The HR burnout crisis and what it means for your organisation
A new survey from PersonnelToday has landed, and the numbers should stop every senior leader in theirtracks.
Three in five HRprofessionals have seriously considered leaving their role in the past 12months. Not idly wondering whatelse is out there but seriously considering it. The primary drivers?Unsustainable workloads, poorly integrated systems bleeding hours from alreadystretched days, and a persistent lack of support from senior leadership. Thisisn't a temporary issue, it's a profession in crisis.
The quiet collapse nobody's talkingabout
The uncomfortable paradox atthe heart of this data is the very people responsible for supporting employeewellbeing across your organisation are themselves running on empty.
Recent research from the2025 HR Mental Wellbeing Report found that 87% of HR professionals don't feelsufficiently supported at work, and 63% said they were very likely experiencingburnout. A further 15% reported being at risk meaning nearly four in five HRprofessionals are either burned out or heading there and according to PeopleManagement, 61% of people professionals say that by the time they've supportedeveryone else's wellbeing, there's little energy left for their own.
Think about that for amoment - the people holding your organisation's wellbeing strategy together arethemselves depleted, unacknowledged, and increasingly invisible.
The systems are broken and everyoneknows it
Workload alone doesn'texplain the scale of this crisis. The Personnel Today survey points tosomething more systemic: HR professionals are losing on average half a workingday every week to poorly integrated systems. That's time that could be spent onmeaningful work - culture building, leadership development, genuine employeesupport - instead burned on workarounds and inefficiencies that everyone knowsexist and nobody has fixed.
Meanwhile, 91% of HR teamsreport an increase in workload and hours. Nearly all HR leaders (95%) say theirresponsibilities have expanded, yet resourcing has not kept pace. The gapbetween what's expected and what's possible has become a chasm. This isn’t amotivation problem, it's a structural one.
The business risk nobody wantsto name
When we talk about talentretention risk, we rarely talk about HR talent. Yet the downstream consequencesof losing experienced HR professionals or worse, keeping them in post whilethey quietly disengage, are significant.
Who onboards your newmanagers? Who handles your grievances and disciplinary processes? Who holdsyour culture together through periods of change? Who supports your peoplethrough redundancy, restructuring, or leadership transitions? - HR does andright now, HR is struggling.
People Management's researchfound that 46% of UK HR professionals have named burnout as the biggestbusiness risk heading into 2026. Not AI disruption, not skills gaps, noteconomic uncertainty. Burnout – and in many cases, their own.
The leadership problem hiddenin plain sight
The Personnel Today datapoints to poor leadership, morale, and engagement as a significant driver of HRprofessionals' intention to leave, and this deserves more attention than ittypically gets.
HR is often expected todiagnose and fix leadership and culture problems across the organisation, whileexperiencing the impact of those very same problems themselves. They're askedto build psychological safety in organisations where they don't feel safe tospeak up. They're tasked with designing wellbeing strategies while their ownwellbeing goes unaddressed.
Senior leaders who invest inleadership development, who model healthy working practices, who activelyinclude HR in strategic conversations, these are the organisations that retaintheir people professionals. The ones who treat HR as an administrative backoffice are the ones who will feel the loss most acutely when experiencedpractitioners walk out of the door.
What does this have to do withyou?
If you're an HR or L&Dprofessional reading this, you are not alone, and this is not a personalfailing. The data is clear, the system is broken in places. Your experience ofoverwhelm is a rational response to irrational demands.
If you're a senior leader ordirector - this is your problem too, even if it doesn't feel like it yet. Theburnout crisis in HR is a leading indicator of broader organisational health. Thequestion isn't whether to act. It's how.
Where Jigsaw Comes In
At Jigsaw Workplace Training,we can work with organisations to build the kind of culture where theseconversations don't stay invisible.
We can provide bespokewellbeing support built around your organisation's actual challenges, our workstarts with the same question: what's really going on here, and what does ittake to change it?
If your HR team is stretchedand you're not sure how your people are really doing book a discovery call withus today because looking after the people who look after everyone else isimperative for the performance of your organisation.
#HRWellbeing#PerformanceAndProductivity #SupportingEmployees
Sources: Personnel Today /IRIS HR survey (2025); 2025 HR Mental Wellbeing Report, Towergate EmployeeBenefits & Ultimate Resilience; People Management / HiBob survey (November2025)
Photo by Kampus Production:https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-a-stressed-woman-at-work-8636636/
.svg)
