Is employee burnout affecting your workforce turnover rate?

The latest study in the employee engagement series conducted by Kronos Incorporated and Future Workplace® found 95% of human resource leaders admit employee burnout is sabotaging workforce retention, yet with no obvious solution on the horizon.

This national survey, polling 614 HR leaders in the Unites States, provided an honest insight at how burnout drives turnover, what causes it, and why there is no easy solution despite 87% of respondents calling improved retention a high or critical priority.

According to the survey, 46% say employee burnout is responsible for up to half (20 to 50 percent, specifically) of their annual workforce turnover. Not only that, almost 10% blame employee burnout for causing more than 50% of workforce turnover each year.

Though burnout touches organisations of all sizes, larger organisations seem to suffer more. One in five HR leaders at organisations with 100 to 500 employees cited burnout as the cause of 10% or less of their turnover, while 15% of HR leaders at organisations larger than 2,500 employees say burnout causes 50% or more of annual turnover.

Other findings from the survey included:

• Top three contributors to burnout are unfair compensation (41%), unreasonable workload (32%), and too much overtime / after-hours work (32%).
• HR leaders also identified key burnout factors falling under talent management, employee development, and leadership that should be in their control, including poor management (30%), employees seeing no clear connection of their role to corporate strategy (29%), and a negative workplace culture (26 percent).
• Insufficient technology for employees to do their jobs was identified by 20% of HR leaders as another primary cause of burnout. This is more prevalent at larger organisations where it was cited by 27% of respondents.

Charlie DeWitt, vice president, business development, Kronos commented: “Employee burnout has reached epidemic proportions. While many organisations take steps to manage employee fatigue, there are far fewer efforts to proactively manage burnout. Not only can employee burnout sap productivity and fuel absenteeism, but as this survey shows, it will undermine engagement and cause an organization’s top performers to leave the business altogether. This creates a never-ending cycle of disruption that makes it difficult to build the high-performing workforce needed to compete in today’s business environment.”

“Organisations should seek out and implement technology solutions that provide a proactive approach to mitigating burnout, such as the scheduling of rest during rolling periods as long as a year. Workforce analytics can also identify and alert managers to trends in scheduling and absenteeism that may indicate an employee is on the path to burnout so changes can be made,” he suggested.

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