Burnout interventions often fail to work as intended because employers tend to focus on risks to individuals, rather than the organisation-wide factors that affect staff wellbeing. Sophy Pern outlines three lines of defence.
It would be hard to find a chief people officer or HR director today who does not have burnout logged as a significant risk.
Last year, top leaders across organisations such as Starbucks, Pinterest, and American Airlines quit as a result of burnout, and in January, Jacinda Ardern, the former prime minister of New Zealand was even viewed as a casualty following her resignation speech.
Burnout at work
Entire organisations are affected. In a global survey of 10,243 workers by US think-tank The Future Forum, 42% of global workers reported burnout – a 2% rise from the previous quarter and its highest figure since May 2021, during the pandemic.
Unsurprisingly, there is now a huge emphasis on wellbeing. Leading business schools such as IE University in Spain have created centres for health and wellbeing. A plethora of resilience-building modules are woven into leadership development programmes, and the growth in employee assistance programmes, mental health first aiders, and wellbeing coaches is exponential.
The effectiveness of all of this is hard to measure. But it is hard to argue that it is working. A Deloitte survey last year found that 81% of C-suite leaders identified themselves as health-savvy, while just 31% of employees agreed they were. Meanwhile, a McKinsey survey found an average 22% gap between employer and employee perception of dimensions associated with mental health and wellbeing.
Why burnout interventions aren’t working
This might be because many interventions that claim to tackle burnout are designed on the assumption that we are individuals first and social beings, or members of groups, second. Burnout is described as a personal shortcoming or failure: “Peter is suffering from burnout” is more common than “The organisation burned Peter out.”
From the “individual first” thinking comes the idea that responsibility for performance, productivity and wellbeing is primarily individual, and so naturally, when leaders want to improve things, the focus is on supporting individuals.
Yet, neuroscience tells us that our brains are social. Dr Naomi Eisenberger demonstrated this most clearly by showing that our brains treat social pain – for example, bereavement, feeling rejected, being excluded from a group or being criticised by the boss – in the same way as physical pain. In other words, the risk associated with social pain is every bit as real to our brains as physical danger.
A different way of describing burnout is to see it as a consequence of a system where people are repeatedly exposed to toxic behaviour: behaviour that is made to sound very logical and practical, but which actually makes no sense and/or serves to give options that only punish. The social pain (real or anticipated) heightens anxiety, and uncontained anxiety leads to burnout.
If we see this behaviour as the consequence of a system, it leads us to focus on what can be done at a system level to ensure that social needs are being met.
Burnout defences
We suggest three lines of defence against burnout:
- good organisational design
- good social processes
- a purpose-led strategy
All three act as containers for anxiety, reducing the likelihood of stress and burnout.
1. Good organisational design
A poorly designed organisation has roles where magic is supposed to happen. Individuals are expected to resolve organisational tensions individually (e.g. short-term/long-term trade-offs), without an organisational-level framework or agreement, or make decisions without the authority to do so, or work across a range of agendas so broad that it’s impossible to see progress in any meaningful manner.
Business and individual reviews are usually deficit-led and focus on what is not working.”
For example, a COO in a high-growth start-up feels downhearted by refusals by her colleagues to comply with new systems and standards, and feedback that she is overly bureaucratic.
Technical experts in a global advisory centre of excellence report high stress levels. They are accountable for standardising maintenance practices across 40 sites, while decisions for maintenance planning, budgets and execution are held within regional business units.
Accountability for the re-design of a global development programme is given to an individual four levels below the decision makers. They are given feedback about their inappropriate displays of frustration.
These are roles where burnout is an acute risk, regardless of individual competence and resilience. By looking for trends on where tension and anxiety are manifesting across the business and seeing it as data on organisation and role design, leaders and HR executives can make smart system-wide changes.
2. Good social processes
Good design is necessary, but not sufficient to minimise the risk of burnout. People also need regular indications that they belong, that their needs are understood and that they will not be exposed to social pain. So processes that meet those needs and foster meaningful connections and relationships across the organisation are another line of defence.
However many business rituals and routines inadvertently amplify stress and anxiety. Business and individual reviews are usually deficit-led and focus on what is not working. Town halls often involve management presenting conclusions from decision-making processes that the workforce has been excluded from. Meetings rarely include time for sense-making, and sharing emotional responses is still generally frowned upon.
Understanding what creates stress and anxiety and how to contain it is a core skill for leaders and HR executives who design, facilitate and set the tone for many of the key rituals and routines of corporate life.”
The “how” matters as much, if not more, than the “what”. Practical examples of more humanising practices include meetings with check-ins, at the beginning and throughout, so that emotions can be heard as well as logic. Protected spaces for teams to reflect on events, hear about what is going well and review how they are working together. Deliberate supportive spaces, for example, “uniting days” where middle managers meet virtually in small groups to peer coach each other.
Understanding what creates stress and anxiety and how to contain it is a core skill for leaders and HR executives who design, facilitate and set the tone for many of the key rituals and routines of corporate life.
3. A purpose-led strategy
Leaders are increasingly confronted with three main challenges – performance, transformational and existential. We are all operating against a backdrop of heightened concerns about the climate emergency and social injustice, as well as the challenges of the day in our particular organisation.
While individuals might be powerless to change the daily challenges, one way in which people cope is to periodically look up to an organisational “north star”. A purpose-led strategy helps sustain an organisation that people want to be part of, despite the challenges that they might be experiencing in their roles or day-to-day lives.
Burnout is clearly a risk and will continue to be one. A purpose-led strategy, underpinned by good design and social processes can help CEOs and HR leaders ensure that they are upholding systems that are fundamentally humanising, rather than dehumanising, and that they are taking their duty of care towards their people seriously.
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