Public service bosses have been urged to monitor staff workloads and hours after a study found federal bureaucrats have battled through COVID-related burnout.
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New research shows managers reported seeing "lockdown fatigue" and mental exhaustion in employees as they worked from home at a peak of the Delta wave late last year.
The study from UNSW Canberra's Public Service Research Group, conducted in collaboration with the Community and Public Sector Union, found the large-scale adoption of working from home during the pandemic had "come at a cost".
"We found that employees, supervisors and managers experienced 'COVID-fatigue', leading to burnout and stress," the report, to be released later this month, says.
It urged agencies and managers to respond by monitoring workloads and working hours to protect the health of staff.
However the report said some of the "COVID fatigue" could be attributed to the stress of the pandemic.
Once lockdowns ended and people could choose to adopt "hybrid working" - spending at least part of the week at home - burnout would likely decrease.
The report found differences in how managers and employees reported the effect of working from home on staff.
While 91 per cent of employees reported they had not experienced any psychological workplace injuries due to working from home, about half of the managers surveyed reported negative impacts. Some said their staff struggled with isolation, leading to decreased motivation.
"Managers had noticed staff experiencing difficulties with home schooling, and while they provided support, home schooling appears to be a significant factor which negatively impacted on employees' mental health," the report found.
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A "notable minority" of managers detailed their concerns about lockdown fatigue, mental exhaustion and burnout.
"This was particularly the case with managers and teams in Melbourne who had experienced the longest periods of lockdown in Australia - and globally - throughout 2021," the report said.
"The comments by managers indicate that once a 'COVID-normal' period commences and employees are able to socialise and access networks and support, that many of the negative mental health impacts associated with working from home may cease.
"When the pandemic recedes and employees are able to work hybridly, the burnout associated with working from home during a pandemic is also likely to decrease. The positivities associated with this form of working may then be able to be fully realised."
UNSW Canberra researcher and report co-author Sue Williamson said the findings showed productivity had remained high despite exhaustion in the public service's workforce.
An initial phase of "panic productivity" in the pandemic's early stages during 2020 had transformed into "COVID fatigue" by 2021.
"We saw in the initial events of the pandemic that employees were working really hard and had a burst of adrenaline, and then two years on, people are just really exhausted," Dr Williamson said.
"There's a really strong message here for agencies to look after the wellbeing of employees, which I know that they're doing."
Almost 12 per cent of employees worked outside their usual working hours due to management expectation or workloads, the UNSW Canberra report found. This number almost doubled from 2020. Only a small percentage of employees worked three days a week from home, but a fifth of respondents would like to do so. More than a third of employees would like to work from home all the time, or for 80 per cent of their working week.
"Over two in five respondents also stated that if their agency did not allow them to work from home at all, they would consider changing agencies or leaving the public sector," the report said.
The research paper, 'Working During the Pandemic: The future of work is hybrid', will be launched at a UNSW Canberra event on February 15.
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