Employers Report Summer Heat Wave Hurting Productivity

As stifling heat waves continue to bear down on much of the United States, many workers are feeling a different type of burnout this summer. A recent survey on employee productivity found that 26 percent think workers are less productive in the summer and 45 percent think workers at their organization are currently burned out on their jobs.

Nicer weather, vacation-fever, and kids being out of school led the list of reasons for the perceived summer productivity dip. Looking at overall productivity trends year-round, 30 percent of employers say workers are more productive today than before the recession began; 12 percent feel workers are less productive than before the recession.

Employers who saw a rise in worker productivity during the recession primarily attribute the increase to the fear of losing a job and the effects of downsized staffs on individual workloads. In addition, 73 percent are seeing the increase sustain today and 14 percent state productivity has increased even more.

 

“The recession produced consequences for not just those who were laid off, but also for the many employees who were asked to work harder as a result of leaner staffs,” said Brent Rasmussen, president of CareerBuilder North America. “While getting more out of a smaller workforce is a sign of organizational agility during unpredictable times, it’s hard to see such yields in productivity holding forever. Headcount will be needed to meet increasing demands.”

 

Worker Burnout

When looking at burnout from the worker’s perspective, employers have cause for concern. Seventy-seven percent of workers say they are sometimes or always burned out in their jobs and 43 percent of workers say their stress levels on the job have increased over the last six months.

The rising stress could be a result of heavier workloads. Forty-six percent of employees reported an increase in their workloads in the last six months, while only eight percent said their workloads decreased.

The national survey for Careerbuilder was conducted May 19 to June 8, 2011, and included more than 2,600 hiring managers and human resource professionals and nearly 5,300 employees.