Employee burnout reaches all-time high—here’s what HR can do

Burnout: so hot right now.

Mention of burnout in workers’ reviews of their current or former employers on Glassdoor reached an all-time high of roughly 0.57% in Q2 2024, up from a previous high of about 0.56% in Q1 2022. The figure was derived from an analysis of all Glassdoor reviews from full-time and part-time US employees through July 28.

While half of one percent might seem low, Daniel Zhao, lead economist at Glassdoor, told HR Brew that many common topics that “you would expect to be pretty popular only show up in the low single digits of percentage of reviews…Which is why, usually, we focus on the change over time.”

“After companies have shifted gears towards laying off workers or cutting costs, you’re seeing more employees talk about burnout in the sense that they’re getting pressure from leaders to do more with less,” Zhao said.

HR Brew talked with Zhao and Leah Phifer, an employee engagement consultant and founder of consulting firm WhyWork, about what HR professionals can do to mitigate burnout.

The trend. Burnout has increased because companies haven’t improved it since the pandemic, Phifer told HR Brew. In Glassdoor’s data, the biggest spike in burnout was between late 2020 and early 2021, due to Covid-induced labor shortages, Zhao said, especially in healthcare and hospitality.

Misunderstanding or failing to define burnout perpetuates the issue, Phifer said, so she uses the World Health Organization’s definition of burnout: “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” Phifer believes HR pros should focus on the unmanageable and chronic aspects of burnout.

Unmanageable stress happens when normal coping mechanisms don’t help, like taking a nap or time off work, while chronic means there’s elevated daily stress over weeks or months, Phifer said, so “We have to interrupt the chronic part, and we have to change our coping mechanisms, both systematically and individually.”

What’s HR to do? People pros can know if employees face systemic burnout if “the three dimensions of burnout,” cynicism, reduced efficacy, and exhaustion, are present, Phifer said. Exhaustion is mental and physical. Cynicism is the inability to find meaning or see progress at work. Efficacy problems happen when there’s a lack of tools, support, or training for employees to do their job.

“[Use] a variety of methodologies, not just surveys, to truly understand which of those elements are present in [your] workforce…focus groups, individual engagement interviews…Go a little deeper into the aspects of your job that energize you,” Phifer said. “Once HR professionals understand what those aspects are, they can help their people reach what I call the 20% threshold.”

Phifer recommends at least 20% of time at work be spent on tasks or activities that “light them up” or “give them energy.” Because “we can’t all spend 100% of our days at work doing things that we love…that’s just a bit unrealistic, but if we can reach 20%, that feels more attainable,” she said.

“HR professionals can help their folks, A, define what those activities are for them, and then, B, do a bit of job crafting to ensure individuals are reaching that 20%. You’re going to provide your folks with a great buffer against burnout,” she said.