Employee well-being has taken several hits in recent years.

Engagement is down, mental health is in tatters, and employees are burning out. Nearly two-thirds (67%) of employees are currently experiencing at least one burnout symptom, according to an April report from talent firm Seramount, and those who feel burned out are nine times more likely to report negative impact on their well-being.

“People keep medicalizing burnout as an individual illness or problem…and saying, ‘What’s wrong with you? You’ve got to fix it. You’ve got to take care of yourself,’ and not really focusing on the other part of the question, which is those chronic job stressors in the workplace,” said Christina Maslach, psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley and author of The Burnout Challenge: Managing People’s Relationships with Their Jobs.

People leaders can focus on alleviating burnout, Maslach told HR Brew, by thinking of it not as an individual’s problem, but as a workplace’s problem, and focusing on the systemic issues that cause it.

For more on how HR can help alleviate employee burnout, keep reading here.—MC

The murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in 2020 was an inflection point, not only for racial inequality in the US, but for DEI programs. Companies had already been working to diversify the workforce for decades, but for many, this accelerated the movement.

As the popularity of DEI programming soared within US companies (many DEI positions in HR became open), so did opposition. Detractors claimed diversity initiatives were unfair to the majority and politicized the work, turning it into a dog whistle during the 2024 presidential election, when Trump and his supporters called for companies to eliminate all “illegal DEI” practices—and despite executive orders that have been issued since, the legal frameworks haven’t changed much.

Since then, at least 70 big-name companies have rolled back or drastically changed the language associated with their DEI programs, while others anticipate changes in the future. Meanwhile, DEI practitioners have grappled with job losses, questions about their function, and personal attacks amid a barrage of misinformation.

Still, the DEI leaders who spoke with HR Brew remain hopeful for progress, even if it looks different.

For more on the past, present, and future of DEI, keep reading here.—KP