Manager Burnout: The Hidden Cost of Remote Work

The tension behind the debate

There’s a lot of tension in the workplace right now about remote work versus return-to-office mandates. While employees who value flexibility grumble and some executives are forcing RTO for not-so-honest reasons, the group that’s really suffering are managers.

They’re caught in the middle — responsible for keeping remote teams productive, connected, and aligned — and paying the highest personal cost to make it all work.

Managers are working hard either way

The data shows that full-time managers are putting in full-time effort. Remote or in-office, they’re working roughly the same number of hours each day — around 7.3 hours on average — while their direct reports are not.

Among full-time professionals, nearly 40% of remote workers are clocking less than 3.5 hours a day, and only about a third are working full days. Their in-office peers, meanwhile, average 8.1 hours — nearly 50% more.

That gap adds up fast — the equivalent of more than a week a month, or almost four months a year of missing time. So while a large part of the workforce is doing less, managers are still grinding — often harder — to keep it all from collapsing.

Leadership without peripheral vision

In the office, leadership came with context. Managers could see who was struggling, who was collaborating, and who was checked out — without a meeting or report. That’s peripheral vision: awareness that doesn’t require focus or effort.

Remote work takes that away. Every act of leadership now requires more effort — a meeting instead of a chat, a written update instead of a glance, a follow-up instead of a quick sync.

The result? Managers are working harder to be less effective. Leading remotely is still possible — it’s just slower, heavier, and more cognitively draining. What used to happen organically now demands structure, scheduling, and sustained attention.

The “outputs only” delusion

A common retort from some remote employees goes like this: “You shouldn’t measure me by time. Measure me by my outputs.”

It sounds fair — but it’s deeply flawed. Most knowledge work isn’t mechanical. It’s creative, collaborative, and full of nuance. Measuring outputs fairly takes judgment and feedback. And who has to do that? The manager.

If you expect to be judged purely on outputs, then someone has to spend time reviewing, judging, and giving feedback. It’s like turning managers into teachers grading essays after hours.

And when those same managers are already stretched to the limit, this “outputs only” mindset doesn’t solve the accountability problem — it just transfers the burden from employees to managers. If remote work is going to survive, it can’t depend on already-burnt-out managers spending even more time grading everyone else’s effort.

The human cost

The data paints a clear picture: managers aren’t working less; they’re paying a higher price.

They’re not enjoying some balanced work-from-home paradise. They’re working the same hours as before — often longer — and doing it in a more fragmented, draining environment. And because most managers are in their 30s, 40s, or 50s, the home isn’t exactly a sanctuary either — kids, partners, and family care all compete for attention. There’s no real off switch.

Helping managers, not blaming them

If remote work is going to work, it needs to work for managers, not against them. They don’t need more dashboards, reports, or manual analytics — they need visibility without extra effort.

They need back their peripheral vision — the quiet awareness that lets them lead with more insight and visibility without having to become detectives.

That’s what TeamScore delivers. Instead of forcing managers to dig for insights, TeamScore surfaces them automatically. Its AI-driven summaries and notifications make it easy to see what’s happening across the team, in real time, without more meetings or micromanagement.

Managers shouldn’t have to choose between leading well and burning out.

Remote can work — but only if we fix this

The real problem with remote isn’t lazy employees — it’s overloaded managers. They’re the ones keeping the system together, but at a cost that’s becoming unsustainable.

Remote work can still work — but only if we give managers the tools, insight, and visibility they need to lead without sacrificing their sanity.

Managers didn’t stop working when the world went remote. They just started paying a higher price for everyone else’s freedom. It’s time we gave them theirs back.