Burnout is becoming a way bigger problem than it seems

During Talando’s 2024 Q1-Q2 market survey, we noticed that HR managers started mentioning team and management burnout much more than during previous research cycles. The issue became even more apparent during our Q3 labor market research. 

Burnout was a “percolating issue” during the 2022 and 2023 research cycles and even way before. It was firmly in the background, fully acknowledged as a “problem to deal with”, but in the grand scheme of things it was fairly low on the list of issues to handle. 

So what’s changed during 2024? Why do more respondents mention burnout as one of the critical problems? 

Let’s look closer.

The State of Ukrainian Tech Segment Employee Burnout 2024  

Employee burnout is a kind of phantom menace in the tech industry worldwide. It is always there, everybody knows it is a problem. Companies deal with it, and yet it just rears its ugly head again and again gleefully throwing a wrench into whatever is going on. Nobody is safe.

The Ukrainian Tech Segment got it even worse. 

In addition to regular sources of employee burnout (i.e. poor work-life balance, overwork, concerns over employment stability, stress, toxic culture, etc), we have a war going on. 

Companies took it into account. But there are only so many ways you can deal with employee burnout when the biggest factor persists with no end in sight. 

Long story short:

• Companies got “used” to the fact that once in a while their employees burn out and take a break. As one of our interviewees morbidly put it – “a natural thing with specific procedures in place”. 
• But in our case, the source of stress feeding said burnout never goes away and slowly amps up more and more. 
• The result is more burnout for more team members at once. And companies need to manage these leaves of absence to keep the workflows functional. 

So what is going on?

Why does Ukrainian Tech Talent suffer from burnout?

Let’s break it down:

• Fear of losing job security – the biggest stress factor currently running rampant in Ukrainian tech. The current tech labor market is employer-driven which makes getting a good job offer much harder than before as there is a lot less hiring going on and companies can play the attrition game much better than tech talent in active job searches.
• Lack of job security spawns overwork – the good old reason for burnout.
• Then there is a lack of work-life balance. In the attempt to make ends meet – many try to overwork their way through the rough patches. Sometimes it means taking on more tasks. Sometimes tech talent works an extra job. It takes a toll regardless.
• Fear of death is another crucial factor. Unfortunately, the drone and missile attacks are still commonplace. Lack of sleep and constant disruptions during the day stuck in expecting the resolution can weigh down even the mentally strongest given enough time.
• Toxic work environment is a factor respondents talk a lot about but if it is an HR manager talking – that’s never about them. 
• Health issues – The current situation takes a toll on mental health which in turn can lead to physical issues too.

The crux of the problem

The anonymous project manager of a large outsourcing company described the challenge in the following terms: 

“When one member of the team takes a break – you shuffle things around and keep going. The other team members can be understanding and supportive of a downed colleague. At least to an extent.

But from late 2023 we started having 2-3 team members burning out and taking a break at the same time. In a 10-man dev unit – that’s a hit you can take and keep going. In a 5-man unit – that’s a problem.

You can allocate the workload with one team member’s absence. It is harder to do with 2-3 and now even 4 at once. 

There are fewer people on the bench these days. Hiring new developers is not a proper solution either. It takes time to find the right specialist and slide him in. Sometimes the replacement team member just doesn’t gel with the rest or is not as experienced in the domain and that’s an additional hassle. 

The biggest problem is that you can’t plan team member burnout. You expect it is going to happen, but that’s about it. 

Sometimes those who are burned out don’t come back for whatever reason. You have to deal with it. That annoys a lot of people and contributes to the team’s further burnout as the workload grows.” 

In contrast, here’s how things are going inside a small-scale startup company according to their People Partner:

“Our team is 15 people plus recurrent contractors. Compared to my previous experience with larger product and outsourcing companies, there is way less of a distance between an HR dep and the team so you get way more honest feedback but you also see the toll up close and it is deeply concerning.

On the one hand, you have the development team who work hard on the project. They want to keep their jobs and show their worth. They tend to overwork and it is way harder to keep an eye on since everybody’s working from their respective homes. So it is a whack-a-mole. They don’t want to quit unless it’s a money thing. Team leads are critical in determining who needs to take a break. It’s always case by case. 

On the other hand, there is a management team, executives specifically. Operating a startup in Ukraine during these times is complicated, to say the least. The investors have their concerns and demands regarding securing the project’s future up ahead. This comes with expectations that you need to meet or else. Not everyone is equipped to handle it but unlike the dev team who cycle in and out, when an executive burns out – they just quit and need to find another one ASAP.

One of the ways to deal with employee burnout is to act preemptively. That’s what the HR department usually does. But there is a catch.

What makes dealing with employee burnout challenging?

Talando’s 2023 and 2024 labor market surveys show a gradual shift of tech talent priorities and reasons to stay at a current job specifically.

Previously, the most popular options were “work-life balance”, “interesting or challenging project” and of course “salary”.

These days – “job security” tops the list across the board. It is easy to see why – the economy is failing, there are not as many viable job opportunities and there is a looming threat of mobilization. So tech talent try their damnedest to stick around.

According to an anonymous employee wellness manager of a B2B product company dealing with employee burnout became much harder because of that. 

“My job is to observe and talk with the team. Sometimes managers point out that something is going on with one of the developers and I take it from there. But most of the time I’m doing one-to-one short meetings and going through the checklist. Once a month and ready to go.

That’s all I needed back in 2020 or 2021 but these days, following the checklist is hit and miss and unfortunately it is becoming a miss more often than not.

The thing is – everybody’s messed up with constant sirens and turmoil. People are afraid of a lot of things. You can’t always tell whose state of “messed up” is more detrimental to the workflow. But you need to be proactive about that and that requires employees being honest about their state. And that’s where the problem lies.

Lots of people don’t want to acknowledge that they are burned out or need mental health support because they are afraid of losing a job. Plain and simple. 

Employment stability is a way bigger concern compared to personal safety or even mobilization reservations. Because of that, lots of people just try to push through to their detriment and make matters worse in the long run. 

They will say “I’m fine” and now it’s your job to make them acknowledge that they need to take a break and that it is just a break for a couple of days to get some rest and stop overworking.”

Is there a viable solution to fight burnout in Ukrainian Tech?

If you google “how to fight employee burnout” – you will probably get something like “preach work-life balance” “break the monotony” or “nurture positive culture” statements about nothing in particular. The Ukrainian context requires more efficient solutions than a bunch of generalizations.

Here’s what the anonymous mental health consultant says about that:

“The biggest stumbling block in developing effective burnout mitigation procedures is that there is no dedicated research within the context of tech companies. You don’t do it once or twice. You need a running operation to get data all the time. 

Everybody’s up to surveying people and asking them general things. You can figure out some things out of that and assume you understand what to do. But that’s only a part of the solution at best.

In contrast, it is very hard to study companies and the ways they deal with burnout. Even if you get some details regarding their workflows – that’s what is written on paper. Barely any company conducts a systemic assessment of their procedures – so there’s no data to study. You can’t draw a line between workload and turning the team toxic based on what you think is happening.

Theoretically, you can converge a semblance of a solution on a case-by-case foundation, but how many cases it would take to be even remotely representative of a segment-wide challenge?”

Former HR and career coach explains the challenge of mitigating burnout this way:

The big challenge in dealing with burnout in Ukrainian tech companies is twofold. 

First – lack of trained personnel. There are not that many HR managers with proper psychology training able to handle employee burnout beyond a simple “take a break” solution. 

Most companies can’t afford dedicated employee wellness managers whose job would’ve been to figure out a system to prevent burnout. Not to mention handling the costs of maintaining a mental health therapist full-time.   

In addition, there is very little to no employee training regarding burnout. Everybody knows burnout’s bad for you, but no one knows whether they are en route to burnout.

You can somewhat explain the basics as part of employee training, but it only can do so much. As a result, you have both HR and employees willfully ignorant of solutions to the problem.

Second – lack of management solutions to alleviate burnout costs. If you can’t prevent burnout – you need to deal with its immediate impact. 

Considering that Ukrainian tech managers tend to micromanage and lead but toxic example you can figure out why everyone pretends they have burnout under control.

Burnout mitigation does not mean solely distributing the workload between the remaining team members. A regular vacation schedule can be a relief. Covering mental health therapist costs is a solution too. 

But the core thing is culture – there must be a proper feedback loop between management and employees so that everyone’s on the same page. Whether this feedback includes concerns over burnout and mental health is a question of maturity of a specific organization”.

What’s next?

As you might’ve noticed – at this point there’s no workable solution to handle employee burnout in the Ukrainian tech. 

At least one critical burnout factor is not going away and no one can make it disappear. War won’t stop because it is bad for employees’ mental health. However, companies can take measures to better assess their culture and management practices to keep the issue within reasonable scope.