Good morning!
Burnout isn't just an employee phenomenon. It's also permeating the C-suite.
My colleague, Trey Williams, wrote about the surge in CEO turnover last week while I dug into the burnout epidemic among CHROs and CPOs. I find the latter to be particularly fascinating—yes, I'm biased—because HR heads are the people who take care of people. That is, their fatigue has a considerable impact on an organization.
People executives are reeling from a string of crises and strategic planning: the pandemic, vaccination requirements, return-to-office decisions, social justice protests, inflation, and layoffs; need I say more? The rapid expansion of their roles to account for a fast-changing workforce and business goals is pulling them in many directions. And their exhaustion is often overlooked.
“When we try to push through the warning signs, we see higher turnover, lower productivity, and even difficulty managing teams,” says Jacqui Canney, chief people officer at enterprise software company ServiceNow (a sponsor of this newsletter). “In HR especially, our people see us as culture champions, which is great when we’re feeling good. When we’re burned out, the risk is that the whole company feels it.”
Here’s an excerpt from my latest piece for Fortune:
“In 2021, the turnover rate among Fortune 200 CHROs was 16%, according to the Talent Strategy Group’s 2022 report. That’s an 11% increase in turnover from 2020, and the figure is now likely higher, some HR heads predict.
Today’s CHROs point to deteriorating mental health as the primary reason for their swifter departures—a trend seen across the C-suite. Nearly 70% of C-suite leaders in a Deloitte survey say they’ve considered quitting their jobs in favor of new opportunities that better support their well-being, and 40% say they always or often feel overwhelmed in their roles. Twenty-six percent report struggling with depression vs. 23% for employees.
Within HR, stress is even more acute. Forty-two percent of people teams report struggling with too many projects and responsibilities, according to a survey from HR software company Lattice. Over 60% of those who report exhaustion say it’s due to overwork, while some 40% attribute it to a lack of headcount needed to achieve their goals.”
Read the full story here and learn how CHROs are dealing with seemingly unabating exhaustion.
Amber Burton
amber.burton@fortune.com
@amberbburton
