Mental health is critical to human health and wellbeing, yet mental health problems are more likely to go undiagnosed and untreated than physical health problems. With the pandemic, international conflict, increased financial stress from inflation, and concerns about food and fuel shortages, mental health is being challenged in new ways.

Organizational risk management has broad applications, from mitigating financial risk to recognizing and managing risks in safety, quality, health, legal liability, and the organization's impact on the environment. Risks to and from an organization's employees fall within the scope of risk management, typically with a focus on reducing the risk of accidents, injuries, or illness and putting controls in place to prevent employee theft or fraud. Workplace safety, for example, is commonly seen as part of risk management, and that concern extends to aspects of employee health, such as fatigue, that can impact accidents and error rates.

The concept of burnout is complex and the employer’s duty of care responsibility to assess and mitigate foreseeable risk is often misunderstood, even by well-meaning responsible employers. The purpose of this paper is to provide some general guidance for employers—and in particular HR practitioners—in meeting their baseline duty of care obligations to worker burnout regardless of the sector in which they operate. The author, Lisbeth Claus, is a Professor Emerita of Management and Global Human Resources at the Atkinson Graduate School of Management of Willamette University.

Workforce surveys around the world suggest that employee burnout – already a significant problem – may be getting worse. For employers, this can mean a costly drag on productivity. When workers are exhausted and emotionally distant from their jobs, they are unable to perform at their best and are more likely to make mistakes. They are also more likely to leave their jobs – draining the organization of skills, knowledge and experience. Burnout at work can also affect all aspects of life, from health and relationships to career and finances.

The emotional support provided by Global Employee assistance programs is almost exclusively short-term and solution focused. However, longer term counseling interventions are being introduced in a competitive marketplace. Until now there has been a shortage of published research into the effectiveness of such interventions using large populations of EAP cases.