Founder Shares How Her Team Uses Slack Statuses To Handle Burnout: ‘We Realised That We Are Not Warriors’

A founder has started a discussion online after sharing how her remote team uses Slack statuses to show how they are feeling during the workday. The idea, she explained, helps employees avoid burnout and makes communication inside the team easier.

Instead of expecting everyone to work at the same pace every day, the team follows a simple system with three different work modes. The founder shared the idea through a video posted on Instagram.

In the clip, she explained that most of the team’s work communication happens on Slack. Over time, they realised people cannot stay in “hustle mode” constantly.

“So, we are a remote team and we have this really cool thing which I took from my friend Saloni. We work on Slack. Basically, most of our communication

is on Slack. We realised that we are not warriors, so we cannot be in a grind-hustle mode every single day,” she said.

Team Uses Three Work Modes

The founder said the team now uses three different modes based on how a person is feeling on a particular day.

The first is “Grind mode”, which is for days when someone feels highly productive and ready to give their best effort. The second is “Normal mode”, where employees simply focus on finishing their regular tasks for the day.

The third is called “Survival mode”. According to her, this is meant for difficult days when someone may not be feeling mentally or physically okay.

“So we have now three modes. First is Grind mode, where we are at our 120 per cent. Then we have a Normal mode, where we’re working, making sure that the To-Do for the day is done. And then we have a Survival mode. This is a mode which we use usually when we have like period cramps or just a bad day, break up, or something like that,” she explained.

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A post shared by Anuva Kakkar (@anuvaaaakakkar)

Slack Status Keeps Everyone Informed

The woman said employees only need to update their Slack status to reflect which mode they are in. This allows teammates to understand each other’s situation without asking too many questions. She added that the system also helps adjust deadlines and expectations whenever needed.

“So we have 3 modes: survival, grind, and normal mode. And you can just update your Slack status with however you’re feeling today. This just keeps everybody updated and changes the timelines a little bit if required. We do this basically so that we don’t burn out by being in the grind mode every single day,” she said.

The video was shared with the caption, “Sorry for saying ‘breakup’ so casually”.

Many people online said they liked the idea and felt workplaces should openly accept that employees cannot always perform at the same level every day.

A user wrote, “This is actually such a healthy way to communicate capacity.” Another commented, “Survival mode should be normalised in every workplace.”

“This is so cool,” a person wrote, while another added, “Grind mode every day is exactly why people quit.”

A comment read, “I love how this makes burnout prevention part of the workflow.” While someone said, “The breakup example was too real, but the system makes sense.”