It’s not simply you—work sort of stinks proper now.
Should you’re struggling to get one thing achieved as a result of too many individuals have been concerned, getting hung up by emotion and battle in your office, or simply swaying underneath the burden of too many duties in someday . . . congratulations! You’re experiencing work intensification—the gnarliest pattern we don’t speak about sufficient.
Researchers in Europe have been taking a look at this phenomenon for a few years. They pin it down to 3 issues taking place, usually suddenly.
First, workloads are just too heavy—too many duties in too little time. Each job has a model of this. You is likely to be invited to too many conferences or requested to pack too many warehouse pallets in an hour.
Second, work is simply too interdependent—it takes too many individuals to get any given job achieved. When Jamie Dimon famously complained a couple of single choice needing 14 committees for approval, interdependence was the problem.
Third, workplaces have develop into emotionally difficult. For instance, since COVID-19, rudeness towards frontline staff has elevated—and people are feeling it.
To higher perceive how this difficulty was affecting workplaces, in April 2025 consulting agency Anthrome Perception partnered with Patrick Hyland, an organizational psychologist. We surveyed 1,000 staff starting from entry-level workers to the C-Suite ranges in 5 completely different industries. Our findings have been putting. 1 / 4 of respondents all the time or usually felt overwhelmed and half felt overwhelmed no less than a few of the time. Over half (62%) have been experiencing job overload. Over 1 / 4 have been getting whacked by forms and an absence of priorities. Virtually a 3rd have been coping with indignant coworkers, bosses, and/or prospects.
The damaging results of labor intensification
For workers work intensification drives burnout and negatively impacts psychological well being. It could even be driving the document ranges of government turnover we’re seeing within the CEO and CFO roles.
Work intensification can even influence productiveness. On the floor, this appears a bit counterintuitive. Do extra duties, get extra achieved, extra productiveness, proper?
It’s the center a part of that sentence the place issues break down. Doing extra duties does not imply getting extra achieved. First off: the duties could also be a nasty concept to do within the first place. In an period after we spend as much as 60% of our time on “work about work” (communication and coordination round what we’re really attempting to get achieved), our time is being wasted by a few of the duties we undertake. If work has intensified because of “work about work,” then we’re simply consuming extra empty work energy, and never partaking in wholesome productiveness.
Work intensification additionally comes from a collapse of prioritization—and there too, productiveness erodes quick. Because the saying goes, when every part’s vital, nothing’s vital. When too many duties are coming by way of too rapidly, the vital ones are sure to get misplaced. People get cognitively overloaded. As an example, we wrestle to recollect lists longer than seven gadgets in our heads (which is why American cellphone numbers are seven digits lengthy). You probably have 14 priorities—all emphasised—your mind goes to faucet out. And it would faucet out on the unsuitable job.
Take a look at the opposite two dimensions of labor intensification—extra interdependence and extremely emotional working situations—and the productiveness penalties develop into even clearer. Nobody ever made a corporation extra productive by making processes extra difficult.
We can also have some cultural myths from the startup world (or actually films) that workplaces the place passionate bosses scream and pour their hearts out are extra productive. Really all that working round yelling simply eats up much more cognitive house for the unfortunate people being yelled at.
Rumination—the place your mind can’t cease going over a traumatic occasion again and again—is a well-documented influence of dangerous emotional interactions at work. As one research discovered, rumination from unpleasantness at work can not solely have an effect on the sleep of workers, however of their companions too. All that yelling isn’t positioning anybody to work successfully.
What to do about work intensification
Work intensification can appear daunting, however there are concrete methods to fight it.
At a person stage, this may imply extra lively conversations with management about your workload to hone in on what’s essential. It would imply politely opting out of overly complicated processes when attainable, or lessening your involvement with these processes. It would imply organising some firewalls in between your self and extremely emotional conditions—or having methods to handle those you’ll be able to’t keep away from.
For instance, it’s okay to not volunteer to mediate arguments at work, even when that is one thing you might be able to doing. You may ask assembly individuals embroiled in a battle to “take it offline” and never make the remainder of the group spectators to an emotional alternate.
Groups can deal with work intensification, too. Common and clear conversations about roles, duties, and what’s really on everybody’s plate can assist mitigate overwork, course of complexity, and even emotionally charged interactions. Discussing priorities is nice “work about work”—not wasted time. It’s okay to take a destructive angle—understanding “the essence of technique is what you don’t do.” If groups have a transparent view on what’s not value doing and who doesn’t have to be concerned, work intensification might be decreased.
Lastly, organizations can fight work intensification with the precise mindset shift. Begin with the ideas that not all work is nice work, not everybody has to the touch every part, and never every part must be an emotional disaster, and plenty of completely different selections logically observe.
We’re stricken by dangerous myths: that overwork is to be cherished, that collaboration means everybody in the identical room on a regular basis, and that excessive feelings gas excessive outcomes. As soon as we perceive that these behaviors don’t actually drive the precise outcomes—and in reality the reverse behaviors are literally extra productive—a complete new array of potentialities open up.
As our analysis confirmed, merely being conscious of the three parts (extra duties, extra interdependence, and extra emotion) and passionately combatting them makes one 119% extra more likely to really feel extremely efficient. In different phrases, if you understand precisely how work is breaking down, and also you actively battle again . . . you’re making actual progress.
