After nearly two years of adapting to working remotely, thousands of companies all over the world are still struggling with the new realities of business. According to Adobe’s report that highlighted the challenges of setting up work-life balance, many employees “are struggling to be efficient during their designated work hours, meaning their work inevitably bleeds into [personal] time.”

Looking for Balance Between Work and Life

The report says that 49% of enterprise workers and 56% of SMB leaders seem to be working longer hours than they “would like”; they log 44.9 and 45.1 workweeks, respectively.

Remote workers use vast variety of tools to make virtual working communication possible. The instantaneous communication has its drawbacks, though: nearly half of all respondents feels “pressure to be reachable at all times of the day, even early morning or evening,” while 45% found it difficult to set good balance between work and personal life.” Nearly 61% of managers felt the same pressure, too.

The Challenges of Burnout

In recent months, more and more employees seem to switch jobs in search of new career opportunities elsewhere. The Adobe report says that this tendency continues to increase, as 35% of employees experience continuous struggle with time and productivity.

Among the top reasons why enterprise workers switch positions are: improved work-life balance (66%), control over their work schedule (61%) and the “option to work remotely” (54%).

Technology Offers Ways to Increase Workers’ Productivity

Due to COVID-19, employee burnout has become a point of concern globally, as employees struggle with work-life balance, child care responsibilities and other factors that affect their general performance.

The Adobe report also contains information on the strategies that have been practiced to retain or recruit employees. They are:

– flexible hours (40%),

– additional benefits (25%),

– hiring remote workers nationally (16%),

– providing “equipment” for remote work (15%), and

– launching mental health programs (13%).

“Employees are happier and feel more productive when they’re able to accomplish tasks seamlessly—and aren’t bogged down by things like file management and filling out forms that get in the way of doing their job effectively,” said the author of the report Todd Gerber.

“Technology removes the mundane from the workday and allows employees to focus on more strategic work,” Gerber said. “According to our research, if they had more time for work, more than half of enterprise workers would focus on the things they love about their job.”

If you are planning to set up a digital transformation process for your business and have questions about the project, you are welcome to contact me for more information.