Beating burnout
Burnout could be caused by loneliness and a lack of connection with other people, rather than just workload. With more employees working remotely instead of with others, relationships with colleagues have changed in recent years. And some experts claim a lack of interpersonal engagement is leaving people suffering from stress and mental health issues.
Speaking to the WorkLife website, workplace behaviour strategist Melissa Painter said: “Disconnection – from our bodies, our teams, even the structure of our own days – is at the heart of so much of what we call burnout. It’s not just about too much work – it’s about not enough recovery, not enough agency and not enough meaningful interaction.”
Clinical psychologist Dan Pelton, author of Rethinking Employee Resilience, added: “When employees feel unseen or excluded, they don’t just burn out – they withdraw. This fuels loneliness, which then reinforces disengagement. It’s not laziness or fragility – it’s a protective response to a system that’s stopped caring.”