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  • Will Your First 9-Box Calibration Meeting Succeed or Fail?

    Will Your First 9-Box Calibration Meeting Succeed or Fail?

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    Christy Suerth, MS, SPHR, CPC, CHC

    What HR Leaders Must Get Right When the CEO or Board Asks You to Lead a 9-Box Talent Calibration Meeting

    If the CEO or Board has asked you to run your organization’s first 9-Box talent calibration meeting in 2026, this is not a routine HR exercise.

    It is a credibility test. It is a defining opportunity.

    Leaders will decide, often subconsciously, whether:

    • This process improves enterprise decision-making or wastes time
    • HR brings rigor or simply facilitates conversation
    • Talent decisions will be evidence-based or political

    Make no mistake: the organization is watching you.

    Why This Matters More Than Most HR Leaders Realize

    A first-time 9-Box calibration is not just about talent visibility. It is about enterprise risk.

    When organizations fail to calibrate talent effectively, the consequences are both predictable and costly:

    • Regretted turnover increases as high-ability talent disengages or exits when decisions feel political or opaque
    • Strategy execution weakens when leaders without the capacity or aspiration to operate at scale are placed into roles that exceed them
    • Revenue and operational risk rise as leadership gaps create delays, inconsistency, and rework
    • Compensation and development dollars are misallocated, producing little return
    • Trust in leadership erodes, accelerating cultural decline and disengagement

    These costs rarely appear on an HR dashboard, but they show up clearly in business results.

    The ROI Of Getting Your First 9-Box Talent Calibration Right

    When run with discipline, a first 9-Box calibration does something few HR processes can: it increases the organization’s ability to execute strategy through people.

    Specifically, it:

    • Improves the quality of succession decisions for critical roles
    • Focuses investment on talent that can actually scale
    • Forces shared ownership of enterprise talent, not siloed advocacy
    • Establishes HR as a strategic advisor to the CEO and Board

    The grid itself is not the value. The quality of the decisions it enables is.

    First, Anchor the Purpose of Your 9-Box Talent Calibration Meeting

    A 9-Box calibration meeting exists to support future-facing decisions, not to validate the past.

    Its purpose is to:

    • Create a shared view of performance and potential
    • Differentiate where the organization should invest – compensation and training investments
    • Identify succession and readiness risks
    • Improve leadership judgment about talent over time

    It is not:

    • A performance review discussion
    • A compensation conversation
    • A forum for leader advocacy

    If this distinction is not explicit, the meeting will drift. It’s your job to anchor it.

    Defining Potential Using a Gartner-Aligned Framework

    In first-ever calibrations, performance is usually easier to align on. Potential is where things get fuzzy.

    To create consistency and defensibility, potential should be clearly defined as the intersection of Engagement, Ability, and Aspiration.

    All three matter. Missing one changes the decision.

    Aspiration (It’s Non-Negotiable)

    Aspiration reflects whether an individual genuinely wants expanded responsibility, leadership accountability, and the tradeoffs that come with it. Not everyone wants to make the sacrifices required to move-up in the organization.

    If a leader does not want to:

    • Take on broader scope
    • Accept required mobility
    • Absorb increased pressure, visibility, or complexity

    Then nothing else matters, regardless of performance or capability.

    Observable signals include:

    • Willingness to accept stretch or disruptive assignments
    • Realistic understanding of what the next level requires
    • Openness to feedback tied to future readiness

    Aspiration answers the question: Does this person actually want the next level at this point in time?

    Someone with strong ability but without aspiration cannot, by definition, be assessed as high potential because they don’t want to rise in the organization.

    Ability

    Ability refers to the demonstrated capacity to perform at higher levels of complexity over time.

    This includes:

    • Judgment in ambiguous situations
    • Pattern recognition and systems thinking
    • Learning speed and adaptability
    • Cognitive ability, including the capacity to process complexity, integrate information, and make sound decisions as scope increases

    Research consistently shows that intelligence and cognitive capability matter more as roles become larger and less structured. At senior levels, the work is not procedural. It is conceptual.

    Ability answers the question: Can this person successfully handle work of greater scale, ambiguity, and consequence?

    Strong past performance alone is not sufficient.

    Engagement

    Engagement reflects the level of sustained energy, commitment, and discretionary effort an individual brings to their work.

    Look for:

    • Ownership beyond formal role boundaries
    • Persistence through challenge and change
    • Emotional commitment to organizational goals

    Engagement answers the question: Will this person continue to invest their best effort here?

    If the individual does not demonstrate strong engagement in the work of the organization, it may signal flight risk.

    What Potential is Not

    In first-time 9-Box discussions, leaders often confuse potential with the comfort of what they know.

    Potential is not:

    • A reward for loyalty or tenure
    • Executive presence alone
    • Confidence or visibility
    • What a manager hopes will be true

    Clear definitions allow HR to challenge placements with evidence rather than opinion.

    Challenging wrong placements is your job. If the individual does not have the potential to successfully perform in higher levels of the organization, you must present the facts to facilitate the correct placement within the 9-Box. Solicit examples from other leaders who know the individual. Remember: decisions about strategic investments will be made based on the final outcome of the discussion.

    How To Structure the 9-Box Talent Calibration Meeting

    Before The Meeting

    • Require leaders to submit proposed placements and evidence; postpone meetings if leaders fail to provide placements and evidence.
    • Reinforce definitions of performance and potential; you may have to do this many times.
    • Set expectations: preparation is mandatory; stop the calibration and call-out any leader who is “winging it.”
    • Train HR Business Partners on the purpose and process of talent calibration. Help them excel in their role.
    • Unless your process is mature, design it so the focus of it is on defined critical positions. Including all positions in the talent review may sound like a good idea but it can backfire when it comes time to execute post-meeting actions. Better to execute the most important actions well, than many actions poorly.

    During The Meeting

    • Calibrate similar roles together to ensure standards are applied consistently.
    • Start with the middle of the grid to establish definitions.
    • Ask for evidence, not opinion or advocacy. You may need to request this many times.
    • Document rationale for movement, not just final placement.
    • Exhibit courage, standing up to senior leaders as required.
    • Summarize the agreed-upon decisions and action plans.

    After The Meeting

    • Distribute action plans and ensure follow-through. Share agreed-upon development, retention, and compensation actions with the relevant leaders. Include timelines, owners, and measurable outcomes.
    • Align with high-potential talent individually. Meet with high-potential employees to communicate investment and expectations, not the box label. Clarify what growth opportunities or mobility may be required.
    • Identify and mitigate pipeline risks. Highlight gaps in readiness for critical roles. Determine where successors are missing or underprepared and plan targeted interventions (development, mentoring, rotational experiences).
    • Partner with Talent Acquisition strategically. Address talent gaps the organization cannot develop internally and ensure TA understands critical roles, required competencies, and timing.
    • Prepare and communicate executive summary for CEO/Board. Summarize key insights: talent differentiation, succession readiness, pipeline risks, and investment priorities. Highlight strategic implications (e.g., risks to execution, upcoming critical role gaps).

    Common Pitfalls to Manage

    • Title and tenure bias. From year to year, 9-Box placements can, and should, change.
    • Guarding of talent. Ensure leaders understand the importance of sharing talent across the enterprise.
    • Over-labeling high potential. If everyone is high-po, nobody is high-po. Your process has failed.
    • Under-labeling low performance / no potential. Unless you have been fastidiously managing poor performers throughout the year, you should see placements here. It’s your role to make sure the difficult conversations happen.
    • “Blockers” are acceptable. Remind leaders that allowing average performers with little to no potential to remain in leadership roles is expensive and, over time, will be the cause of turnover of high potential team members who are capable of performing in those roles at an even higher level.

    Close With Action, Not Alignment

    A 9-Box without follow-through is a waste of time. By the end of the meeting, you should have:

    • Clear investment priorities by box
    • Succession implications for critical roles
    • Identified readiness and risk-of-loss concerns
    • Directionally aligned development expectations
    • Action plans with defined ownership and timelines

    If the outcome is simply “great discussion,” the effort has not been successful.

    Final Thought on Running Your First 9-Box Talent Calibration Meeting

    Your first 9-Box calibration meeting sets a precedent.

    Leaders will remember whether HR led with clarity, challenged with confidence, and anchored decisions in evidence.

    Design it accordingly. Lead it accordingly.

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  • Bad Leadership Is One of the Biggest Drivers of Burnout

    Bad Leadership Is One of the Biggest Drivers of Burnout

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    Christy Suerth, MS, SPHR, CPC, CHC

    We talk a lot about employee burnout – employee resilience, personal boundaries, and meditation apps. But what we don’t talk nearly enough about is the top driver of burnout inside organizations; i.e., leadership behavior and the psychological safety it creates (or destroys).

    The data is overwhelming:

    • 70% of team climate is influenced directly by the manager (organizational psychology research).
    • Teams with low psychological safety show significantly higher rates of stress, turnover, conflict, errors, and stalled innovation.
    • Leaders account for up to 40% of the variance in employee burnout (McKinsey).

    This isn’t about “bad apples.” It’s about leaders who were promoted without the training or support to create healthy, high-performance environments.

    And the cost is enormous.

    The Hidden Cost of Poor Leadership and Low Psychological Safety

    When psychological safety is low, employees operate under chronic threat response. And that creates a cascading set of losses:

    • Turnover: Employees leave managers, not companies.
    • Lost productivity: Chronic stress reduces cognitive capacity by up to 30%.
    • Higher healthcare premiums: Burnout costs between $4,000 and $21,000 per employee annually, depending on the level of the role.
    • Presenteeism: The “I’m here, but I’m barely functioning” cost.
    • Absenteeism: More sick days and stress-related health issues.
    • Lower innovation: People will not share new ideas if they fear being judged.
    • Slower decision-making: Teams stay quiet until asked, and escalate unnecessarily.
    • Employer brand erosion: Word spreads fast in talent markets.

    This is the Burnout Tax. A silent financial leak created by poor leadership practices.

    What Poor Leaders Consistently Miss: Psychological Safety Is the Engine of Performance

    Most leaders don’t intend to create burnout. But without training, they unintentionally:

    • react defensively
    • communicate inconsistently
    • set unclear expectations
    • reward urgency over quality
    • shut down dissent
    • ignore micro-signals of distress

    These behaviors create a low-safety environment where people simply cannot access their best thinking.

    Psychological safety is not “comfort.” It is the freedom to think, contribute, question, and take smart risks without fear. It’s the foundation of innovation, trust, and sustainable performance.

    How to Assess Psychological Safety (and Burnout Risk) in Your Organization

    Here are the tools that matter most. They are evidence-based, not trendy:

    1. Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI)

    The gold standard for measuring burnout, used globally for decades. It assesses:

    • Emotional Exhaustion
    • Depersonalization
    • Diminished Personal Accomplishment

    2. Areas of Worklife Survey (AWS)

    The workplace assessment that reveals why burnout is happening:

    • Workload
    • Control
    • Reward
    • Community
    • Fairness
    • Values alignment

    Together, MBI + AWS provide the most complete view of burnout sources.

    3. Team Interviews or Focus Groups

    Direct, human insight. The nuance you can’t get from surveys alone.

    4. Workload + Decision-Making Analysis

    This exposes:

    • bottlenecks
    • inefficient approval flows
    • unclear ownership
    • decision fatigue
    • role overload

    5. Leadership 360s

    A reality check for leaders: “How you think you’re showing up” vs. “How your team experiences you.”

    The Metrics That Matter (Including Leading Indicators)

    Most organizations rely solely on lagging indicators; i.e., the signs of burnout that appear when it’s already too late:

    • Voluntary turnover
    • Absenteeism
    • Performance drops
    • Exit interviews
    • Formal complaints

    You need these, but they won’t help you intervene early.

    Leading indicators show burnout before it erupts:

    • Increases in workload without resource adjustment
    • Slow or hesitant decision-making
    • Drop in idea-sharing or collaboration
    • More escalations from frontline teams
    • Increased conflict or defensiveness in meetings
    • Reduced participation in optional initiatives

    These indicators tell you: “A burnout storm cloud is forming. Act now.”

    The Skills Leaders Must Learn to Reduce Burnout and Build Psychological Safety

    Psychological safety improves when leaders build specific, behavior-based skills:

    • Deep listening and non-defensive communication
    • Recognizing early burnout signals
    • Giving feedback without triggering threat response
    • Facilitating inclusive conversations
    • Clarity-setting and scope control
    • Managing workload and prioritization
    • Repair conversations after harm
    • Emotional regulation under pressure
    • Coaching skills (not just directing)

    These skills are not “soft.” These are performance skills that drive execution, innovation, and results.

    A Call to Action for Organizations

    If you’re serious about improving performance and retention, and strengthening leadership effectiveness, start with a Psychological Safety & Burnout Audit that includes:

    • MBI + AWS
    • Team Interviews and Focus Groups
    • Workload & Decision-Making Analysis
    • Leadership 360s

    This gives you clear data, clear language, and a clear roadmap for targeted improvement. No guesswork. No blaming individuals. Just evidence, insight, actionable steps and opportunity.

    If you are interested in learning more about a Psychological Safety & Burnout Inventory, contact us.

    Subscribe to my LinkedIn newsletter for more.

  • Stop Burnout: Unlock Employee Innovation and Boost Productivity

    Stop Burnout: Unlock Employee Innovation and Boost Productivity

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    Christy Suerth, MS, SPHR, CPC, CHC

    Burnout isn’t about weak individuals. Burnout is a silent organizational crisis that is destroying your employees’ ability to think, innovate, and make smart decisions. For leaders demanding high performance, this is a huge financial leak.

    The system is broken, and the cost is measured in millions:

    1. Turnover Time Bomb: The moment your best people leave, you pay huge costs to replace and retrain them.
    2. Presenteeism Trap: Your people are at work, but the damage to their focus and decision-making means their output quality is low. This is worse than absenteeism because you’re paying for mediocre performance.

    Burnout is Everywhere: It’s Already in Your Company

    If you think this problem is unique to other industries, think again. Burnout is now a global epidemic that has been declared an “occupational phenomenon” by the WHO.

    • Prevalence is High: Studies consistently show that up to 70% of professionals report feeling burned out at least once in their career.
    • Managers are Hit Hardest: Middle managers, your critical layer for execution, are often the most exhausted, caught between unrealistic demands from the top and struggling teams below.
    • The Cost is Universal: Whether you’re in tech, finance, or retail, the root causes (unmanageable workload, lack of control, unfairness) exist in every organization.

    You are not immune. Your best people are likely struggling with this right now.

    The Burnout Brain Drain: Why Burnout Equals Bad Decisions

    Burnout isn’t just low energy; it’s a brain function failure that costs you millions in poor judgment:

    • Executive Functions Shut Down: The part of the brain responsible for planning, problem-solving, and good judgment struggles to work. Result: Your staff wastes time on low-priority tasks, makes costly errors, and can’t see the big picture.
    • The “Brain Fog” Trap: Focus and memory fade. If a critical email is missed, or a project detail is forgotten, it’s often the result of chronic cognitive exhaustion, not carelessness.
    • Innovation Blocked: Creativity and adaptability require a fully functioning mind. Burnout actively kills your ability to innovate and respond to market changes.

    For example, I know a CEO who has made Innovation a core company value. Yet, despite this focus, there is no measurement of employee burnout within the organization. This raises a critical question:

    How can true innovation be achieved if the company is experiencing brain drain due to unaddressed burnout?

    Without actively monitoring and addressing burnout, even the most innovative environments risk losing their best talent and stifling creativity.

    ACTION PLAN: 3 Ways Leaders Fix the Cognitive Crash

    Stop prioritizing wellness apps. Start fixing your organization’s design flaws.

    1. STOP Overload: Stop making people do two jobs. Cut non-essential work and enforce boundaries to give the brain time to recover.
    2. GIVE Control: Delegate authority and power, not just tasks. Giving employees control over how and when they work is the most powerful tool against burnout.
    3. MEASURE Risk, Not Just Engagement: Use validated burnout assessments to directly link your organizational culture issues to your turnover costs and error rates.

    Stop letting burnout drain your talent and your profits. It’s time to lead with systemic change.

    To learn more ways to fix burnout and its impact on innovation, creativity and thinking, contact us.

  • Before you Post That $100k Job, Think Again

    Before you Post That $100k Job, Think Again

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    Christy Suerth, MS, SPHR, CPC, CHC

    Why solving burnout by adding more people may cost more than fixing what’s broken.

    When teams feel stretched, hiring seems like the obvious answer. Add capacity. Lighten the load. Hit the goals.

    But what if the issue isn’t capacity? What if it’s culture?

    Before approving new headcount, leaders should pause and ask: Which of the six Areas of Worklife might be out of alignment?

    Because burnout rarely starts with individuals. It starts with systems.

    The Six Levers of Burnout

    Maslach and Leiter’s Areas of Worklife framework identifies six organizational factors that drive burnout risk:

    1. Workload – sustainable pace and realistic capacity
    2. Control – autonomy and influence over decisions
    3. Reward/Recognition – appreciation, fairness, acknowledgment
    4. Community – trust, support, and belonging
    5. Fairness – equity in workload, promotion, and decision-making
    6. Values – alignment between individual and organizational purpose

    When even one of these areas is consistently misaligned, adding more people rarely solves the problem. It just spreads the strain.

    Recognition: One of the Hidden Triggers of Burnout

    Recognition is often the quietest – but most costly – gap.

    When people feel unseen, their performance declines even if workload stays constant. Gallup’s 2024 data show employees who don’t feel recognized are 2.7x more likely to leave, and teams with low recognition experience 20% lower productivity.

    Many organizations misread this as a capacity problem and respond by hiring. But the real issue is motivational, not operational.

    Headcount Vs. Systemic Fix: A Cost Comparison

    For a mid-market company of 500 employees (average salary $100K):

    OptionCostOutcomeRisk
    Add 1 FTE$130K–$150K (salary, hiring, ramp-up)Temporary reliefRoot cause persists; burnout remains
    Address Recognition gap$40K–$60K (manager training, peer recognition tools, comms redesign)Engagement and retention gainsRequires leadership focus, not more headcount

    Even a modest recognition initiative that boosts engagement by 10% can recover $1M+ in productivity – a far higher return than hiring another employee.

    The CFO’s Math

    If just 10% of a 500-person workforce is underperforming due to burnout and low recognition:

    • That’s 50 people delivering at 80% capacity.
    • Annual productivity loss ≈ $1 million (50 × $100K × 20%).
    • Addressing recognition costs a fraction of that and pays back 10–12x ROI if engagement rebounds even halfway.

    And Recognition is only one of the six levers. Misalignment across multiple areas multiplies the financial impact.

    A Smarter Way Forward

    Before approving that next headcount request, ask: “Which area of work life might actually be out of alignment?

    Workload may be visible but Recognition, Fairness, or Control often drive the real energy drain.

    Systemic burnout requires systemic solutions. Adding people won’t heal a sub-optimal culture.

    The Leadership Imperative

    Recognition isn’t “soft.” It’s strategic.

    When leaders align all six Areas of Work Life, they don’t just prevent burnout, they protect performance, profit, and the people who make both possible.

    I help leaders quantify burnout costs before they become turnover costs. DM me if you’d like to see what that looks like in your 2025 plan.

    Sign up for my LinkedIn Newsletter.

    Learn more about the Cost of Burnout.

  • Engagement Scores Miss the Mark. How To Measure Thrivability and Prevent Burnout

    Engagement Scores Miss the Mark. How To Measure Thrivability and Prevent Burnout

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    Christy Suerth, MS, SPHR, CPC, CHC

    In boardrooms and executive team meetings, the conversation is shifting. Engagement scores miss the mark.

    I’ve seen it firsthand. I worked with a CEO who wasn’t interested in another “engagement survey.” He wanted to know something deeper: How are our people really doing?

    Just yesterday, a colleague told me his CEO asked about “thrivability.” Not retention. Not engagement. But whether employees were truly able to thrive in the culture.

    This tells me something: leaders are starting to realize that thrivability is becoming a core business metric. It’s one they can’t afford to ignore.

    Why Thrivability Matters in Preventing Burnout

    Many organizations talk about well-being. And while well-being matters, it often stops at programs or perks: meditation apps, gym memberships, wellness stipends. Well-being can mean employees are “okay.”

    Thrivability goes further. It asks: are people energized, purposeful, and contributing in ways that drive performance?

    • Retention isn’t enough. Keeping burned-out employees on the payroll costs more than turnover. Thrivability ensures people are energized, not just hanging on.
    • Innovation and agility require energy. Thriving employees contribute ideas, solve problems, and see possibilities others miss.
    • It signals cultural health. When thrivability is high, you’ll see resilience, adaptability, and trust across the organization.

    Thrivability isn’t just surviving. It’s flourishing. And that difference is what drives business outcomes.

    How to Put Thrivability into Practice

    If you’re wondering how to measure and apply this inside your organization, start small:

    1. Ask different questions. Move beyond “Are you engaged?” to “What restores your energy at work?” or “Do you feel your work matters?”
    2. Track energy as a metric. Pulse surveys at the end of the week can reveal whether teams are consistently depleted or restored.
    3. Leverage validated tools. The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and Areas of Worklife (AWL) Survey are gold standards for understanding where employees are at risk of burnout—and where thriving is most possible. Unlike engagement surveys, they identify the root causes of depletion.
    4. Link to business outcomes. Compare thrivability scores with retention, innovation metrics (patents, ideas submitted), or even customer satisfaction.
    5. Pilot with leaders. Ask managers to track team thrivability and discuss results in staff meetings—make it visible and actionable.
    6. Embed in scorecards. Thrivability deserves a spot next to revenue, margin, and customer experience. What gets measured gets managed. For more ideas, read my article about how one company used KPIs to prevent burnout.

    The Executive Imperative: Measure What Matters

    Forward-thinking CEOs are already asking their teams about thrivability.

    Because companies don’t burn out. People do. And when your people thrive, your business thrives.

    Question for Leaders:
    If you could add one thrivability measure to your scorecard tomorrow, what would it be?

    (And if you’re curious about how tools like the Maslach Burnout Inventory and Areas of Work Life Survey reveal these answers, send me a note. I’m always happy to share how organizations are using it.)

    Thrivability is quickly becoming a leading indicator of organizational performance. I believe in the next five years, boards will begin expecting it reported alongside earnings and customer growth.

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    Learn more about the cost of burnout by reading 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

    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.

  • 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.

  • Middle Managers: The Missing Link in Burnout Recovery

    Middle Managers: The Missing Link in Burnout Recovery

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    Christy Suerth, MS, SPHR, CPC, CHC

    Johnny C. Taylor, CEO of SHRM, recently offered practical advice for tackling burnout: spot the warning signs, encourage open dialogue, rebalance workloads, clarify expectations, and connect people with supportive resources like EAPs. These are important. But they’re not enough.

    There’s a blind spot in most corporate conversations around burnout and it carries real business consequences.

    We’re not talking nearly enough about middle managers.

    Middle managers are the connective tissue of every organization. They interpret strategy, drive performance, absorb change, and hold space for their teams, all while trying to meet expectations from above. They’re responsible for culture on the ground. And they’re exhausted.

    This layer of leadership is too often invisible in wellbeing strategies. We focus on frontline engagement or executive leadership development. But we forget the people holding both ends together. That’s a mistake.

    Middle managers are burning out – quietly, constantly, and in plain sight. Nearly half of U.S. middle managers now fear being laid off. Many are pushing themselves beyond what’s sustainable. They show up, stay late, skip recovery time, and carry the emotional weight of others because that’s what they think good leadership requires.

    The cost is staggering. A 2025 study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine estimates burnout costs between $4,000 and $21,000 per employee, per year. For a company of 1,000 that’s a $5 million annual loss. And that doesn’t include the ripple effects: higher turnover, lower morale, slower innovation, and culture decay.

    If we’re serious about employee wellbeing, and profitability,  we need to get serious about supporting the people in the middle.

    Let’s stop asking managers to do more with less. Let’s stop normalizing heroic over-functioning. Let’s build something better – intentionally, and with heart.

    Here’s what that could look like:

    • Wellbeing as a KPI – Track manager wellbeing alongside business outcomes. Make it a metric that matters, not a poster on the wall.
    • Confidential Peer Circles- Create trusted spaces where managers can talk, exhale, and learn from each other without fear of judgment.
    • Genuine Recognition and Real Autonomy – Acknowledge not just results, but emotional labor. Give managers more say in how work gets done.
    • Training That Feels Human – Move beyond compliance. Offer workshops that equip managers with real skills: empathy, boundaries, psychological safety.
    • Reverse Mentoring – Invite two-way conversations between managers and executives. Give middle leaders a voice, and help the C-suite listen.
    • Workload Audits – Regularly review what’s on managers’ plates. Make space by removing the non-essential.
    • Protected Recovery Time – Normalize rest. Not as a perk, but as a performance strategy. Model this from the top.
    • Leadership with Heart – When senior leaders speak openly about their own challenges with burnout, they create permission for others to be honest too.

    Here’s the truth: middle managers are holding up the scaffolding of your culture. If they collapse, everything falls.

    So, here’s my invitation: What’s one bold move your organization can make today to support its “missing middle”?

    Because if we want resilient teams and thriving workplaces, we must start by caring for the people in the middle – thoughtfully, tangibly, and without delay.