Workday VP: ‘Addressing burnout risk requires tackling root causes rather than just symptoms’

More than a quarter (27%) of employees are at high risk of burnout this year.

That’s according to new data from $7.3bn revenue HR tech giant Workday, which analyzed data from 2.6 million individuals from 850 companies across 12 sectors.

This burnout crisis is not surprising – PwC’s 2024 Hopes & Fears Survey surveyed 56,000 workers globally and found that 45% of them are facing higher workloads than a year ago, and 62% noted a much higher pace of change at work (which 44% did not understand the purpose of).

New data from insurance company YuLife also linked burnout to work-life balance challenges – 77% of the 2,000 employees surveyed have experienced one or more symptom of burnout in the last year, and 33% said high workload was the main cause of their burnout, with 21% citing poor work-life balance.

This burnout crisis is a huge problem not just for employees, but also the wider business.

It is well-known that burnout has a knock-on impact employee engagement, satisfaction and loyalty.

Workday’s report stated that “if burnout risk is left unaddressed, this could cause problems for organizations trying to retain their best people—especially at a time when hiring someone else isn’t an option.”

This echoes previous findings from Deloitte on ‘human sustainability’.

A huge problem, according to Workday’s report, is that organizations are not aware of the scale of the burnout problem.

This is because they are measuring wellbeing by sickness and absence rate, and the uptake of employee assistance programs, and this approach isn’t necessarily accurate.

According to Workday, focusing on absence rate can mask the root causes of the burnout, which, as the PwC and YuLife data confirms, could include organizational culture and ways of working.

70% of managers told Workday they find it difficult to support their team because of organizational barriers.

At the end of the day, attending a yoga class doesn’t solve workload issues that employees are facing.

As Rich Bye, VP Global Product Vision & Strategy at Workday, shares exclusively with UNLEASH: “Addressing burnout risk requires tackling root causes rather than just symptoms.”

AI and data can help tackle burnout

Workday’s Bye calls on all business leaders, not just HR leaders, to step up on burnout; “they need to adopt a data-driven approach to measure employee sentiment”.

By doing better around data collection, companies can take more targeted actions around workload and challenging working environments.

There is also a need for more accountability around wellbeing to ensure it doesn’t slip down the business agenda.

For Workday’s Bye, “AI holds promise here”.

This is because AI allows “organizations to automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks and adjust workloads based on work patterns and other productivity data, as well as identify employees that are on the brink of burnout before it’s too late”, stated the Workday report.

The role of AI in addressing wellbeing issues is also noted in PwC’s 2024 Hopes & Fears report.

Amid heightened workplace pressures, employees are turning to new and emerging tech (like generative AI) for support. Employees are optimistic about the potential of AI to enable them to do more creative work work (73%) and to improve the quality of their work (72%).

In a recent UNLEASH interview, Slack’s SVP of Research Christina Janzer also talked about AI can drive down work-life balance, help employees manage stress and help them feel more passionate at work.

At the end of the day, Workday’s report concluded, “improving employee health and well-being is not only the right thing to do, but it can also help reduce costs associated with absenteeism and turnover, make the organization more productive as a whole, and create a culture that is more likely to attract and retain top talent for years to come.”

HR, what are you waiting for?