Employee Burnout: Signs, Causes, and What HR Can Do

Employee burnout is a business-critical workforce crisis that impacts retention, healthcare costs, and overall organizational stability. According to a 2025 study commissioned by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Spring Health, 65% of employees report being as stressed or more stressed than they were five years ago.

For HR and benefits leaders, the challenge is shifting from reactive individual support to proactive organizational change. Enhanced EAPs and more robust mental health solutions can provide the framework for that organizational change. 

This guide provides the operational framework you need to identify systemic risks, support your managers, and build a prevention strategy that protects your people and your bottom line.

What is employee burnout?

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines burnout as a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is important to note that this definition places the responsibility on the environment and management of stress, rather than solely on the individual.

Burnout is characterized by three distinct dimensions:

1. Exhaustion: Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion.
2. Cynicism: Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job.
3. Inefficacy: Reduced professional efficacy.

Burnout vs. stress: What is the difference?

While often used interchangeably, stress and burnout are different. Stress involves too much: Too many pressures that demand too much of you physically and mentally. Stressed employees can still imagine that if they can just get everything under control, they will feel better.

Burnout is about not enough. Burnout involves feeling empty, devoid of motivation, and beyond caring. People experiencing burnout often do not see any hope of positive change in their situations. If excessive stress feels like drowning in responsibilities, burnout is being all dried up.

Signs and symptoms of employee burnout

Identifying burnout requires looking beyond simple fatigue. HR leaders and managers must be trained to spot behavioral and performance changes that indicate an employee has moved past stress into burnout.

Emotional and cognitive signs

• Detachment: A sense of disconnection from others or the environment.
• Loss of motivation: Lack of enthusiasm for work that used to be engaging.
• Cynicism: A negative or critical attitude toward the job, colleagues, or the organization.
• Decreased satisfaction: Feeling little to no sense of accomplishment.

Physical and behavioral signs

• Fatigue: Chronic tiredness that sleep does not cure.
• Change in habits: Impacts appetite, restlessness, or sleep patterns.
• Isolation: Withdrawing from team interactions or social support.
• Procrastination: Taking longer to get started or finish tasks.

Observable signals for managers
Your managers are the frontline defense. Empower them with the training and confidence they need to identify these specific changes in their direct reports:

• Increased absenteeism: Calling in sick more frequently or arriving late consistently.
• Withdrawal: Turning cameras off in meetings, staying silent during brainstorming, observable change in ability to focus, or interacting less with co-workers. 
• Errors: An uptick in uncharacteristic mistakes or missed deadlines.
• Conflict: Increased irritability or impatience with coworkers or clients.

Safety callout: If an employee expresses feelings of hopelessness or you suspect they may be in danger, do not attempt to diagnose or treat them yourself. Encourage professional support immediately and follow your organization's crisis protocols. This content is for informational purposes and is not medical advice.

Common causes of employee burnout

Burnout is rarely caused by a single factor. It typically stems from a combination of systemic organizational drivers and external stressors.

These are factors within the organization's control. When these "work design" elements are imbalanced, burnout risk increases significantly.

• Unmanageable workload: When the volume or complexity of work exceeds the human capacity to perform it.
• Lack of autonomy: Feeling micromanaged or lacking control over resources and decisions.
• Reward mismatch: Insufficient recognition or compensation for the work performed.
• Breakdown of community: A lack of support, trust, or unresolved conflict within teams.
• Lack of fairness: Perceived inequities in workload, pay, or promotions.
• Values conflict: A mismatch between the employee’s values and the organization’s actions.

Why employee burnout is an organizational risk

Treating burnout as an individual problem ignores the massive cost to the business. When your workforce is burned out, the organization bleeds talent, productivity, and money.

The financial impact
Burnout costs the U.S. healthcare system at least $4.6 billion annually, according to a JAMA Network report. This figure does not even account for the indirect costs of lost productivity and turnover.

Health and safety risks
Employees experiencing burnout face serious health risks that directly impact claims data and leaves of absence. They have a 57 % increased risk of workplace absence greater than two weeks due to illness.

Retention and talent risks
Burnout is a primary driver of turnover. Burned-out employees are 2.8 times more likely to be actively searching for a new job.

Why mental health access matters to reduce burnout

Burnout isn’t a clinical diagnosis, but it can overlap with symptoms of anxiety and depression, such as sleep disruption, difficulty concentrating, irritability, and hopelessness. That’s why employer response has to be twofold: Reduce the organizational drivers, and make it easy for employees to get confidential, evidence-based support when they need it.

HR and managers shouldn’t diagnose. Your role is to notice changes, reduce load where possible, and connect employees to the right level of care early before burnout escalates into leave, turnover, or a mental health crisis.

How HR and benefits teams can diagnose burnout in your organization

You cannot manage what you do not measure. HR leaders need a diagnostic approach to identify burnout hotspots before they become resignation waves.

• Absenteeism trends: Look for patterns, such as increased sick days on Mondays or Fridays.
• Unplanned Leave of Absence (LOA) volume: Track the duration and frequency of short-term disability claims related to mental health or stress.
• Turnover hotspots: Identify specific departments or managers with higher-than-average attrition rates.
• Engagement dips: Analyze pulse survey data for drops in sentiment regarding "workload" or "support."
• Internal mobility stagnation: A lack of movement can indicate employees are too exhausted to seek growth.
• Healthcare utilization: High-level claims data showing increases in hypertension, sleep aids, or mental health diagnosis codes.
• Overtime and coverage: Consistent reliance on overtime or difficulty covering shifts indicates resource strain.

Do not look at the data in aggregate only. Segment your data to find the hidden pockets of risk:

• By manager: Is one leader burning out their team?
• By role type: Are customer-facing roles suffering more?
• By tenure: Are you burning out new hires in the first year, or losing tenured institutional knowledge?
• By location: Do remote employees feel more isolated and burned out than hybrid teams?

8 high-impact actions employers can take to address burnout

Prevention requires shifting from "perks" to "infrastructure." Here is an action plan for HR leaders.

Benefits infrastructure

1. Integrated mental healthcare: Treat mental health benefits as infrastructure: 

• Fast access
• Guided matching
• Continuity of care

When support is hard to find or slow to access, employees wait until problems become acute — and burnout becomes a retention and LOA issue.

2. PTO utilization: Track who is not taking time off. Managers should proactively encourage high performers to disconnect before they crash. 

Work design & structure

3. Capacity planning: Stop treating capacity as infinite. Require leaders to audit team workloads quarterly. If a new priority is added, clarify what is being deprioritized.
4. Job clarity: Ensure every role has a clear scope. Ambiguity is a major driver of cognitive fatigue. Update job descriptions to reflect the actual work being done.

Manager enablement

5. Training and scripts: Provide managers with specific training on how to spot burnout and script templates for having difficult conversations about workload.
6. Protect the managers: Remember, managers can reach burnout too. Ensure your managers have their own support systems and reasonable spans of control.

Culture & norms

7. Meeting hygiene: a calendar full of back-to-back meetings prevents deep work and increases stress. Institute "no-meeting" blocks or shorten standard meeting times to allow for breaks.
8. Belonging strategies: Belonging is protective. Employees with a strong sense of belonging are 2.5 times less likely to feel burned out. Foster connection through ERGs and mentorship programs. 

When burnout is already at a crisis point

Prevention is ideal, but sometimes the fire is already burning. When you identify an employee or a team in crisis, you need a triage protocol.

Triage steps for HR

1. Immediate safety check: If the employee is in acute distress, ensure they have immediate access to crisis resources.
2. Resource navigation: Do not just send a link. Walk them through how to access therapy or coaching.
3. Workload removal: Immediately reassign urgent tasks. The employee cannot recover if the pile of work is waiting for them.
4. Continuity of care: Ensure the benefits solution supports longitudinal care. Crisis support is step one, but recovery takes time.

What to look for in burnout support inside mental health benefits

Not all mental health benefits can handle the complexity of organizational burnout. HR leaders should evaluate solutions based on these criteria:

• Speed to care: Can employees get an appointment within 24 hours?
• Navigation and triage: Does the solution help employees find the right level of care (coaching vs. therapy vs. medication management)?
• Single point of contact: Employees are far more likely to follow through when care navigation is built in (not a list of phone numbers).
• Evidence-based care: Are the providers vetted and using clinical best practices?
• Acuity spectrum: Can the solution handle everything from mild stress management to acute clinical needs?
• Privacy-safe reporting: Can HR leaders see aggregate data to identify organizational risks without violating privacy?
• Validated ROI: Does the mental health solution provide independent validation of their financial and clinical outcomes?

Take the next step in fighting burnout

Burnout is a systemic issue that requires a systemic solution. Equip your organization with the data, tools, and care infrastructure needed to build a resilient workforce.

Related resources

• Download the Employee Burnout Guide
• How HR Leaders Can Tackle Employee Burnout
• Why Burnout is an Organizational Risk
• 7 Employee Engagement Strategies for Burnout Prevention
• Belonging as a Burnout Solution

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FAQs

What is employee burnout?
Employee burnout is a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterized by feelings of exhaustion, increased mental distance or cynicism regarding one’s job, and reduced professional efficacy.

How do you know if employees are burned out?
Look for changes in behavior such as increased absenteeism, withdrawal from team activities, a drop in work quality, and expressions of cynicism. Physical signs can include chronic fatigue and visible changes in health.

What is the difference between burnout and stress?
Stress is characterized by too much—too many pressures and demands. Burnout is characterized by not enough—feeling empty, exhausted, and devoid of motivation. Stress can lead to burnout, but burnout is a more severe state of detachment.

Can burnout lead to a leave of absence?
Yes. Burnout is associated with a 57% increased risk of workplace absence greater than two weeks. Untreated burnout can lead to severe physical and mental health conditions that require extended leave.

What should managers do to prevent burnout?
Managers should hold regular check-ins focused on wellbeing, not just tasks. They should model healthy boundaries (like not sending emails at night), advocate for realistic workloads, and connect employees to resources early.