The UK is grappling with a quiet burnout epidemic that is eroding the mental health of our workforce and harming productivity. And it’s getting worse.
Fixing this should be an urgent priority for business leaders and HR teams around the country. But it shouldn’t require paying for an expensive wellness consultant. Here’s how bad the problem is and my ideas for fixing it.
The smouldering rise of burnout
The numbers are startling. Employment Hero’s Wellbeing at Work report revealed that a staggering 65% of UK workers have experienced burnout in the last three months—a figure that has risen by 11 percentage points since we asked it last in 2022. That equates to over 16 million full-time employees experiencing burnout very recently.
Behind this number are other worrying ones. One in five workers now rate their work-life balance as poor or very poor, up from 14% in 2022. More alarmingly, 57% of workers reported feeling stressed multiple days each week, and 15% said they experience stress every single day.
And burnout is not just a personal problem, but one that is harming the whole economy. One in three workers (35%) say they have taken leave due to stress or burnout. Our own data shows a doubling in the number of leave days taken for the three month period of our survey compared to the same period last year.
What burnout is and isn’t
Before I talk about how we should fix this, we should make clear what burnout is and what it isn’t.
Burnout isn’t having a stressful day near the end of a big project or when a sudden issue arises. That’s a normal part of the work world. Burnout also isn’t a single employee who can’t manage deadlines well. It’s not even feeling tired at the end of a busy week – again, a completely normal response to working.
Burnout is when that sense of stress doesn’t go away with rest. It’s when the employee feels that nothing they are doing is making any difference at all. It’s the sense of overwork that fills them with dread and gives them anxiety, eating into the time they need for recharging at home.
How you can help as an employer
Fixing this will require some action as an employer. Nearly half (48%) of survey participants rated their employer’s commitment to overall health and wellbeing as average or poor. This comes despite a recent rise in employers investing in wellbeing tools like employee assistance programmes.
The first thing you can do is actually assess whether there is a problem in your workplace. Asking people about workloads in one-to-one catch-ups and monitoring this is one way, but some employees may be tempted to put on a brave face, so as to not seem behind or incompetent. In this case, anonymised surveys may be your best bet. That way, workers can be honest without the worry that their boss is mentoring the answers.
The hope is that this data will give you an idea of how bad the workload is, and help you identify the root cause.
This isn’t always about taking work away from people (although an overwhelming to do list could be the root cause), it could also be about making work feel more manageable. To help with this, make sure all tasks have a clear and explainable rationale when commissioned, so employees never feel like they are wasting time for the whims of senior leadership.
There’s a growing assumption that Gen Z are work shy, but our survey found the opposite. Although Gen Z employees were the most likely to say they were burnt out, they were also far more likely to say they wanted more work. Employees don’t want less responsibility, they want more meaningful work. They want to feel like they’re making an impact.
Finally, think about how flexible you are an employer. Adding a stressful and expensive commute could be the thing that is turning regular stress into burnout, especially if employees have to stay late. Giving them agency over where they work with a hybrid or fully remote setup will give them that feeling of control which is great at taming burnout.
Why we all have to act
The consequences of ignoring this rising rate of burnout are severe—not just for individual employees but for the economy as a whole. As burnout rates continue to rise, so too will absenteeism and turnover. If we get a handle on it we won’t just have a happier workforce, but also a more productive one better able to help the UK compete on the world stage. We will only be able to do this if we acknowledge this is a real problem – not just a case of young people needing to harden up – and act accordingly.
Kevin Fitzgerald
Kevin Fitzgerald is the Managing Director for the UK at Employment Hero, where he is dedicated to empowering SMEs through strategic HR technology and developing a skilled workforce. With extensive experience in HR systems, Kevin combines his financial expertise as an ACCA-qualified accountant with leadership roles across the tech industry, including spearheading Xero's growth in Asia. Kevin brings a global perspective from his career in the UK, Australia, and Singapore, guiding Employment Hero's mission to support UK businesses and strengthen their HR capabilities.