Widespread burnout among healthcare workers continues to play
a role in the overall condition of the industry’s workforce. In research focused on the healthcare talent landscape, Huron asked staff and managers how burnout affected their work.
Details emerge on the severity of burnout and the factors contributing to employees’ exhaustion and stress.
Nurse burnout and physician burnout remain significant. Healthcare staff members have even higher stress levels. However, managers bear more of the burden than organizations may realize.
Get the Research
Breaking Down
Burnout in Healthcare
Huron conducted unique research to understand what workplace factors influence recruitment and retention among healthcare staff, nurses, and clinicians and whether leaders focus on the correct elements. The insight goes beyond burnout
and surfaces opportunities to rethink how they approach their talent strategies.
Comprehensive View of Healthcare Talent
A Quick Look at Healthcare Worker
Burnout: Severity, Causes, and Solutions
Nearly a third of healthcare workers may be ready to leave their jobs.
Good leadership doesn’t happen overnight. There are areas organizations can focus on now as they work on revising talent strategies to meet market demands and help
managers guide their teams through a changing workplace.
A culture that collectively supports work-life balance benefits everyone, including leaders. Empowering leaders to make decisions is critical, as is helping leaders be more efficient in their work. Below are focus areas to drive change:
Burnout Solutions and Support
for Healthcare Managers
Nurse
Healthcare Burnout by Function
of healthcare
workers experience burnout
64%
Healthcare Worker Burnout
Is Frequent and Persistent
The results of Huron’s research reflect the general understanding that most healthcare workers feel burned out, and many have considered leaving their jobs.
Respondents that report feeling burned out more than a few times over the
last six months:
60%
Physician
53%
Staff
61%
of burned-out respondents are considering leaving their current position in the next 12 months.
31%
of healthcare managers report feeling burned out.
71%
Managers report the highest levels of burnout among healthcare workers.
Staff and managers share drivers of burnout that include emotional exhaustion and stress, an unmanageable workload, a lack of control or flexibility over their schedule, unclear growth opportunities, long hours, and outside circumstances unrelated to work.
For managers, several factors appear as the top experiences influencing tension at work:
Role modeling starts at the top. When desired behaviors are ignored, it sends mixed messages to teams. Leaders should be committed and transparent to respecting work hours, taking time off, and promoting well-being. Dedicated time off is particularly important for managers and administrative leaders who may feel they are never “off the clock” in comparison with clinical colleagues.
Additionally, in Huron’s research, factors such as scheduling flexibility and mental health and wellness surfaced as opportunities to improve employee engagement.
Helps address: workload and long hours, work-life balance, lack of breaks
Digital-first
thinking
Consistent
rounding
Relentless
role modeling
Relentless role modeling
Regular, planned check-ins with management build a foundation of trust and strengthen relationships. Executive leadership should be rounding on all levels
of management with a commitment to react to feedback. Regular check-ins are
most effective when leaders standardize when they will round and how they will report back to managers regarding their input — being intentional in sharing the reason behind why ideas may or may not progress.
Helps address: Not feeling listened to, lack of communication, stress
from outside work
Consistent rounding
How often do organizations and teams fall into the trap of doing tasks a certain way because that’s the way it’s always been done? Rethinking work, workflows, and the “jobs to be done” of an organization, with technology at the forefront, is the most powerful way to reduce workload.
Organizations should be relentlessly focused on using digital tools and data to build “stop doing” lists so workers can focus more on meaningful tasks and innovation.
Even tools as ingrained as email can be tweaked with intentionally compassionate strategies that not only lessen burnout but improve performance.
Helps address: Inadequate tech or equipment to do the job, not feeling listened to, workload and long hours
Digital-first thinking
An unmanageable workload is by far the most significant stressor for clinical care managers.
Not feeling listened to is a top concern for management in multiple functions.
Emotional exhaustion or stress ranked for three of the five management functions.
The pressure of being a manager in the healthcare industry is a rising concern for organizations already grappling with workforce shortages and rising costs.
Management’s Top
Burnout Factors
Lack of breaks or
ability to take breaks
Inadequate tech
or equipment to perform job
Not feeling
listened to
Lack of clear communication
from leadership
What's causing healthcare worker burnout?