Again I think it’s a combination. I must be honest with you; I’m also not the biggest fan of working from home and a hybrid working model. I think people collaborate better and you just feed off each other at the end of the day.

But I also understand this flip side of it. It’s waking up a little bit later in the morning and maybe not feeling that rushed sitting in traffic, potentially for an hour-and-a-half or two hours, where people would log on, potentially like you said, at 7am instead of 8am. Because they are at home, they can log on earlier.

Maybe they get through a few things quicker because they don’t have as many disruptions. I think that’s the one thing we often do hear. People have fewer interruptions. They can focus on one piece of work a little more when they’re working from home, instead of having people constantly walking up to you and maybe asking questions.

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But it’s a balance. Again it doesn’t work for everyone. We do have people who prefer coming into the office every day. And again, the nature of our industry is that people often do need to put in a lot of hours.

But yes, I feel people end up working a lot later because you are home, you have your laptop, you know that this deadline is coming. You are going to probably sit until 11 or 12 to try and get it done so that you don’t have that stress tomorrow morning to get it sorted.

So I think it’s important for employers to acknowledge that and to try and put certain things in place to help your teams.

Guys, you need time to switch off, you need time to take leave and not be bothered by work.

It’s definitely a culture that you need to create within your organisation and be very intentional about knowing that we are already in a hectic industry that’s expecting people to work over weekends and potentially late nights when there are hectic deadlines.

When things quieten down, give them an extra day off before a weekend so they can rest for three days. We do have things like that – like a ‘duvet day’ and you get off on your birthday. When people do work over weekends, we try to give them some additional time off.

But your typical ‘driven’ people tend to just keep on going, and you sometimes almost feel like you want to take their laptop and lock it away and cover it – and say, ‘Just take some time for yourself’.

But yes, it’s not it’s not easy, unfortunately, in today’s society.

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JEREMY MAGGS: It’s only early June and I’m already exhausted from this conversation.

I’m going to leave it there. Annemie Burger, thank you very much indeed – HR Director at Penquin, I appreciate your time. Thank you.