Burnout-related turnover and lost productivity cost organizations worldwide $322 billion every year. Gallup's research connects employee wellbeing to key business outcomes — such as productivity, quality, absenteeism and employee retention — and identifies the workplace conditions that determine whether employees are thriving or struggling. This page covers what the data show and what organizations can do about it.
Employee Wellbeing Is a Productivity Variable
A strong wellbeing strategy starts with recognizing that workforce health has measurable implications for productivity. Gallup's research shows that wellbeing predicts future absenteeism, employee performance, healthcare use, engagement and turnover, signaling risk and opportunity before those conditions appear in traditional performance or cost metrics.
The Five Elements of Wellbeing
Gallup's research identifies five interconnected elements of wellbeing:
- Career: liking what you do each day and being motivated to achieve your goals
- Social: having supportive relationships and love in your life
- Financial: managing your economic life to reduce stress and increase security
- Physical: having good health and enough energy to get things done daily
- Community: liking where you live, feeling safe and having pride in your community
Career wellbeing is the most foundational of the five elements. Gallup finds that a good job and fulfilling career are closely linked to thriving, Gallup’s measure of how people evaluate their current and future lives.
The Carewashing Problem
As of 2024, wellbeing ranks among the top priorities for nearly one in four CHROs. Some organizations have invested substantially in wellness programs and wellbeing initiatives since the pandemic, but many employees haven't felt it. The percentage of U.S. employees who strongly agree that their organization cares about their overall wellbeing fell to 21% in 2026, tying the record low.
Employees may perceive these efforts as "carewashing,” where organizations provide superficial wellbeing support and employee wellness programs while appearing to neglect the root causes of burnout and disengagement.
One of the most significant factors influencing employee wellbeing is the quality of management. As of 2024, when employees are engaged at work, they report 42% lower workplace stress than actively disengaged employees. Improving management quality and engagement is one of the most direct ways organizations can strengthen employee wellbeing.
What Employee Thriving Means for Organizations
Gallup categorizes employees as thriving, struggling or suffering based on how they rate their current and future lives. Gallup’s 2023 The Economics of Wellbeing report found that workplace wellbeing closely predicts absenteeism, performance, healthcare utilization, turnover and employee engagement.
Employee thriving gives organizations a measurable indicator of workforce wellbeing that is closely linked to engagement, burnout and retention.
Global employee wellbeing improved for the first time in three years in 2025, rising one percentage point to 34% thriving globally. As of Q2 2026, 47% of U.S. employees are thriving in their overall lives. More U.S. employees are now struggling than thriving.
What Thriving Employees Produce
Thriving employees report stronger workplace outcomes than employees who are struggling or suffering. Gallup’s Q1 2026 U.S. workforce research finds that thriving employees are:
- 2.2 times as likely to be engaged at work
- twice as likely to strongly agree they would recommend their organization as a great place to work
- 46% less likely to feel burned out at work very often or always
- 65% less likely to be watching for or actively seeking a new job
Wellbeing and Engagement Are Mutually Reinforcing
Gallup’s research shows that employee engagement and wellbeing reinforce each other. Gallup’s 2023 The Economics of Wellbeing report, based on U.S. Gallup Panel™ research, found a reciprocal relationship between engagement and wellbeing. Higher engagement improves employees’ daily experiences, while higher wellbeing supports sustained engagement over time.
The benefits are also additive. Gallup’s 2015 research among U.S. working adults found that employees who were engaged and had high wellbeing reported stronger outcomes than engaged employees with lower wellbeing. They were 27% more likely to report excellent job performance, 30% more likely to miss no workdays because of poor health in a given month, and 59% less likely to look for a job with another organization in the next 12 months.
However, engagement and wellbeing do not always move together. Gallup’s 2021 analysis of U.S. workforce data found that during 2020, employee engagement remained relatively resilient even as wellbeing declined, a divergence Gallup called the “Wellbeing-Engagement Paradox.”
Remote workers, in particular, reported higher engagement alongside higher stress and worry. The findings show why leaders need both measures to understand whether strong performance is sustainable over time.
Burnout Prevention: The Burnout Crisis and What Drives It
Burnout is widespread. In Q2 2026, 27% of U.S. full-time employees said they very often or always feel burned out at work. Gallup’s Q4 2025 U.S. workforce data found that 31% of women employed full time said they very often or always feel burned out, compared with 23% of men. Gallup’s 2018 study of nearly 7,500 U.S. full-time employees found that employees who experience burnout very often or always are 63% more likely to take a sick day, 2.6 times as likely to be actively seeking a different job and 13% less confident in their performance.
Burnout at Work Is Not Just About Hours
Burnout is commonly attributed to overwork, but how employees experience their workload has a stronger influence on burnout than the number of hours worked. When people feel inspired, motivated and supported in their work, they do more work, and that work is significantly less stressful on their overall health and wellbeing. Engaged employees who have job flexibility tend to work more hours per week than the average employee while reporting higher wellbeing.
Burnout risk increases as weekly hours climb, but engaged employees working 45 or more hours per week are far less likely to burn out than not engaged and actively disengaged employees working the same hours.
Managers can substantially change how demanding work affects employees. Gallup research found that employees whose manager is always willing to listen to their work-related problems are 62% less likely to experience burnout.
This helps explain why reducing hours alone is an incomplete solution: Employees also need managers who can clarify priorities, address obstacles and make demanding workloads more manageable.
The Five Root Causes
Gallup identifies five workplace conditions that correlate most highly with burnout, all of them influenced to some degree by manager behavior:
- Unfair treatment at work: Employees who strongly agree that they are often treated unfairly are 2.3 times more likely to experience high burnout.
- Unmanageable workload: Employees who strongly agree that they always have too much to do are 2.2 times more likely to experience burnout very often or always.
- Unclear communication from managers: Employees who strongly agree that they know what is expected of them at work are 47% less likely to experience frequent burnout.
- Lack of manager support: Employees who strongly agree that they feel supported by their manager are about 70% less likely to experience burnout on a regular basis.
- Unreasonable time pressure: Employees who say they often or always have enough time to do all of their work are 70% less likely to experience high burnout.
Manager Effectiveness and Sustainable Productivity
Managers shape many of the day-to-day conditions that affect whether employees can perform effectively without undermining their wellbeing. Gallup and Workhuman’s 2024 research with 4,439 U.S. employees identifies three practices leaders and managers can use to support employee wellbeing: setting clear expectations, collaboratively setting realistic goals and providing strategic recognition.
Set Clear Expectations
Clear expectations reduce uncertainty around priorities and workload. Gallup and Workhuman’s 2024 research found that employees who strongly agree that they know what is expected of them at work are 47% less likely to experience frequent burnout and 23% less likely to struggle with work-life balance a few times a week or more.
Ambiguity at work can generate stress, hinder productivity, and make it harder for employees to balance work and life responsibilities. Effective managers create clarity by communicating expectations, helping employees prioritize projects and tasks, remaining available for questions, and reprioritizing work as demands change.
Set Realistic Performance Goals Together
Collaborative goal setting helps managers establish performance expectations that employees can realistically sustain. Gallup and Workhuman’s 2024 research emphasizes involving employees in setting goals so that targets remain reasonable and support a healthy work-life balance.
Managers can put that approach into practice by:
- setting performance goals collaboratively with employees
- checking in frequently on progress
- aligning individual objectives with team priorities
- revisiting goals as demands and circumstances change
This is particularly important for highly driven employees. Without clear boundaries or attainable goals, employees with a strong drive to achieve may work more at the expense of both their wellbeing and productivity.
Use Strategic Recognition to Support Wellbeing
Recognition is an important way for organizations to communicate that they care about their people. Gallup and Workhuman’s 2024 research found that employees who strongly agree that recognition is an important part of their organization’s culture are 4.2 times as likely to strongly agree that their organization cares about their overall wellbeing.
Recognition can also acknowledge employees beyond their workplace output. Only 37% of employees in the 2024 study said they receive recognition for non-work-related accomplishments, such as life events, volunteering or community service. Those who do are twice as likely to say their organization cares about their wellbeing.
For managers, strategic recognition provides a way to reinforce strong contributions and communicate what they value. If employees are recognized for staying late or working overtime to complete projects, they may begin to believe those behaviors are expected for success, increasing the risk of burnout and poor work-life balance. In contrast, recognizing team and customer successes alongside individual performance affirms what matters most to organizational success.
What Leaders Can Do to Build a Sustainable Productivity Culture
Sustainable productivity requires that organizations treat employee wellbeing as part of how work is designed, measured and managed. Gallup’s research points to three organization-level actions leaders can take: Integrate wellbeing throughout the employee life cycle, evaluate whether wellbeing investments are working, and build a strengths-based approach to performance.
Integrate Wellbeing Into the Employee Life Cycle
Organizations can integrate wellbeing into the employee life cycle by building it into attraction, hiring, onboarding, performance management and employee development. Gallup finds that leading organizations make support for wellbeing visible and consistent throughout the employee life cycle and integrate resources across multiple wellbeing domains. For example, wellbeing initiatives should look beyond physical wellness to financial, social and community support. Managers should also be trained to have appropriate wellbeing conversations with employees on a regular basis so they can connect individuals to organizational resources when applicable.
Measure Wellbeing and Hold Programs Accountable
Organizations should measure whether wellbeing investments are improving employees’ experiences. Gallup recommends continuously evaluating the use, effectiveness and value of wellbeing programs, including whether employees who participate report improvements in their overall wellbeing. That evaluation can extend beyond formal wellness programs to include policies, communication, incentives, facilities and development practices that may support or undermine employee wellbeing.
Leaders can also measure workforce wellbeing directly. Gallup Net Thriving tracks the percentage of employees who are thriving, struggling or suffering based on how they evaluate their current and future lives, giving organizations a way to monitor changes in workforce wellbeing over time.
Build a Strengths-Based Approach to Performance
Gallup recommends helping employees discover their strengths as a way to improve career wellbeing, the foundation of the five elements of wellbeing. When employees use their natural talents in their work, they find that work more interesting and motivating, leading to higher engagement. That means they are more likely to be more productive while experiencing less burnout.
Leaders should incorporate strengths into goal setting, employee development and performance conversations, giving employees more opportunities to apply what they do best to their work.
Frequently Asked Questions About Wellbeing and Productivity
What is sustainable productivity?
Sustainable productivity means maintaining high performance over time without burning out. Gallup's research identifies employee engagement and wellbeing as two major factors in sustained employee performance. When both are present, employees are more likely to perform consistently, stay longer and contribute more.
How does employee wellbeing affect productivity?
Thriving employees miss 53% fewer days of work due to health problems, are 32% less likely to be actively seeking a new job, and consistently report higher output quality than struggling or suffering employees. Gallup's research shows that wellbeing reliably predicts future absenteeism, performance and turnover, making it a key indicator of organizational health.
What are the main causes of employee burnout?
Gallup identifies five root causes of burnout: unfair treatment at work, unmanageable workload, unclear role expectations, lack of manager support and unreasonable time pressure. All five are significantly influenced by manager behavior. Addressing burnout through wellness programs alone, without addressing these root causes, produces limited results.
Is burnout caused by working too many hours?
Working long hours increases burnout risk, but Gallup's research shows that how employees experience their workload matters more than the number of hours worked. Engaged employees working 45 or more hours per week are far less likely to burn out than disengaged employees working the same hours. Eighty percent of younger engaged workers and 86% of older engaged workers rarely or never feel burned out, even at 45 or more hours per week. The five root causes of burnout — unfair treatment, unmanageable workload, unclear expectations, lack of manager support and unreasonable time pressure — are largely within leaders’ and managers’ control, and addressing them is more effective than reducing hours alone.
How can managers reduce burnout on their teams?
The best way to prevent employee burnout is to have a manager who actively listens to work-related problems. Employees whose manager is always willing to listen to their work-related problems are 62% less likely to be burned out. Managers should also help team members connect their work to their strengths. Employees who have the opportunity to do what they do best are 57% less likely to frequently experience burnout.
How does Gallup measure wellbeing?
Gallup measures employee wellbeing in several ways, including life evaluation, daily negative emotions, and burnout. Gallup’s overall wellbeing measure is life evaluation, which uses the Best Possible Life Scale to assess how people rate their current life and where they expect their life to be five years from now. Based on those responses, Gallup classifies people as thriving, struggling or suffering.
Gallup also identifies five elements of wellbeing: career, social, financial, physical and community. These elements represent important dimensions of how people experience their lives.
Build a Workplace Where High Performance Is Sustainable
Burnout, declining wellbeing, and disengagement are productivity problems that are strongly influenced by how people are managed. Gallup works with organizations to build the management practices, measurement systems and wellbeing strategies that make high performance sustainable over time.
Contact us to learn how we can help.