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Tag: employeewellbeing

  • Who’s Burning Out the Fastest? 10 Surprising Profiles at Risk

    Who’s Burning Out the Fastest? 10 Surprising Profiles at Risk

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    Christy Suerth, MS, SPHR, CPC, CHC

    Burnout hits some, more than others. Certain industries, roles, and even personality types are more in danger of experiencing it.

    Are you, or your employees, on this list?

    Knowing where burnout attacks is the first step you can take to stop losing talent, productivity, and trust.

    Here are the Top 10 Burnout Profiles Every Leader Should Be Watching

    1. Healthcare professionals: From nurses to physicians, the demand never stops, and the stakes are always high.

    2. Teachers and educators: Expectations keep climbing while resources shrink.

    3. Tech and IT professionals: Long hours, constant change, and being “always on” wear people down quickly.

    4. Middle managers: Responsible for delivering results and supporting teams, yet also reporting upward, is often the most difficult job in a company.

    5. Legal professionals: A culture of high stakes, high pressure, and little downtime make this one of the most burnout-prone professions.

    6. Women in leadership: Responsible for achieving results and carrying the weight of the majority of the invisible (home) labor, many feel exhausted and overwhelmed.

    7. Gen Z employees: Ambitious and eager to prove themselves, but often under-supported in how to sustain energy long term.

    8. Introverts in highly social roles: Sales, customer service, HR, and other outward-facing jobs can drain introverts’ energy quickly when recharging time is limited.

    9. High-performing perfectionists: Regardless of industry, those who push hardest for flawless results are at greater risk.

    10. Nonprofit and mission-driven staff: Passion fuels the work, but overextension is common.

    Bottom line? Even if you don’t see yourself or your employees here, burnout is still very likely in your workplace. Depending on the study, 30 to 75 percent of employees report burnout symptoms. That translates into lost productivity, higher turnover, more sick days, and rising healthcare costs.

    Burnout isn’t just personal. It’s systemic. And it’s expensive.

    Leaders, this is your call to stop and think. Some of your people are probably already running on fumes. Without understanding where burnout is happening, you risk underestimating the problem and overestimating the results your team will produce.

    To learn how to recognize burnout on your team, click here.

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  • Burnout Doesn’t Send You an Invoice but It’s Already Draining Your Bottom Line

    Burnout Doesn’t Send You an Invoice but It’s Already Draining Your Bottom Line

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    Christy Suerth, MS, SPHR, CPC, CHC

    The 5 Hidden Costs of Ignoring Burnout (and Why It’s Hitting Your P&L)

    Most leaders don’t see burnout until it’s too late. It’s only when a key team member resigns, performance drops, engagement surveys decline, or healthcare costs quietly balloon we ask questions.

    But here’s the truth: Burnout isn’t just a human problem; it’s a business problem. And ignoring it is expensive.

    Here are five hidden costs I see HR leaders and executives miss most often. These are costs that show up directly on your P&L.

    1. Lost Productivity and Presenteeism

    An employee may still be at their desk but mentally checked out. This “presenteeism” costs companies 10x more than absenteeism.

    Example: If a $100K employee is functioning at 60%, you’re losing $40K per year on just one person. Multiply that across a team, and the impact is staggering.

    2. Turnover and Replacement Costs

    When burned-out employees leave, the financial hit is steep.

    • Replacing a mid-level employee: 1.5–2x salary
    • Replacing a leader: up to 400% of salary

    Example: If a $150K leader walks out due to burnout, your organization could be absorbing a $600K loss between recruitment, training, lost opportunity and lost knowledge.

    3. Declining Engagement and Innovation

    Burnout crushes creativity. Teams stop asking, “What’s possible?” and instead focus only on survival.

    Example: That’s the million-dollar idea that never gets voiced in the meeting or the process improvement that could have saved your company six figures annually.

    4. Employer Brand Damage

    Glassdoor reviews. LinkedIn posts. Whisper networks. A reputation for burnout spreads quickl

    Example: If your culture is seen as “toxic,” top talent won’t even apply, forcing you into higher recruiting spend or settling for less-than-ideal hires.

    5. Rising Healthcare and Disability Claims

    Burnout shows up in medical bills. Stress-related illnesses drive up premiums and long-term disability costs.

    Example: A 2023 Gallup study estimated that employee burnout costs U.S. companies $322 billion annually in healthcare and turnover costs alone.

    The Solution

    To effectively combat burnout and enhance employee engagement and well-being, leaders can take several proactive steps. Implementing an organizational Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) can help identify the specific areas where burnout is manifesting. Additionally, leveraging AWL Survey (Areas of Work Life) can provide input for scalable solutions. It helps leaders understand where to target efforts; e.g., workload, autonomy, recognition, community, fairness, and/or values.

    The Bottom Line

    When leaders ignore burnout, they’re not avoiding a problem, they’re quietly signing off on an expensive invisible invoice.

    The companies that thrive in the next decade won’t be the ones with the flashiest perks or the longest hours. They’ll be the ones that recognize burnout as the signal it is, and respond with the same urgency and precision they bring to every other business risk.

    Because when you solve burnout, you don’t just protect your people. You protect your business.

  • AI Is Revolutionizing the Workplace, But at What Cost? 

    AI Is Revolutionizing the Workplace, But at What Cost? 

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    Christy Suerth, MS, SPHR, CPC, CHC

    How HR Leaders Can Prevent AI-Driven Burnout and Ensure Employee Well-being Using Maslach’s Six Areas of Worklife

    AI is transforming the workplace faster than most organizations can adapt. From automated workflows to AI-driven analytics, employees are being asked to work alongside new coworkers: machines.

    How effectively are we factoring in the human cost of AI? HR leaders are now on the front lines. They are responsible for designing AI adoption in ways that protect engagement, meaning, and psychological safety.

    The Hidden Risk: AI Can Increase Burnout

    Technology should make work easier. But we all know from experience, it can have the opposite effect too:

    • Increased mental strain: Employees are expected to learn how to use new tools, interpret AI outputs, monitor automated processes, or make decisions faster.
    • Loss of control: When AI dictates decisions, tasks, or priorities, employees may feel disempowered. They may fear that AI will replace them.
    • Change fatigue: Continuous adaptation to technology and AI systems can create stress, even for technologically-oriented employees.

    These issues highlight why burnout is not just about workload or hours. It’s about the design of work itself.

    The Solution: Maslach’s Six Areas of Worklife

    Christina Maslach’s research identifies six key areas that determine whether employees thrive or burn out. Using these areas, HR leaders can design AI adoption in a way that safeguards human well-being.

    A Real-World Example

    In one multinational HR department I observed, AI was introduced to support recruitment efficiency. Initially, employees felt disempowered and stressed. There was concern that AI would eliminate their jobs. By applying the Six Areas framework, the director was able to maintain engagement within the team and prevent burnout. How did they do it?

    Applying the Six Areas of Worklife Framework:

    1. Workload: The AI system was used to automate the initial screening of resumes, prioritizing the best-fit candidates. This significantly reduced the time spent on a repetitive task. Leveraging AI allowed staff to focus on more complex and strategic activities like proactive recruitment and relationship-building, interviewing candidates, and developing recruitment strategies.
    2. Control: While the AI provided recommendations on which candidates to shortlist, the final decision-making authority remained with humans. This ensured that they retained control over the recruitment process and could make decisions based on their expertise and judgment. Also critical, the human decisions supported compliance.
    3. Reward: Led by HR, the company updated its recognition and development plans to include AI-related skills. Employees who effectively utilized the AI system and demonstrated proficiency in managing AI-driven processes could be rewarded with recognition, remuneration, and opportunities for further career development.
    4. Community: Prior to the introduction of the new technology, regularly scheduled team meetings and collaborative projects were maintained to ensure that staff continued to build strong interpersonal relationships with one another. Leadership also organized training sessions to help employees understand and adapt to the new AI system, fostering a sense of community and support.
    5. Fairness: The AI system was designed to be transparent, with objective and legally compliant criteria for how resumes were screened and shortlisted. Employees reviewed the AI-generated assessments, using their judgment and discretion. In addition, regular audits were conducted to ensure that the AI’s decisions were fair and unbiased. Employees were trained to understand the AI’s decision-making process and to explain it to candidates when asked.
    6. Values: The introduction of AI was aligned with the company’s objectives to improve recruitment efficiency while maintaining a human-centric approach. The AI system was implemented in a way that supported the company’s values of fairness, transparency, and employee well-being.

    Key Insight: AI adoption doesn’t replace human-centered design. It amplifies the need for it.

    Practical Steps for HR Leaders

    1. Conduct a Burnout Audit: Map current workloads and stress points. Identify where AI tools may help or exacerbate strain.
    2. Communicate Transparently: Employees should understand why AI is being introduced, what will change, and how they’ll be supported.
    3. Redesign Roles Thoughtfully: Marry AI to human judgment. Clarify responsibilities, and make sure employees retain autonomy over decisions that matter.
    4. Train and Upskill: Offer skill-building programs that help employees adapt to AI without feeling overwhelmed.
    5. Measure Engagement and Perceptions of Safety: Track not only results but also psychological safety, workload perception, and satisfaction as AI tools are implemented.

    Why Leaders Must Act Now

    AI adoption is accelerating fast. Executives and HR leaders who ignore the human impact risk disengaged teams, hidden productivity losses, and high turnover. By integrating Maslach’s Six Areas of Worklife into AI implementation strategies, organizations can unlock efficiency without sacrificing well-being.

    Takeaway

    AI will continue to reshape work, but burnout is preventable when leaders focus on human-centered design. Use the Six Areas framework to ensure that technology serves people, not the other way around.

    Call to Action

    For more insights, follow me on LinkedIn. Questions? Contact me.

  • The Power Gap: The Hidden Driver of Middle Manager Burnout

    The Power Gap: The Hidden Driver of Middle Manager Burnout

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    Christy Suerth, MS, SPHR, CPC, CHC

    I’ve seen it and I’ve experienced it. There’s a quiet, exhausting truth in corporate life. It rarely makes it into senior leadership conversations. People are held accountable for results without having the authority to create them. It causes burnout.

    Middle managers live here:

    • Responsible for ambitious (impossible?) KPIs.
    • Expected to keep teams engaged and productive.
    • Caught between executive vision and frontline practicalities.

    Yet, their ability to make meaningful decisions is often stripped away.

    I call this the Power Gap.

    It’s not just frustrating; it’s one of the most corrosive, and ironically, most preventable, causes of burnout.

    I spent over two decades in multinational corporations leading global Talent Development functions, training countless middle managers. I saw their commitment… their care for their people… their willingness to go the extra mile.

    And I also saw the toll.

    We invested heavily in management training, but the burnout persisted. Why? Because you can’t train away a structural problem.

    The real causes were clear:

    • Workloads that exceeded human capacity.
    • Teams stretched so thin managers became doers instead of leaders.
    • KPIs set without resources to match.
    • Relentless waves of change with no time to recover.

    These are not gaps in skill. They are gaps in design.

    The solutions require courage at the top:
    • Clarify decision rights so managers know where their “yes” and “no” actually count.
    • Balance staffing and workload to match the expectations being set.
    • Protect focus by pacing change instead of piling it on.

    In my experience, many senior leaders will not implement these decisions. They often see the cost of balancing staffing and workload as a hard cost. They view burnout as a soft cost. But, the long-term impact of burnout has significant financial implications.

    • Burnout leads to higher turnover rates, increased absenteeism, and lower productivity. These are real and measurable costs.
    • Investing in balancing staffing and workload is an investment in the organization’s future. It leads to higher employee retention, reduced absenteeism, and improved performance. The ROI from a healthier, more engaged workforce can far outweigh the initial costs.
    • A culture of burnout erodes trust and morale. By addressing the Power Gap, we foster a positive work environment, attracting top talent and ensuring long-term sustainability. Balancing staffing and workload is essential for creating a resilient organization that can adapt to changes and challenges effectively.

    When middle managers have both accountability and authority, with the resources to back it up, they transform. They stop being bottlenecks. They become bridges, connecting strategy to reality, vision to execution, and people to purpose.

    If we want workplaces where people thrive, we have to close the Power Gap. Not by asking managers to “be more resilient,” but by redesigning the very role they’re asked to carry.

    For more information on burnout and its impact, contact me or follow me on LinkedIn.