Why Your HR Team is Experiencing Burnout: An In-Depth Analysis
Jan 22, 2025
An alarming pattern is emerging in the industrial sector. HR professionals are becoming more overwhelmed than ever. Not because they can't handle their work, but because the system in which they operate has fundamentally changed. While production lines run 24/7 and the demand for personnel continues to grow, HR teams are stuck in a 9-to-5 mentality with outdated methods. It's like driving a Formula 1 car with a bicycle pump as a tool – it is possible, but in a labor market with 3.9% unemployment, where candidates sign elsewhere within 72 hours, it's far from ideal.
The Hard Numbers
Recent research shows:
36% of HR professionals have experienced burnout in the past five years.
40% are considering leaving the sector within a year.
29% experience excessively high work pressure.
49% spend a lot of time on tasks that could be easily automated.
The Mental Challenge
The human brain is not built for constant context-switching. Yet this is exactly what we ask of HR professionals. The cognitive load is enormous: they are constantly switching between candidate profiles, reorienting themselves on job requirements, and multitasking between urgent and important matters.
This leads to serious decision fatigue. With an average of 40-50 decisions per candidate and 15-20 candidates per day, HR professionals make about 600-1000 decisions daily. This is mentally exhausting and unsustainable.
Why More People Aren't the Solution
The standard reaction? "We need a new HR staff member to support us." But this doesn't solve the core problem. In fact, more people mean more coordination, more chances of inconsistent decisions, and exponentially increasing communication overhead.
Quality assurance also comes into question. Different people mean different interpretations of criteria, an inconsistent candidate experience, and ultimately a loss of oversight. It's like an orchestra without a conductor – more musicians don't automatically make the music better.
The Impact on Your Team
The constant feeling of "lagging behind" eats away at your people. In the short term, we see increased stress levels, impaired decision-making ability, and concentration problems. The long-term consequences are even more worrying: chronic fatigue, reduced job satisfaction, and an increased risk of burnout.
A Different Way of Working as a Solution
The answer is not working harder, but fundamentally working differently. Successful teams optimize their processes by eliminating duplicate work and creating clear decision trees. They manage workloads by planning focused work sessions and implementing 'batch processing' of candidates.
The team structure is also organized differently. By dividing specializations and creating dedicated focus time, there is room for quality. Buddy systems handle peak moments without overwhelming the system.
What Works: A Data-Driven Vision
The numbers are promising. Teams that implement this approach see an average of 20% more efficiency through structured screening, 45% stress reduction through clear processes, and 60% fewer errors through a standardized approach.
Practical Steps
Start with a smart daily schedule: screening in the morning, interviews in blocks, and administration in the late afternoon. Develop standard screening templates and implement fixed evaluation moments. Don't forget team health: plan decompression moments, rotate intensive tasks, and systematically monitor workload.
A New Horizon
The current recruitment crisis calls for a fundamental rethink of how we organize HR work. Not for efficiency's sake, but for the mental health of our HR professionals.
It's time to acknowledge that it's not normal for HR teams to be constantly overwhelmed. By systematically addressing the problem and implementing structural solutions, we can create a healthier work environment.
This article is based on internal data analysis and practical experience in (mainly) the industrial sector. The goal is not to be perfect, but to get better – one step at a time.
Additional sources that shaped this article:
https://hrexecutive.com/the-great-burnout-tackling-the-crisis-among-hr-professionals
https://psycholoog.nl/blogs/wat-is-decision-fatigue-en-hoe-voorkom-je-het/
https://www.personio.nl/over-ons/pers/HR-braindrain-bij-Nederlandse-bedrijven