“Sophie,” a 26-year-old civil engineer, is on the verge of joining ‘The Great Resignation.’ After nearly two years of working from home, she reports being depressed, anxious, lonely, and in fear for her mental and physical health.

It doesn’t help that she’s single and living alone far from home, working out of an office space in the house she bought in August 2020.

After receiving her vaccines and booster, she recently returned to the office one or two days a week, but it wasn’t the same as before. Several of her coworkers have quit or transferred but have not been replaced, and although her favorite coworker remains there, he still isn’t comfortable with the risk associated with returning to the physical workplace and continues to work remotely.

Sophie is suffering from burnout. A self assessment quiz on the Mindtools.com website indicated that she is at severe risk and advised her to “do something about this urgently.” Her first impulse was to resign from her job, but to do so would leave her without health insurance and would disqualify her from unemployment benefits.

Although she remains employed in her current position for now, she is struggling mentally and physically and is seriously considering new job options.

Sophie is not alone. Millions of Americans reevaluated their work life during the pandemic, with a record 4.3 million people quitting their jobs in August 2021, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Many business leaders and human resources professionals have observed that the largest group of employees quitting in the Great Resignation consists of remote workers. That may surprise those who had hoped that allowing workers to stay at home during the pandemic would increase satisfaction in their roles when offices opened back up again.

Instead, a large number of these employees have chosen to seek new jobs even when they are not required to return to the office.

According to Nathan Blain, a senior client partner and the global leader for optimizing people costs at the Korn Ferry organizational consulting firm, unresponsive managers and a failure to develop relationships with remote workers is a major reason for the exodus. “Many employers have not done a good job keeping remote teams engaged,” he said.

Recent surveys show that between 25% and 40% of workers are actively seeking new jobs. It wasn’t supposed to be this way–instead of enjoying the freedom to wear PJs all day and avoiding the morning commute, work-from-home employees began to feel a different set of pressures.

The three most commonly reported issues that remote workers face are loneliness and isolation; anxiety, stress, and pressure; and depression.

Although the home office allows an escape from distracting and/or annoying coworkers, remote workers lose the social aspect of chatting and venting about work and life. Zoom, Slack, and Teams can provide some form of contact with coworkers, but it doesn’t translate the way in-person interaction does. The resulting loneliness and isolation is linked to higher rates of anxiety and depression as well as somatic symptoms such as random pain.

Another major drawback of working from home is the inability to leave the office behind when one’s home is the office. The work-life boundary blurs for people who work in the same place that they eat and sleep, with remote workers often feeling pressured to be on when they should be off.

Remote workers’ sense of achievement and self-worth can suffer as well without the physical reminders of advancement such as new desk nameplates or upgraded offices.

Depression is more than just a sense of overwhelming sadness. According to the Mayo Clinic, symptoms of depression include angry outbursts and irritability; loss of interest or satisfaction in previously enjoyable activities; sleep disturbances; trouble thinking, concentrating, making decisions, and remembering things; unexplained physical problems such as headaches and back pain; and a lack of motivation to socialize or do new activities.

The American Psychiatric Association conducted an online survey of 1,000 remote workers between March 26 and April 5, 2021. The majority of respondents reported experiencing negative mental health impacts, particularly isolation, loneliness, and difficulty getting away from work at the end of the day.

54% of employees reported that their employer had become more accommodating to their mental health needs since the beginning of the pandemic, while 15% said less and 31% didn’t know. Only one in five reported that their employer had offered additional mental health services, compared to 35% in 2020.

28% percent of employees reported that their employer had become more supportive of those with potential mental health issues over the course of the pandemic, while 33% said it was the same as before and 9% said they were less supportive. 31% didn’t know.

“It’s not surprising that in light of the pandemic that mental health is on people’s and employers’ minds,” said APA President Vivian Pender, M.D. “What’s worrisome is that given this discussion, many people, particularly younger people, are still worried about retaliation if they take time off for mental health. This is stigma in action, and it has to stop.”

More than four in 10 employees are concerned about retaliation if they seek mental health care or take time off for their mental health, with 59% of employees 18 to 29 years old and 54% of

employees 30 to 44 years old reporting that they are somewhat or very concerned about retaliation or being fired if they take time off for mental health needs, as compared to 39% of 45 to 64-year-olds. The rate of concern is somewhat higher for employees of color.

According to the American Institute of Stress, job stress costs U.S. companies over $300 billion annually due to accidents, absenteeism, employee turnover, diminished productivity, workers’ compensation, and direct legal, medical, and insurance costs.

A report from Michigan State University offers tips managers can take to help employees become more successful. These include:

Promoting a Work/Life Balance: managers must promote this within the organization. They can do so by allowing time for exercise, family, and self-care. This can also be supported at an organizational level with such measures as shutting down early before the holidays to enforce a practice of valuing family time, offering flexible scheduling, and being clear about the demands of the role during the hiring process.
Monitoring Workloads and Scheduling: Leaders need to ensure employees aren’t being tasked with unreasonable workloads or prolonged rigorous schedules. While workloads may occasionally spike, employees can’t be expected to sustain heavy workloads and demanding schedules. High turnover in a department can indicate issues with workload or scheduling.
Encouraging Employees to Use Vacation Time: In 2017, for instance, 52% of American workers failed to use all of their vacation time, according to the U.S. Travel Association’s Project Time Off. Reasons why generally tie to work responsibilities, including too-heavy workloads, lack of work coverage, or the fear they’d be seen as replaceable.

Managers can encourage employees to use their vacation time by running reports to ensure their vacation time isn’t expiring or going unused. They can also encourage employees verbally to take vacation time, as well as fostering a culture that appreciates employees taking time away from work.

Enforce Management Training: Managers can be the biggest factor in employee engagement and retention. In a recent Randstad study, 60% of respondents said they had left or would leave a job over a bad boss, with 58% indicating that they would stay at a job with a lower salary if it meant working for a great boss.

Managers need to be trained and equipped to coach and develop employees as individuals and as a team. Organizations need to ensure that supervisors are given employee management tools and skills, including appropriate ways to provide feedback, goal setting, recognition, communication skills, and task assignment.

Practice Open Communication: When information is withheld and employee-management communication is minimal, employee stress can rise simply because of the unknown. Managers should make a practice of providing open communication and ensuring that employees receive timely, transparent updates, understand expectations, and understand how their performance is benchmarking against company goals.

Lead by Example: Because managers set the tone for their teams, it is critical for them to manage their own stress, avoiding negativity, anger, and explosive behavior even during stressful times. Like any employee, managers must ensure they take their vacation, take regular breaks, manage stressors outside the workplace, and seek a meaningful work/life balance.
Welcome Employee Feedback: Employees can offer a wealth of knowledge and ideas if managers are open to receiving them. Managers should actively seek feedback on ways to improve productivity, balance workloads, work together as a team, and improve task completion.
Offer Employee Assistance Programs: Corporate wellness programs can promote self-care and stress management by providing financial or retirement resources, mental health counseling, and diet, exercise, and tobacco cessation programs.

For organizations and businesses seeking help on supporting the mental health of their workforce, APA Foundation’s Center for Workplace Mental Health offers tools, resources, and information and has recently issued toolkits and webinars on Covid-19, remote work, and more. The Center also recently released NOTICE. TALK. ACT.® at Work, an e-learning resource for managers supporting employees’ mental health needs.