Last week, LinkedIn announced it was giving all of its employees a paid week of vacation starting April 5th. That was a smart move.
But outside of the office, many college students were deprived of any sort of break from their virtual classrooms. Several universities across the U.S. did not give students a spring break this semester out of fear that travel would lead to an outbreak of coronavirus cases on campus.
Instead, colleges like the University of Southern California (USC) scheduled Wellness Days. These days are scattered throughout the semester on weekdays where there are “no classes and no classwork is expected of students,” according to a USC statement.
Pandemic burnout is very real. This term is used to describe the chronic physical and emotional exhaustion people are feeling a year into the COVID-19 pandemic. From students to healthcare workers, studies have shown burnout is caused by work that demands continuous, long-term physical, cognitive or emotional effort.
Despite all of the articles written by college publications on students experiencing burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic, universities still choose to take away spring break. The motivation behind this was to “minimize the risk of the virus spreading due to travel.”
But, this approach was ineffective and only led to an increase in the number of coronavirus cases on campuses like USC. Universities should look to LinkedIn’s surveying techniques and proactive approach to addressing burnout in the workplace as a model for giving students breaks in the future.
LinkedIn recognized signs of burnout in their employees because of regular surveying. During the pandemic, LinkedIn added a simple question to the survey: "how are you?" They saw increased comments about "burnout, lack of self care, struggle with family, [and] people feeling lonely or isolated."
And, what did LinkedIn do with these results? They listened.
"We wanted to make sure we could give them something really valuable, and what we think is most valuable right now is time for all of us to collectively walk away," said Teuila Hanson, LinkedIn's chief people officer about the paid leave.
She also noted the importance of a company-wide break in order to eliminate added stress when employees return to the workplace. "And what is really nice after a shutdown, you come back and you don't have a barrage of emails or meeting notes that you feel like you have catch up on or you feel like you have to peek at your email," said Hanson.
This “barrage of emails” and catch-up work is exactly what students are experiencing as a consequence of wellness days.
Freshman engineering student at the University of Michigan Satvik Nagpal felt unmotivated and dissatisfied by his one-day “well-being break.” “It just seems like (professors are) working around the wellness day instead of changing their plans to give us more of a day off, instead of just a study day or a catch-up day,” Nagpal said.
Similar sentiments were echoed by Harvard University freshman Aarya Kaushik who said in an interview, “I think it is really difficult to take a real pause from schoolwork for just a day, knowing we have to go back to the schedule the next morning.”
A reporter from the Harvard Political Review reflected on the university’s decision:
“Harvard’s institutional errors in the structure of the wellness days are definitely to blame. Harvard lacks student input, research on mental health, and modeling the practicality of wellness days before implementation. This, without a doubt, contributes to the inefficacy of the wellness days. However, students’ work culture is also to blame. We must begin to value our time and our health, as we are justified in our demands for less screen-time and the need to unplug.”
But in order to “value our time and our health” as students, universities must educate their student body about ways to combat burnout and create a healthy work-life balance.
LinkedIn addressed this with their employees by launching a series of workshops. They hosted "no meeting days" for employees, which focused on how to mitigate burnout and say no to supervisors. They also held programs for managers about accountability and how to stay calm as a leader during the pandemic.
But, this is not the case for college students. Universities are holding workshops during the wellness days, when students are supposed to have a break unplug and not worry about attending another Zoom meeting.
If colleges gave students a week-long spring break, it could’ve yielded positive results similar to LinkedIn.
But the train to the burnout burbs already left the station. Potentially decreasing the spread of coronavirus trumped prioritizing student mental health this year.
As more and more states ease restrictions, college kids and professors get vaccinated, and life slowly (very slowly) starts to feel like—dare I say—normal again, it is unclear where universities go from here (vaccine requirements? hybrid courses?)
But the next step is considering how this return to a “new normal” will impact students’ mental health. Teenagers and twenty-year-olds are already feeling overwhelmed trying to navigate their school and lives. If there is one thing universities can do to plan for the fall, it’s to consider how essential it is to give students a break.
Pandemic burnout is real, and something I'm sure every student at some point in the last year has felt. While at the time it was announced, I thought USC's policy on Spring Break made sense, but after having done 4 semesters of Zoom school, the constant toil of sitting in front of the screen made it harder than usual to get work done. Especially considering that with Zoom school, students are able to study on their own time, which is a benefit, and thus can use normal school days to possibly leave town, retrospectively, I think the policy may have been an ineffective one.
Totally agreed. Though our USC students have wellness day off, these breaks are all seperated. I would personally prefer a longer break so that I can do something outdoor travelling.
The burnout has absolutely been real. My son is in the 6th grade and my girlfriend is a kindergarten teacher. Both of them had a spring break but because of the new wellness day policy we couldn't do anything. As restrictions are lifting and there are more things to do and places to travel, it would have been a nice break. To add insult to injury some of the wellness days fell on Fridays when most students don't have classes. I think that the idea was well meaning but executed very poorly and it was not just the students, but also the professors who suffered.