Research reveals perfectionism as the top risk factor, and why a week off makes recovery harder
Most people who burn out at work never get back to their former best — and the standard advice to "take a week off and see how you feel" is making the problem worse, according to new research from The Institute of EI, an emotional intelligence training provider founded by chief executive Mel Neil.
The findings, published in a new field guide titled The Truth About Burnout: And Why Most People Don't Recover From It, draw on the Sydney Burnout Studies led by Professor Gordon Parker AO of the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney, alongside the Institute's own clinical practice with leaders, carers and high performers across Australia.
Neil will present the findings at HRFest Australia's four-stage program at The Timber Yard in Melbourne on 18 November, in a session titled "Burnout to balance: identification, recovery, prevention."
The stakes for Australian employers are already significant. Sixty-one per cent of Australian workers report burnout, compared with 48 per cent globally, and burnout-related absenteeism costs the country an estimated $14 billion a year, according to figures compiled in the Institute's report.
Globally, 82 per cent of employees were at risk of burnout in 2025, according to Mercer's Health on Demand research, while the World Health Organisation has calculated that depression and anxiety at work cost the global economy US$1 trillion annually.
A measure built for modern burnout
Neil's central argument is that the tool most Australian workplaces still use to identify burnout is the problem. The Maslach Burnout Inventory, developed in the early 1980s, measures just three symptoms – exhaustion, cynicism and reduced accomplishment – and was validated in helping professions rather than the modern knowledge worker or leader.
The Sydney Burnout Measure, developed by Parker's team, instead captures a fuller symptom set, including cognitive disturbance, anhedonia, social withdrawal and insomnia, and distinguishes burnout from depression and anxiety with far fewer false positives.
Neil said the shift from rest-based treatment to addressing root causes is the biggest change the research demands of employers. "The treatment of burnout by having a rest has never worked, and it never will successfully work, because it actually doesn't treat the root causes of burnout," she said. "It's only treating a masking symptom."
That matters for how psychosocial risk obligations under Australia's model work health and safety laws are being applied in practice, given regulators increasingly treat burnout-causing conditions as a compliance matter rather than a wellbeing one.
Perfectionism is the hidden risk factor
The research identifies perfectionism as the strongest predictor of who burns out, and it is not the underperformers who are most exposed. "We all have traits of perfectionism to some degree," Neil said. "Not all perfectionism is bad and evil – a level of perfectionism is actually healthy because it helps us be diligent, it helps us have a care factor."
The risk, she said, is that many organisations' success is built on the same traits that drive people towards burnout. "Many workplaces' success is built on the unhealthy perfectionism tendencies that exist in our high performers," Neil said. "We reward our high performers – they tend to do better in terms of promotion and salary."
That creates a structural blind spot: the employees least likely to raise their hand for help are often the ones a business can least afford to lose. Boston Consulting Group's 2024 study across eight countries found 48 per cent of workers were experiencing burnout at the time, while the Society for Human Resource Management has reported 51 per cent of employees feel "used up" by the end of every workday.
What it means for HR leaders
For HR executives, the research points to three practical shifts: replacing outdated burnout assessments with tools that capture the full modern symptom set; building structural change into workload, role clarity and recognition rather than relying on individual resilience; and training managers to recognise perfectionism-driven overwork in their highest performers before it becomes a resignation or a workers' compensation claim.
Forty per cent of resignations in Australia are now linked to burnout, according to the Institute's research, and the average psychological injury claim keeps a worker out of the workplace for 35.7 weeks – nearly five times longer than a physical injury claim.
With HR being asked to equip managers to proactively recognise psychosocial risk, Neil's HRFest session is likely to draw a large crowd of leaders looking for a model that goes beyond the wellness-industry framing of burnout as a cortisol or trauma problem.
Neil will be speaking on burnout recovery at HRFest Australia 2026. To secure your spot, click here.
