It’s not simply you—work type of stinks proper now.
If you happen to’re struggling to get one thing finished as a result of too many individuals have been concerned, getting hung up by emotion and battle in your office, or simply swaying below the load of too many duties in someday . . . congratulations! You’re experiencing work intensification—the gnarliest development we don’t speak about sufficient.
Researchers in Europe have been this phenomenon for a few years. They pin it down to 3 issues occurring, typically .
First, workloads are just too heavy—too many duties in too little time. Each job has a model of this. You could be invited to too many conferences or requested to pack too many warehouse pallets in an hour.
Second, work is just too interdependent—it takes too many individuals to get any given process finished. When Jamie Dimon famously complained a few single determination needing 14 committees for approval, interdependence was the problem.
Third, workplaces have change into emotionally difficult. For instance, since COVID-19, rudeness towards frontline staff has increased—and folk are feeling it.
To higher perceive how this situation 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 staff to the C-Suite ranges in 5 completely different industries. Our findings have been placing. 1 / 4 of respondents at all times or typically felt overwhelmed and half felt overwhelmed a minimum of a few of the time. Over half (62%) have been experiencing process overload. Over 1 / 4 have been getting whacked by forms and an absence of priorities. Nearly a 3rd have been coping with indignant coworkers, bosses, and/or clients.
The damaging results of labor intensification
For workers work intensification drives burnout and negatively affects mental health. It might even be driving the file ranges of government turnover we’re seeing within the CEO and CFO roles.
Work intensification can even influence productivity. On the floor, this appears a bit counterintuitive. Do extra duties, get extra finished, 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 finished. First off: the duties could also be a nasty thought to do within the first place. In an period when we spend up to 60% of our time on “work about work” (communication and coordination round what we’re really attempting to get finished), our time is being wasted by a few of the duties we undertake. If work has intensified as a result 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 thing’s necessary, nothing’s necessary. When too many duties are coming by too rapidly, the necessary ones are sure to get misplaced. People get cognitively overloaded. As an illustration, we wrestle to remember lists longer than seven gadgets in our heads (which is why American telephone 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 process.
Have a look at the opposite two dimensions of labor intensification—extra interdependence and extremely emotional working circumstances—and the productiveness penalties change into even clearer. Nobody ever made a corporation extra productive by making processes extra difficult.
We might also have some cultural myths from the startup world (or actually motion pictures) that workplaces the place passionate bosses scream and pour their hearts out are extra productive. Really all that operating 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 time and again—is a well-documented influence of dangerous emotional interactions at work. As one study discovered, rumination from unpleasantness at work can not solely have an effect on the sleep of staff, however of their companions too. All that yelling shouldn’t be 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 would possibly imply extra energetic conversations with management about your workload to hone in on what’s essential. It’d imply politely opting out of overly complicated processes when attainable, or lessening your involvement with these processes. It’d imply organising some firewalls in between your self and extremely emotional conditions—or having methods to handle those you may’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 possibly can ask assembly individuals embroiled in a battle to “take it offline” and never make the remainder of the group spectators to an emotional trade.
Groups can sort out work intensification, too. Common and clear conversations about roles, tasks, and what’s really on everybody’s plate may help mitigate overwork, course of complexity, and even emotionally charged interactions. Discussing priorities is sweet “work about work”—not wasted time. It’s okay to take a adverse angle—understanding “the essence of technique is what you don’t do.” If groups have a transparent view on what’s not price doing and who doesn’t have to be concerned, work intensification might be decreased.
Lastly, organizations can fight work intensification with the proper mindset shift. Begin with the ideas that not all work is sweet work, not everybody has to the touch every thing, and never every thing needs to be an emotional disaster, and quite a lot of completely different choices logically comply with.
We’re tormented 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 proper outcomes—and actually the reverse behaviors are literally extra productive—an entire new array of potentialities open up.
As our research showed, 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 realize precisely how work is breaking down, and also you actively struggle again . . . you’re making actual progress.
