Boredom might sound appealing to those who are constantly rushed off their feet. But feeling underworked may be more common and damaging than you think. In fact, a recent study showed that almost 20 percent of U.S. workers feel "actively disengaged" from their work. It's such a prolific problem that it even has a name: rust-out.

Rust-out vs. Burnout

If burnout is the stressed and tired employee rushing from one task to the next, rust-out is their lethargic and unmotivated colleague.

The term, originally coined by psychotherapist Paula Coles, refers to chronic boredom borne out of unstimulating work. In contrast, burnout is caused by overstimulation. And while it may sound contradictory, doing too little can be just as emotionally exhausting as doing too much.

The causes of burnout and rust-out may be poles apart but the symptoms can be surprisingly similar. Those suffering with rust-out can feel agitated, short-tempered or anxious, and may procrastinate to avoid work that doesn't motivate them. If left unchecked, long-term boredom can even affect your eating and sleeping habits, and lead to depression.

How to Spot the Signs of Rust-out

Much like real rust, rust-out can linger below the surface and may not be immediately obvious. You may even mistake it for laziness. Instead, rust-out can actually be a sign that you've outgrown your role or responsibilities.

Perhaps you feel that your job is the same day in, day out, with no sign of change. Or that the work you do doesn't align with your personal values. It could be that your skills aren't being put to proper use. You're certainly not learning anything new.

And while rust-out can occur at any point in your career, these feelings are particularly common among new graduates and middle managers. The former may feel limited by a role that doesn't reflect their abilities and qualifications. The latter may feel stuck in their routine, unable to progress, and believe that their career has plateaued.

How to Defeat Rust-out

Whether you're suffering from rust-out yourself, or you manage someone else who is, spotting the signs early is the best way to tackle it before it gets out of hand.

Be Honest

When a job becomes boring or unfulfilling, it's easy to assume that you need to move on to greener pastures. But a new job isn't the only answer.

Be honest with your manager about how you're feeling and discuss ways that you can incorporate more of what you love into your existing role. There may be more opportunities to craft your job to your liking than you realize!

As a manager, be compassionate and broach the subject carefully. Assure your team member that you're there to help, and establish a solid understanding of the problem before you offer solutions.

Identify Your Values

One common reason that people feel unhappy in their jobs is that their work doesn't reflect their values. Consider the times in your life and career when you've felt the happiest, proudest and most fulfilled.

Perhaps it’s when you've helped someone through a difficult time, solved a seemingly impossible problem, or made a lucrative sale. Once you've determined what matters most to you, you'll be able to prioritize these values and steer your career in the right direction.

As a manager, be patient and open-minded; this process can take time and you may hear some hard truths, but it's vital that you don’t become defensive. In fact, this feedback is crucial to ensure that your team is running at its best.

Find Your Passions

Do you have any special skills that aren’t being utilized? For example, do you have a creative streak that's going unnoticed in an admin-heavy role? When our strengths and passions are ignored or underappreciated, it's easy to lose motivation.

Identify the things that you do best and explore ways that you can incorporate them into your job, as well as other positions and opportunities that better suit your skillset.

It's a manager's role to ensure that everyone's jobs align with their strengths so keep an eye out for skills gaps in your teams. What new opportunities could your team members take on? What support or training would they need to develop? How can you help them achieve their goals?

The Bright Side of Rust-out

Rust-out can feel like a dark cloud hanging over you, but the good news is that there is a silver lining. If you're feeling unfulfilled in your job, then now is a great opportunity to reassess your current position, immediate opportunities for growth, and long-term goals.

Useful Resources

Here's a curated list of Mind Tools relevant resources (please keep in mind you may need to be a member of the Mind Tools Club to access certain resources):

What Are Your Values?

Overcoming Procrastination (Skillbook)

How to Take Care of Your “Social Battery”

Job Crafting

Avoiding Burnout

About the Author

With a background in writing and illustration, Rosie uses her creative eye to produce eye-catching content. Specializing in videos, newsletters and articles, Rosie produces, writes, edits, and proofreads a wide range of resources. When she's not busy working, she'll likely be found whipping up cakes for her friends and family!

The post What Is Rust-out? Meet Burnout's Boring Alter Ego appeared first on Mind Tools.

The question is: just how important are workplace friendships? And how can remote workers make lasting friendships at work that lead to both emotional and professional support?

Why Are Work Friends Important?

According to Gallup, having best friends at work directly correlates with employee engagement and success. Having a best friend at work not only serves as a motivator for employees to look forward to going to work, but also has a direct impact on employee retention, productivity, and company culture.

Since the start of the pandemic, people with a best friend at work have reported that they feel less alone than those without one. Additionally, they're generally more satisfied with their workplace and therefore less likely to leave.

If you're still not convinced, here are my top three reasons why work friends are essential:

1. They're great stress busters.

Work can be incredibly stressful. If you're not careful, there's a great chance that you'll end up suffering from burnout. "People experiencing burnout symptoms are usually trying to live up to impossible standards and expectations from other people and themselves," according to Centres for Health and Healing. "Working excessive hours and not taking time to care for themselves properly – month after month – stress levels will build up. The relentless, ongoing pressure typically comes from various sources, including work, financial problems, underlying health issues, family and challenging relationships."

Having friends at work to whom you can vent or offer support is a good way to ground yourself and reduce stress. Work friends can lend their ear when things get tough and offer a different perspective when there's a dispute.

We've all been in a position where we're just starting a job and feeling extremely nervous about not being liked by colleagues, or about the nature of the job. A simple smile from a colleague can transform existential dread into excitement. When navigating a new role, having a friendly face in the office is unquestionably a godsend.

Moreover, having work friends creates a sense of camaraderie that makes teamwork enjoyable. Feeling seen and acknowledged by your colleagues can make a difference, especially if your role requires constant teamwork. A positive and nurturing environment leads to more innovation, creativity and communication, which are ultimately beneficial not only for the individual, but also for the organization as a whole.

2. Work buddies bring out the best in us.

When we're surrounded by colleagues we actually get along with, we're likely to be more productive and produce higher-quality work. This is because positive relationships create a sense of shared purpose and accountability that urges us to put our best foot forward.

Work friends can also serve as a sounding board when it comes to work in which you're not one hundred percent confident. They can help us when we most need it, teach us new things that can help to improve our work, and provide valuable feedback and ideas that can lead to collaborative innovation.

Finally, when we have a supportive group of people around us, we're more likely to enjoy what we do and therefore focus on the task. Instead of constantly looking at our watch, work friends can prod us to push harder and feel energized by our work.

3. Connections are everything.

As the adage goes, "It's who you know, not what you know." Making friends at work is crucial if you want to advance your career.

Building strong relationships with colleagues can be the final piece of the puzzle to get that well-deserved promotion, transfer to a better department, or even move to a better job thanks to a friend of a friend. Ultimately, connections are everything, especially in a professional environment.

Making Friendships in a Virtual Workspace

Work friends have the potential to open up a world of possibilities and perspectives. Virtual workplaces, in particular, offer the unique opportunity to make work friends based in different parts of the world – opening up our worldview and creating a work culture that's more inclusive, cosmopolitan and innovative, thanks to the wonderful cross-pollination of ideas.

However, while making friends as an adult is hard, making work friends in a virtual workplace is even harder!

If you're one of the thousands of people who've switched to the "digital nomad" lifestyle during the pandemic, here are some tips for developing rewarding friendships with your peers:

Be the first one to reach out.

First things first – don't be afraid to reach out to people in your work chat. A quick introduction has the potential to lead to a virtual work friendship, so never underestimate the power of saying "hello!"

Participate in virtual events and groups.

Some companies host virtual events and team-building sessions that encourage you to connect with your colleagues on a personal level. Others may simply offer channels where you can talk about your hobbies or share photos of your pets. Engaging with these events and groups is the perfect way to meet like-minded people and find your work bestie!

Opt for a video call.

Video calls are more personal than chats. Not everyone will be comfortable having their camera on, but video calling a willing colleague is a great way to start a friendly conversation and make yourself appear more approachable.

Ask for feedback.

Asking for feedback is a good way to build new relationships. It not only helps you gain different insights, but also shows your potential work friends that you trust their feedback and value their expertise.

Can You Ever Be Friends With Your Manager?

The relationship between a manager and their team members is a delicate one. Maybe you get along with your manager, but feel torn when it comes to actually fostering a friendship with them.

When dealing with this dilemma, it's important to remember that friendship is a two-way street. The relationship between a manager and an employee involves power dynamics that can make it more difficult. Managers can make or break their employee's career. This obvious power dynamic makes it difficult to be friends with your manager, as a personal argument can lead to a professional nosedive.

Power dynamics can be further complicated when team dynamics are involved. If you're friends with your manager, you may feel compelled to agree with certain decisions that you may not actually agree with. In addition, being your manager's bestie can harm your relationship with your colleagues, as they may feel that the manager favors you over them.

However, this doesn't mean that managers should be coldhearted. A good manager values each of their subordinates and encourages them to reach their full potential for the good of the team. Being an excellent communicator and a "people person" are essential managerial qualities, as managers have the responsibility to unlock the maximum capabilities of their team.

However, a good boss or manager should know that friendship with one of their subordinates can be a slippery slope, and they'll need to draw a line somewhere. Nevertheless, if the manager and the subordinate decide to become friends or have an existing friendship, they should communicate this with the rest of the team to ensure that everyone feels involved and valued. 

If you enjoyed this blog, you may also be interested in these Mind Tools resources:

Building Good Work Relationships
How Good Are Your People Skills?
Reconnecting After COVID
Finding Your Allies
How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age, With Peter Handal

About the Author:

Chris is a passionate mental health and wellbeing writer and psychologist, focusing on sharing his experience and improving the lives of others. When Chris isn't researching the latest holistic and wellbeing therapies, he's spending time with his two cats, usually while curled up on the sofa reading a book.

The post 3 Reasons Why Work Friends Are Important appeared first on Mind Tools.

What Is Quiet Quitting?

Quiet quitting is not what it might sound like. It doesn't mean quitting your job, slacking, or "checking out." It's about performing your role but staying within your contracted hours, and "quitting" anything beyond your contracted duties. The idea is that doing so protects your wellbeing and makes space for other priorities in your life.

This isn't a new concept, but the way we work has been evolving, spurred by advances in technology and the COVID pandemic. But quiet quitting is resonating with people now and stirring debate. So, what can we learn from it?

Where Has Quiet Quitting Come From?

Our social media era loves to put a label on trends and sentiment, and the pandemic and other ongoing crises have spawned their fair share.

Quiet quitting has joined the new language of work, alongside "the new normal," "the great resignation," "the great re-evaluation," and "the end of ambition."

The rise of "hustle culture" in the U.S. in the 1990s was all about "striving for more," in the belief that it would lead to success and financial reward. But it led to examples of toxic and exploitative environments, as companies expected more and more from their people – but didn't always deliver the expected rewards.

Psychologist and leadership coach, Jacinta M. Jiménez, says, "We often buy into the myth that relentless productivity only comes with rewards, when in actuality, it comes with a costly price, too."

With hybrid and remote working, work has bled into our homes and lives like never before. And while this creates some great freedom and flexibility, for some it can mean that no healthy boundaries exist.

Quiet quitters are not disengaging or slacking, despite what the name implies, but just doing their work without overextending. In other words, they're setting boundaries.

It doesn't mean that they think work is unimportant, or that they won't do a good job. People are still doing their work and being productive; they just aren't giving more to jobs that don't give back.

If people feel unappreciated, or feel that they have to severely compromise their work-life balance, are underpaid, or are denied career-growth opportunities, then it makes sense that they would set boundaries and limitations on such organizations.

Why Now?

Quiet quitting appears to be a reaction to fatigue and stress by workers after two years of living in a pandemic. These are people who have reprioritized their life to fit work into it, not the other way around.

Younger workers in particular want meaningful jobs and careers that match their passions, values, and sense of purpose. They want work to blend with their life, not be their life.

A 2022 Deloitte study found that work-life balance, and learning and development opportunities, were the top priorities for Millennial and Gen Zs workers when choosing an employer. It also found that nearly 40 percent of younger workers had rejected a job based on their sense of ethics.

When we are not working with purpose, when we are not recognized and rewarded for the great work we do, and when our wellbeing is not prioritized, this can all contribute to feeling disengaged with work. And this can lead people to quiet quit.

What's the Real Conversation Around Quiet Quitting?

Perhaps the conversation should be less about the quiet quitters and more about the organizations and work cultures that have labelled "doing a good job within your contracted hours" as "quitting."

Burnout coach, Erayna Sargent, says, "The conversation on quiet quitting is being spun as if employees don't want to do their job. But the real discussion should be focused on what companies have done to deserve their employees' discretionary effort."

Years ago, people thought that technology would bring freedom and flexibility, and the promise of fewer working hours and more time for leisure.

But the opposite seems to have happened. Many people are working more hours than ever before, chained to their relentless virtual calls, answering instant messages while brushing their teeth, and opening their laptops in bed at night.

Workers are realizing that this is not making them happy or more productive. Instead, it's robbing them of their personal and family time – and now they're claiming it back.

What Can Leaders and Managers Do to Support Quiet Quitters?

Leaders and managers can see this as an opportunity to check in with their people and reengage them with honest communication. A good start is to ask them what really interests and motivates them, and let them prioritize their efforts accordingly.

It's also important to prioritize mental health and wellbeing, to avoid staff burnout. Managers need to help team members to prioritize their workloads and keep them manageable; to have clear goals; and to look out for the signs of stress.

One of a manager's key roles is to develop and coach their employees to fulfill their potential, enjoy the work they do, and maintain a healthy work-life balance. The result is likely to be people motivated to go "above and beyond" and to expand their skill sets.

For example, Mind Tools champions schemes and initiatives aimed at boosting employee engagement and job satisfaction. Our "Talent Space" program offers opportunities for any employee to work in another team, and "Mind Schools" is a monthly presentation of new skills and ideas.

A little praise goes a long way, so managers should recognize and celebrate the good work that their people do. And not just the "one-off" successes: they should applaud the work and efforts of those who consistently do excellent work.

Perhaps then quiet quitting will quietly quit!

What's your experience of quiet quitting – as a manager or team member? Let us know in the Comments, below.

The post Don't Hate the Quiet Quitters: Lessons for Managers appeared first on Mind Tools.

What Does "Drudgery" Actually Mean?

I have a feeling, however, that you are not reading this to appreciate the few charms that drudgery offers. After all, Merriam-Webster defines it as, "dull, irksome and fatiguing." As if that isn’t gruesome enough, it adds that it's also "uninspiring or menial."

A common recommendation is to get the drudgery out of the way early in the day. So, let us dispense with the worst of it now.

The most dull and repetitive jobs belong to those that require the least amount of education and training. So in order to avoid it, identify your passions and find out what gets you enthused. Advance your skills and abilities in these areas, and you improve your odds of avoiding the worst aspects of drudgery.

Of course, no job is completely free of drudgery. Michael Carroll cites a 2015 Gallup poll that found that two-thirds of Americans come to work "disengaged." According to the poll, whatever passion and enthusiasm they once had fades in the face of "feeling expendable; having too much to do and not enough time to do it; constant financial pressure – the list goes on."

Using Mindfulness to Tackle Drudgery

Carroll recommends using mindfulness to help beat drudgery and advises us to forego our passions. He says, "It's less about why we go to work and more about how we show up… Mindfulness teaches many things, but first it demands that we befriend ourselves – shortcomings and strengths, sadness as well as our joy."

Further research into mindfulness and drudgery led me to this baffling statement by the late Marty Rubin: "A bad job is drudgery; a good job is slavery."

Now, to me, there is no logical connection between good and slavery. However, I will say that, when I had jobs with relatable co-workers and a rewarding culture, I recall feeling like a "happy slave" to it.

Be Proactive

Somewhere between "I love everything about my job" and "This drudgery makes me want to scream" comes some advice from Brett Blumenthal's website, which is aptly named sheerbalance.com.

Blumenthal recognizes that sometimes we just aren't "feeling it." At other times, however, we might feel inspired. When this happens, she advises that we "strike when the iron is hot" and jump into the tasks we've been avoiding, even if they aren't due right now. She adds, "The more you capitalize on your positive energy, the better the quality of your work will be."  

Ask for Help and Focus on the "End Game"

When the task simply feels like drudgery, Blumenthal suggests enlisting the help of someone else to make it more tolerable.

Finding someone to take on your dull, monotonous tasks might be difficult. I suggest offering to trade some of your drudgery for some of theirs. The variety will likely help to make these tasks less draining for both of you.

She repeats the popular suggestion to get the worst tasks out of the way early so that you can move on to more enjoyable ones. Or, to chip away at them, a little at a time.

To help us get through the hardship of boring tasks, Blumenthal advises us to "think of the End Game." Bear in mind that these yucky tasks are often what lead us to the desired results. This, in turn, helps to feed or fuel the passions that we do have.

Author Jon Acuff forecasts career advancement if you do this: "Relationships get you the first gig, skills get you the second, and hustle gets you every one after that." He recommends "spend[ing] an hour each week to work on your skills and your relationships."

Think you don't have an hour a week for that? Consider where you want your lifetime of 40 years working 40-50 hours a week to end up. Still think you don't have an hour a week to invest?

Could Machine Learning be the Solution?

I will close with a challenge for you...

It is said to be the age of machine learning. So why not take advantage of it? If you find yourself mired in menial, repetitious work, is there a way to automate your activity?

If you can prep the data you need, express basic and advanced algorithms, automate the iterative processes, and create a mode, then, according to analytics firm SAS, you've met the requirements to create a good machine learning system.

Solicit help from an IT pro if you need further help. Automating these tasks could help to boost your productivity, and will make your life less boring at the same time. Your unique, thoughtful work might just save your job when your employer finds a Siri, Tron or R2D2 to replace you.

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