Burnout: The decline in employee wellbeing

Productivity pressures are increasing. Skills gaps are widening. Roles are shifting faster than we can redefine them. And AI is rapidly reshaping how we think about work itself. It's all having a measurable impact on the workforce - employee engagement has fallen to pandemic-era lows, with just 21% of workers considered engaged in 2025 (Gallup).  

Though stress at work is often dismissed as just “part of the job,” there’s a real danger in normalizing the background burnout we’re seeing today. One in five workers globally say their job negatively affects their mental health – a clear signal that wellbeing needs to be prioritized by organisations (SHRM, 2025). 

Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2025 reinforces the picture: 

• 58% of employees worldwide are struggling
• While 9% are actively suffering at work

That’s appalling. If you’re in HR, you’re likely here because on a human level, you care about people - we should aspire to reduce and remove harm wherever possible. But even for those outside the function, who might put results above human impact, there’s also a business imperative: poor mental health directly undermines engagement, productivity, and retention.

The impact on younger employees:  
 

This year’s 2025 Mental State of The World Report further reinforces Gallup’s stats by highlighting a worrying wellbeing trend among younger generations. Gen Z (or workers under 30) are displaying a steep drop in mental health and experiencing ‘functionally debilitating struggles or distress’. In fact, the mental health of the world is worsening with every new generation – and that makes prioritizing employee health and wellbeing crucial for those futureproofing their workplaces.

SHRM’s 2025 research further highlights the scale of the challenge: 

• 31% of U.S. workers report feeling stressed by their job
• 30% would even take a pay cut for better mental health support 

As older employees move towards retirement, you can expect these numbers to go up, with your replacement workforce to become increasingly in need of support.  

Managers and the impact of split responsibilities: 
 

The specific impact of burnout on managers is well documented. Managers feel themselves to be under even greater pressure than other employee groups – a concern given their pivotal role as the link between organisational strategy and day-to-day delivery. Gallup finds that managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement, which directly shapes the performance of other employees – and your overall productivity. 

So how did we get here? The global push to reduce manager numbers has left many organisations without ‘professional managers’. Where management was once considered a goal in itself, today’s managers are almost always expected to balance a specialist role alongside their leadership responsibilities. 

On its own, that might not be unworkable. But add rising economic uncertainty, the impact of the pandemic, and the rise of matrix working as a cost-saving strategy, and many managers now find themselves leading teams of 10–20 people. But only 44% of them say they have received formal training for their role (Gallup, 2025).  

If we are to re-engage managers we either need to fundamentally rethink the role, or to give them the tools, training and time to do their jobs properly. The current system leaves managers overburdened, and employees under-supported. Is it any wonder that engagement is in sharp decline?