When we talk about HR burnout, the conversation almost always falls into the category of wellbeing. We speak about overwhelm, exhaustion, emotional labour and stress.
But the truth is far starker than that because the invisible weight HR leaders carry is actually a tangible business risk.
In a recent Brave Next Step podcast episode, I opened with a question aimed directly at CEOs and Managing Directors: How is your HR leader actually doing?
And I suspect most business leaders will hesitate to answer, not because they don’t care, but because they haven’t checked.
Because HR is the function expected to absorb change, shield the business from risk, mediate conflict, drive culture, handle the messiness of human behaviour and hold everyone else together in the process. We all too readily assume they are doing just fine. And the dichotomy? People professionals will rarely seek support, as they are so focussed on ensuring everyone else is okay.
HR’s hidden burden
HR leaders and teams carry an unseen burden; an emotional load that no one acknowledges. It’s there because they are dealing with more complexity than ever:
Restructures, grievances, investigations, tribunals, employee trauma and mental health, cultural and behavioural change, constant conflict resolution. It’s all going on and it’s all on the increase.
In the podcast, I talked about the data: 93% of HR professionals are experiencing burnout, and nearly half are considering leaving the profession altogether.
These aren’t soft indicators of stress. They’re flashing red lights.
And yet organisations still treat HR burnout as a personal resilience issue, as if the solution lies in setting boundaries, taking annual leave or simply resting!
But I think this is missing a fundamental fact. The problem is one of a business-wide nature. How HR are doing, is a mirror image of how your business is doing. If HR is under pressure, then so are your leaders, your employees and your business.
The action for CEOs
It’s time for CEOs to listen and act. If your HR leader is stretched to breaking point, you’re not just at risk of losing a key member of the senior team, you’re at risk of compromising the very systems that protect your organisation.
When HR is depleted, change programmes stall, cultural issues go unchallenged and business risks increase because decision-making becomes reactive, potentially then causing even more cultural issues and conflict. This in turn weakens leadership capability which then erodes employee trust.
You simply cannot build, scale or stabilise a business without functioning, supported HR leadership. It’s not a nice-to-have, it is the backbone that enables every other part of the organisation to perform.
In a recent episode of The Brave Next Step podcast, I talk about my own experience which informs the opinions I’m sharing here. Ten years ago, I left the HR profession following my own experience of burnout. I was leading restructuring after restructuring, absorbing the emotional distress of every leader around me, and acting as the organisational shock absorber while having nowhere to go to share any of it.
In my case, I’m grateful for where that experience eventually took me but it should never have unfolded the way it did and certainly shouldn’t be happening, in the same way, to HR leaders today.
What’s next?
I think the time has come for CEOs and boards to start seeing HR’s invisible weight for what it is: a strategic risk that requires a strategic solution.
By supporting your HR leaders to access structured, emotionally safe, professionally facilitated spaces to process the load they carry, you send the signal that it’s not only acceptable, but expected that they be protected in the way they protect everyone else.
You can hear a lot more on this topic by listening to The Brave Next Step episode I recorded recently. And you can find out about the Mind Values Leadership solution to the problem by visiting The HR Space.