HR teams have always had high burnout and turnover rates. Back in 2022, HR Executive’s Kathryn Mayer penned a detailed piece about the problem, which she linked to the Covid pandemic and ensuing ‘great resignation’.
But the pandemic can’t have been the sole driver, because we still have an HR burnout problem and it does appear to be getting markedly worse.
Increased workloads, regulatory pressure and the burden of administrative tasks seems to be plunging many HR teams into crisis, with a recent study from Personio (n=500) showing that approx. 54% of HR professionals had experienced burnout in the last year, with 34% planning to quit the industry altogether.
Ancillary evidence suggests that this isn’t a trend limited to the lower echelons of the HR hierarchy either. A recent Gartner report, quoted by Raconteur, found that 45% of chief HR officers and other senior HR figures were struggling to cope with the demands on their time.
Now, this is obviously a huge problem. Hiring and training HR teams costs a lot of money, the HR teams themselves fulfill a number of increasingly vital functions, and having clear-eyed, alert and engaged team leaders is pivotal to the success of most organisations.
This emerging trend, which risks making burnout and resignation the ‘new normal’ for HR departments, is an existential threat to the growth of public and private sector businesses across the UK, which is why we’ve produced this top-level summary of the problem; profiling the extent of the problem, and looking at some of the likely consequences.
This piece will form part of a larger, overarching series on tackling the HR burnout crisis.
Before we go any further, it’s important to make sure we have a shared definition of burnout. There is still a tendency to conflate burnout with temporary feelings of stress or fatigue, which does lead some executives to either dismiss or underestimate the impact of the problem.
According to Mental Health UK (and the WHO, whose definition they have borrowed) occupational burnout is a state of chronic mental, physical and/or emotional exhaustion that builds gradually, and can lead to the development of serious mental health conditions like depression or anxiety.
Generally speaking, experts think that burnout is normally caused by long-term stress and pressure.
In all honesty, the prognosis seems pretty grim. We’ve already cited studies showing that 54% of HR professionals have experienced burnout, and that a further 34% are actively planning to quit the industry altogether due to the stresses of their job.
But other, slightly older but more comprehensive studies show that up to half of all HR professionals have actually considered quitting due to burnout within the last two years.
And the problem may be even worse than that: Other, slightly less rigorous studies reviewed by HR Review paint an even more bleak picture, suggesting that as many as 98% of HR professionals have struggled with burnout in the last six months. Obviously something like burnout is hard to quantify and the results of any burnout study will vary depending on the HR departments, and organisations, included but it’s pretty safe to say that there is a significant and worsening problem.
The immediate knock-on effect is that people are taking more time off work; according to HR Magazine, HR managers are the workers most likely to take time off with stress, with 35% requesting leave for the problem at some point in the last 10 months. The long term effect is that they eventually leave the profession, gutting departments and exposing organisations to the risk of understaffing.
The Garner report that we quoted earlier suggests that 55% of HR team leaders are now struggling to cover gaps in their workforce, and keep their department running properly.
The evidence suggests that the problem is multifactorial. The stress imposed by the pandemic has receded, but employers implementing return to office policies is a key driver, as is a marked increase in the number of employee relations cases that HR professionals are having to deal with.
In fact, 37% of HR professionals say they’re dealing with a ‘significant’ increase in the number of ER cases that land on their desk, which is a big problem in its own right, but as we said, the problem is multifactorial, and staff are also dealing with:
Additional workloads and new demands have added to the stress of HR staff, particularly in medium sized companies with a small in-house team. Generalist HR professionals are having to deal with an ever-increasing list of responsibilities such as mental health, employee engagement and diversity and inclusion.
In a Raconteur article from 2023, Jarir Mallah, HR specialist at the language learning app Ling, comments, “Human resources teams, especially in SMEs, are overloaded with roles and duties that would be designated to specialists in a large company. Suddenly I find myself in charge of accounting and payroll. I’m the diversity adviser, HR adviser, policy director, interviewer – and the list goes on.”
Compliance is a word that strikes fear into staff in many professions, but HR teams have been burdened by more regulations than most and it’s only going to get more onerous. According to People Management, the new Employment Rights Bill, currently passing through parliament, is the number one concern for HR teams in 2025.
The headline changes in the legislation are the proposed introduction of day-one rights to unfair dismissal and statutory sick pay. HR experts are concerned about increased tribunal cases, the financial implications and the workload involved in updating policies and training managers across the organisation to bring them up to speed.
But even before the new legislation kicks in, HR professionals have a constant battle to keep up to date with the frequent additions and changes to employment laws in the UK. For example, flexible working rights and parental leave changed last year.
In an article by Hunter Adams, it’s stated that the most challenging issues are unfair dismissals, discrimination and working hours. Again, the strain tends to be felt disproportionately in smaller companies, where the responsibilities are the same as in large enterprises, but the teams dealing with the implementation are smaller and may lack specialist skills and knowledge.
Of course, as burnout nudges staff out of the HR workforce, the remaining team members end up shouldering a greater load while team leaders struggle to recruit sufficient staff. Clearly, this situation exacerbates the problem and can lead to increasing levels of stress and ultimately burnout among those who are trying to keep on top of the growing task mountain.
Skills shortages are currently hitting most professions, with recruiters finding it extremely difficult to fill the knowledge gap left by older employees. In addition the high turnover of younger, Gen Z, workers is causing additional stress for HR and line managers.
HR teams are not alone in complaining about having too much admin work taking up time that would be better spent on more productive, more strategic tasks. However, one survey estimated that a fifth of all HR time is spent on administration.
As technology, and AI in particular, develops there may be light at the end of the tunnel for HR teams. Automating the most mundane, routine tasks could take away some of the stress related to sheer volume of work and potentially increase job satisfaction.
However, in the meantime technology can create stress in its own right, as employees are contactable outside working hours and feel pressure to check in and respond when they should be taking the time to relax and recharge. The subsequent lack of work-life balance can be another contributor to burnout.
While technology can reduce tedious activities, it can also cause staff to feel less engaged as the human touch is removed from training or work allocation and management becomes less personalised.
A report by Cezanne points out the consequences of HR burnout beyond the individual. If the mental and physical health of HR professionals are suffering, they are less able to support the organisation’s employees in general, affecting the wellbeing of the entire company.
If organisations are not looking after their HR people, who is going to look after all the other people? The knock on effect can impact recruitment, retention, compliance and the overall culture of a business, causing a long-term decline in performance. Therefore the problem needs to be taken seriously at the highest level before it hits the bottom line.
Senior managers across all departments therefore need to be aware of the numerous adverse effects of HR burnout. In the short-term, high burnout rates lead to increased time off for stress, resulting in understaffing and difficulty covering workforce gaps, with HR team leaders struggling to maintain departmental functionality.
The long-term consequence is a high turnover rate, which decimates HR departments and exposes organisations to chronic understaffing. Ultimately the effects are felt across all departments as the level of people support is reduced and the organisation as a whole suffers.