Significant increases in burnout and depression cases show underlying structural problems, which require serious long-term solutions.
But sure, let’s do more time management and mindfulness classes because all of this is obviously the employee’s fault for not managing themselves and their emotions well enough.
Too much work to do, too many bills to pay, too much mobbing. The pressure to conform in Switzerland is insane.
Can the rise of these number have partly something to do with the fact that from this year on therapy is covered by the basic health insurance?
The work ethic cultural difference between generations is hilarious.
If I send an email, I’m praised for all the hard work I’ve done by the older generation. All i did was send an email.
Where the younger generation, we don’t know how to say no to work. We can complete 5 6 tasks in a day, and still feel like we accomplished nothing. Yet, as above, the older generation are the type who send an email and call it a day.
We do this on ourselves and also give the expectation to employers that we can always take on more work..but for what? Working hard doesn’t lead to a promotion. Also the 41 hour work week is too much. I’ve worked in Germany before, and it was unusual to see people in the office after 2pm on a Friday. In Switzerland, my experience, it’s normal to finish on a Friday at 5.
Let’s also not forget the implications that Long COVID has on some people. They have no energy to work more than 60%, and even at that it could be too much depending if they commute to work or not.
Employees in corporations are treated as bodies rather than human beings – there is no compassion, encouragement or humanity. Everyone is afraid of everyone else due to the constant threat of layoffs / outsourcing. They stick us in impersonal open space seating (often without assigned places) to save money and a productive and peaceful environment is no longer possible.
Work is an empty & stressful place to be these days …
Switzerland’s work culture is heavy.
Swiss companies becoming burnout machines, more insecurity and overwork like American companies, but less of the camaraderie and openness. It’s difficult, and work contracts become more and more tenuous,
More companies shifting to contractors,
No security.
It’s even worse in academia which is already a pressure cooker with temporary one year contracts. No option but trying to plow through.
Employees these days, not just in Switzerland but everywhere, have much more cognitive load than what we had 10-15 years ago. We are expected to juggle through 20-35 apps a day while sitting at a desk, and this form of hyper-tasking is absolutely terrible for the brain. 25+ different apps with:
– different fonts and font sizes
– styles and UI’s
– colors and graphics
– design language
Going back and forth between them all is immensely mentally taxing.
That said, I have the same job and work for the same company as I did in the US, same team even, yet somehow it is much much harder here and the only thing I can seem to attribute this to is the fact that in the US I drove to work and door to door was like 8 minutes flat, where as here I take the train and it’s 40 min door to door. My London colleagues tell me this commute time is great compared to what they get, but for me the constant being under the gun on the times of the train in relation to my home life and work life is an added stress that shouldn’t be overlooked. I tested me theory and took my car for a few months and it I felt better almost over night. No more packed trains, no more sticking around at work for 30 more minutes because I missed the previous train by 2 minutes, no more leaving the kids in the morning to catch the 6:30 train when I would prefer to stay with them for 5-10 minutes but also not be late for work. Burnout can be caused by many things and everyone’s situation is obviously different but a a 42-45 hour work week plus 2 hours a day commuting is a recipe for burnout IMO. It’s the reason most young professionals dread the idea of working somewhere like NYC as they know there will no life to “balance” with work in that sort of schedule.
Or maybe it is becoming more normalized to talk about this issue and people feel more comfortable claiming sick days for it.
I moved here from America and was surprised to learn that you guys have such a thing as “burnout.” That doesn’t exist in America. It’s called go to work or be fired, in my experience as a chronically mentally sick person. Switzerland has padding like America could only dream of.
what are you weak? get back to work you twat
Reading through these comments makes me feel like I’ve got lucky with my employer. I do have to commute a lot, but I have a lot of paid extras, a great salary, great bosses and an overall nice work environment. We did have cases where people had burnouts and had to leave for a while though, but they’re all back now (with less work hours ofc).
Look where people in Switzerland must live and work nowadays.
For instance Zurich West: Grey, repetitive cages. Loveless, Neo-brutalist architecture.
And then you are wondering why so many end up with fucked up mental disorder? We do literally build an environment which makes people sick!
Very interesting because I tought it was happening only in my work. This year I have seen too many people in middle and upper management quitting or having burnouts. It’s pretty worrying
Irish ☘️ man living in der Schweiz 🇨🇭here. My observations has led me to believe burnout is (partly) due to Swiss cultural norms of expecting perfection. Some of my Swiss colleagues get lost in the nitty gritty detail, unable to move n from a specific piece until it’s absolutely perfect, only to miss the bigger picture, miss deadlines, get stressed over it, work late, get stuck in deeper to the detail … you know how this goes.
With the lack of specialised staff, I guess the current employees have too much on their plates. My company has a lot of struggle recruiting competent staff in engineering and the likes, so we got more on the table.
As someone personally affected, it seems weird to me that fatigue syndrome and post-covid syndrome are reported/labelled as a mental illness here. Also that the connection to the research on what percentage of people are believed to be affected by post-covid is not mentioned at all seems strange to me.
18 comments
I hope this doesn’t turn into a polarised issue.
Significant increases in burnout and depression cases show underlying structural problems, which require serious long-term solutions.
But sure, let’s do more time management and mindfulness classes because all of this is obviously the employee’s fault for not managing themselves and their emotions well enough.
Too much work to do, too many bills to pay, too much mobbing. The pressure to conform in Switzerland is insane.
Can the rise of these number have partly something to do with the fact that from this year on therapy is covered by the basic health insurance?
The work ethic cultural difference between generations is hilarious.
If I send an email, I’m praised for all the hard work I’ve done by the older generation. All i did was send an email.
Where the younger generation, we don’t know how to say no to work. We can complete 5 6 tasks in a day, and still feel like we accomplished nothing. Yet, as above, the older generation are the type who send an email and call it a day.
We do this on ourselves and also give the expectation to employers that we can always take on more work..but for what? Working hard doesn’t lead to a promotion. Also the 41 hour work week is too much. I’ve worked in Germany before, and it was unusual to see people in the office after 2pm on a Friday. In Switzerland, my experience, it’s normal to finish on a Friday at 5.
Let’s also not forget the implications that Long COVID has on some people. They have no energy to work more than 60%, and even at that it could be too much depending if they commute to work or not.
Employees in corporations are treated as bodies rather than human beings – there is no compassion, encouragement or humanity. Everyone is afraid of everyone else due to the constant threat of layoffs / outsourcing. They stick us in impersonal open space seating (often without assigned places) to save money and a productive and peaceful environment is no longer possible.
Work is an empty & stressful place to be these days …
Switzerland’s work culture is heavy.
Swiss companies becoming burnout machines, more insecurity and overwork like American companies, but less of the camaraderie and openness. It’s difficult, and work contracts become more and more tenuous,
More companies shifting to contractors,
No security.
It’s even worse in academia which is already a pressure cooker with temporary one year contracts. No option but trying to plow through.
Employees these days, not just in Switzerland but everywhere, have much more cognitive load than what we had 10-15 years ago. We are expected to juggle through 20-35 apps a day while sitting at a desk, and this form of hyper-tasking is absolutely terrible for the brain. 25+ different apps with:
– different fonts and font sizes
– styles and UI’s
– colors and graphics
– design language
Going back and forth between them all is immensely mentally taxing.
That said, I have the same job and work for the same company as I did in the US, same team even, yet somehow it is much much harder here and the only thing I can seem to attribute this to is the fact that in the US I drove to work and door to door was like 8 minutes flat, where as here I take the train and it’s 40 min door to door. My London colleagues tell me this commute time is great compared to what they get, but for me the constant being under the gun on the times of the train in relation to my home life and work life is an added stress that shouldn’t be overlooked. I tested me theory and took my car for a few months and it I felt better almost over night. No more packed trains, no more sticking around at work for 30 more minutes because I missed the previous train by 2 minutes, no more leaving the kids in the morning to catch the 6:30 train when I would prefer to stay with them for 5-10 minutes but also not be late for work. Burnout can be caused by many things and everyone’s situation is obviously different but a a 42-45 hour work week plus 2 hours a day commuting is a recipe for burnout IMO. It’s the reason most young professionals dread the idea of working somewhere like NYC as they know there will no life to “balance” with work in that sort of schedule.
Or maybe it is becoming more normalized to talk about this issue and people feel more comfortable claiming sick days for it.
I moved here from America and was surprised to learn that you guys have such a thing as “burnout.” That doesn’t exist in America. It’s called go to work or be fired, in my experience as a chronically mentally sick person. Switzerland has padding like America could only dream of.
what are you weak? get back to work you twat
Reading through these comments makes me feel like I’ve got lucky with my employer. I do have to commute a lot, but I have a lot of paid extras, a great salary, great bosses and an overall nice work environment. We did have cases where people had burnouts and had to leave for a while though, but they’re all back now (with less work hours ofc).
Look where people in Switzerland must live and work nowadays.
For instance Zurich West: Grey, repetitive cages. Loveless, Neo-brutalist architecture.
And then you are wondering why so many end up with fucked up mental disorder? We do literally build an environment which makes people sick!
Very interesting because I tought it was happening only in my work. This year I have seen too many people in middle and upper management quitting or having burnouts. It’s pretty worrying
Irish ☘️ man living in der Schweiz 🇨🇭here. My observations has led me to believe burnout is (partly) due to Swiss cultural norms of expecting perfection. Some of my Swiss colleagues get lost in the nitty gritty detail, unable to move n from a specific piece until it’s absolutely perfect, only to miss the bigger picture, miss deadlines, get stressed over it, work late, get stuck in deeper to the detail … you know how this goes.
With the lack of specialised staff, I guess the current employees have too much on their plates. My company has a lot of struggle recruiting competent staff in engineering and the likes, so we got more on the table.
As someone personally affected, it seems weird to me that fatigue syndrome and post-covid syndrome are reported/labelled as a mental illness here. Also that the connection to the research on what percentage of people are believed to be affected by post-covid is not mentioned at all seems strange to me.