Working from home pre-pandemic is a much different experience than working remotely during it, new studies are showing. Employee burnout is a mounting concern before the global health crisis, but employees who worked remotely during these times experienced significantly lower levels of burnout than their traditional office-bound counterparts. Unsurprisingly, burnout numbers ticked upward as the pandemic began to take hold, but burnout numbers took a weird shift—fully remote workers were experiencing more burnout than their on-site counterparts. Gallup thinks it has an explanation for the switch, though. Before the pandemic, working from home was viewed as a perk and one that significantly eased the tension of the nine to five grind. However, as shelter in place orders went into effect, working from home felt more like being trapped at home, generating the abnormal spike in the data. It's up to managers to ease this tension, and the best way they can do is by treating employees fairly, ensuring they have manageable workloads, communicating clearly, and setting reasonable deadlines.