# The commercial impact of burnout

- **Episode:** [21](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/21.md) (2023-01-13)
- **Type:** other
- **Tags:** burnout, business-impact, costs
- **Time:** 22:01–27:15 (start 1321s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/21?t=1321](https://truthliesandwork.com/21?t=1321)

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[22:01] Leanne Elliott: Yeah. So, I mean, first of all, you know, I'd say burnout's Yeah. A huge problem. The United States, I mean, I can't speak to what the stats are in the UK or in other countries, but I know Gallup did a poll. This was in 2018, like pre-pandemic. I've got some notes here I'm referencing, but about 44% of employees said they were feeling burnt out, which, I mean, that's almost half the workforce. And around like 23% were saying they were just chronically just burnt out all the time. So it's a big issue. And obviously, I'm sure you're aware it's bad for business. I mean, it leads to turnover, absenteeism. It certainly hurts the reputation of businesses. I think we're seeing that right now a lot in healthcare in the United States. There's a lot of turnover, particularly among nurses, but also places are having trouble hiring doctors, hospitals, and larger healthcare systems have really burnt out some of those employees so much that at this point, you know, many of them have a bad reputation and are having a hard time attracting new talent. So Will covered some of the statistics there from the US, and I have dived into the recent stats for anyone who is in the UK. And typically, we see quite a lot of synergy between the UK and Europe as well. So what we know, and the these statistics are taken from the back end of 2022. We know that 1 in 5 British workers feel stressed more days and months than they don't. So high levels of stress within the British workplace. We also know that almost half of UK employees are close to burnout. According to research conducted by Westfield Health, 46% of UK workers are close to burnout. And if we're looking for that commercial case as well, it's estimated 13.7 million workdays are lost every year in the UK alone due to work-related stress, anxiety, and depression, costing an unbelievable £28.3 billion in lost productivity
[24:14] Al Elliott: That's a lot of money. So I think we're building the business case to manage stress and to look out for burnout
[24:20] Leanne Elliott: We are. And Kate was also very clear on the commercial case for preventing burnout. Here's Kate. Latest Gallup Gallup poll showed that disengaged workers are costing the global workplaces $7.8 trillion a year. If that's not reason enough, I don't know what is. The first thing you do when you are overly stressed and burnt out is disengage. You quiet quit. You pull yourself out of everything that you possibly can, and you do the bare minimum because that is quite literally all you can handle. On top of that, I think we have another 3.7 billion being spent on mental health issues in the workplace. Burnout is related. So I just think that the basic cost of not dealing with burnout is so, so high, and it's been calculated a million times over in a million different ways. So to me, there's like nothing left to talk about. It's a financial issue as well as a health risk and everything else. But the people that are doing it well are people that just remember that the people that work for them are human
[25:21] Al Elliott: Yeah
[25:22] Leanne Elliott: At the bottom of all of this, putting aside business rules for a moment and saying, hey, what's going on with you? You okay? So, at a macro level, we can see very clearly a commercial case for helping our employees with their wellbeing, creating environments in which people can thrive. But let's make that a bit more tangible for business leaders out there. What does it actually mean for you and your business? These statistics come from our guest Sally and her research, The State of Workplace Burnout 2020. What they found is that people who are not burnt out, so people who are experiencing positive well-being, are 49% more engaged. That means lower turnover and less quiet quitting. They feel 50% more psychological safety. That means increased innovation and creativity, better problem solving. 30% have a higher sense of belonging. That means not only are they committed to your organisation, but they're going to advocate for your organisation. They're going to work. Proactively to get other great people into your business. 50% of people experiencing burnout also said that they're much less productive. So if you're seeing signs of productivity going down, efficiency going down, chances are your people are burning out. Asking them to work long— longer and harder is not going to make a difference. And finally, people who are experiencing burnt out reported 47% lower quality of work. So even if they are working harder, even if they are putting the hours in, the quality of work isn't going to be there
[26:51] Al Elliott: And that means unhappy customers, less So clearly, this is a business case for managing stress. Yes, there are gonna be people who are gonna be trying it on and trying to get sick leave, but you know who they are. The real people who are genuine and just are overwhelmed, are burnt out, are stressed. We need to look after these people because it's costing us business owners, it's costing us money and a lot of it