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Tag: workplaceculture

  • How One Company Used KPIs to Reduce & Prevent Burnout

    How One Company Used KPIs to Reduce & Prevent Burnout

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    Christy Suerth, MS, SPHR, CPC, CHC

    Most organizations track employee engagement. Fewer ask: What’s driving disengagement in the first place? Spoiler alert: It is burnou

    If you’re a senior leader or HR executive, you’ve seen engagement scores that fluctuate without clear cause. You’ve launched initiatives, celebrated wins, and burnout still creeps in. That’s because engagement surveys often measure outcomes, not root causes.

    At one company, a mid-sized software company with 500 employees, HR leaders faced this exact dilemma. Engagement scores were decent, but turnover was rising, and exit interviews kept pointing to burnout. So, they tried something different.

    The Six Areas That Changed Everything

    This company adopted Maslach’s Six Areas of Worklife, a research-backed framework that identifies six key dimensions shaping the employee experience:

    1. Workload – Is the volume of work sustainable?
    2. Control – Do employees have autonomy?
    3. Reward – Are contributions recognized?
    4. Community – Is there trust and support?
    5. Fairness – Are decisions equitable?
    6. Values – Do personal and organizational values align?

    These areas were measured using a short quarterly survey and tracked in a leadership dashboard.

    From Theory to Action: The KPI Dashboard

    The HR team built a dashboard that translated each area into a leadership KPI. Here’s a snapshot:

    AreaKPI ExampleLeadership Action
    WorkloadAvg. weekly hours per teamRebalanced project timelines
    Control% employees with decision authorityDelegated sprint planning to teams
    RewardRecognition frequencyLaunched peer-to-peer kudos platform
    CommunityTeam trust scoreIntroduced monthly “team health” check-ins
    FairnessPolicy equity perceptionAudited promotion criteria
    ValuesValues alignment indexConnected work to company mission in town halls

    Within two quarters, they saw a 22% drop in voluntary turnover and a 30% increase in internal mobility. Engagement scores rose, but more importantly, leaders knew why.

    Cost-Benefit: Why It Pays Off

    Cost:

    • Survey setup (internal or via external platforms)
    • Time investment for leaders to review and act on results

    Benefits:

    • Early detection of burnout before performance dips
    • Reduced attrition – Burnout is a leading cause of exit
    • Improved engagement through targeted action
    • Leadership accountability via measurable KPIs
    • Culture transformation – From reactive to proactive

    In summary, they stopped guessing and started diagnosing.

    Why Not Just Use Engagement Surveys?

    Engagement surveys are valuable, but they’re lagging indicators. They tell you what employees feel, not why.

    For example:

    • Engagement score drops → You ask: “What happened?”
    • The Areas of Work Life Survey results show workload and fairness issues → You know exactly what to fix

    Think of Maslach’s framework as the diagnostic tool, and engagement scores as the vital signs. You need both, but only one tells you where to operate.

    Final Thought

    Burnout hits your bottom line. If you’re serious about building a resilient, high-performing culture, it’s time to evolve your metrics. Maslach’s Six Areas of Worklife offer a practical, evidence-based way to turn leadership into a measurable force for good.

    Don’t just measure engagement. Engineer it.

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  • 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.