Organizations face constant pressure to improve efficiency, control costs, and sustain productivity. Yet as teams become leaner, a costly consequence is emerging. Burnout, disengagement, and turnover are increasing. The Gallup State of the Global Workplace 2026 report found that global employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025, its lowest level since 2020. “Doing more with less” may be a familiar business strategy, but when carried too far, it can erode the employee experience and, ultimately, business performance.
In a recent conversation with Ryan Leary on the Heroes of HR podcast, VirgilHR CEO and founder Jocelyn King identified a challenge affecting employers across today’s workforce:
“Employers are trying to do a whole lot with less. And so we see a lot of people who are doing the job of two or three or four and not being compensated for it.”
The risk extends beyond compensation. When employees repeatedly absorb additional responsibilities without added resources or support, they are more likely to become overwhelmed, disengaged, and eventually leave. For HR leaders, the central question is not simply whether employees can take on more work, but whether the organization can sustain that workload without compromising performance, well-being, or retention.
Burnout Is Often a Capacity Problem
Burnout is often treated as a wellness issue, but it frequently begins as a capacity problem. Employees balance rising workplace demands with personal and family responsibilities; as workloads grow, even top performers can reach a breaking point. Those high performers may also be the least likely to raise concerns, continuing to deliver until the workload becomes unsustainable.
Jocelyn describes burnout this way:
“My definition of burnout is when somebody disengages from their work because they’re so overwhelmed with whatever characteristics are going on in their workplace and whatever workload it is that they have.”
That distinction matters. Compensation can recognize added responsibility, but it cannot solve an underlying capacity problem. Higher pay does not create more time, clarify roles, or provide the staffing and support employees need to perform sustainably. When responsibilities expand, employers should evaluate workload design alongside rewards.
Compliance Tip. Review workload expectations regularly, particularly after restructures, layoffs, or other team changes. Material shifts in responsibilities may warrant updated job descriptions, compensation reviews, exemption or classification assessments, and clearer documentation of essential duties. Apply these reviews consistently across comparable roles, and involve qualified HR or legal counsel when changes may affect wage-and-hour compliance.
The Engagement Signals Employers Miss
Capacity strain does not always announce itself. Burnout and disengagement often emerge gradually through exhaustion, frustration, declining connection, or a perceived lack of support. Because many employees are conditioned to appear capable and composed, leaders may not recognize the warning signs until performance declines or someone decides to leave.
Employees may say they are fine even when they are struggling, which makes consistent listening essential. Organizations that rely solely on annual engagement surveys may miss the opportunity to address concerns before they become retention problems. Stay interviews, pulse surveys, manager check-ins, and accessible feedback channels can reveal workload pressure, shifts in sentiment, and emerging risks, especially when leaders explain what they heard and what action will follow.
Compliance Tip. Apply employee-feedback processes consistently, explain how information will be used, and protect confidentiality to the extent possible. Establish a clear escalation process for reports involving discrimination, harassment, retaliation, safety, leave, accommodations, or wage-and-hour concerns, and document both the concern and the organization’s response. Managers should also be trained not to promise absolute confidentiality or retaliate against employees who raise issues.
Personalization Makes Employee Experience Relevant
Listening is only valuable if it shapes the experience employees receive. Employees increasingly expect workplace practices that reflect their needs, career goals, and ways of working rather than simply a standard set of policies and programs. Yet many organizations still rely on a one-size-fits-all approach that overlooks meaningful differences among roles, locations, career stages, and work environments.
Personalization does not require employers to know every detail of an employee’s life. It means understanding what different workforce groups need to succeed and designing equitable experiences around those needs. Remote employees may need stronger communication and connection; frontline workers may benefit from more accessible feedback channels; and high-potential talent may prioritize career development and visible growth opportunities. The goal is not a unique policy for every employee, but thoughtful options that reflect how work is actually performed.
King also noted that many organizations have not clearly defined or communicated their employer value proposition. Without that foundation, leaders may struggle to determine which experiences to personalize, communicate those choices consistently, or show how they support the organization’s culture and talent strategy.
Compliance Tip. Design personalized programs around legitimate workforce needs and use clear, job-related eligibility criteria. Review access and outcomes across comparable employee groups, document the business rationale for material differences, and ensure personalization does not conflict with equal employment opportunity, accommodation, leave, pay-equity, or benefits requirements. When exceptions are appropriate, apply a consistent review and approval process.
Build the Business Case for Employee Experience
Once priorities are clear, HR leaders must translate workforce impact into business terms that resonate with senior leadership. A persuasive case connects employee experience to outcomes leaders already monitor, including productivity, retention, recruiting costs, operational continuity, customer experience, and manager capacity.
Quantifying the impact can make the case more credible. Turnover, recruiting, onboarding, lost productivity, absenteeism, and manager strain all carry measurable business costs. Gallup estimates that low engagement cost the global economy approximately $10 trillion in lost productivity in 2025, equivalent to 9% of global GDP. SHRM’s 2025 benchmarking reports provide comparative measures for recruiting, benefits, and human capital, helping organizations assess their performance against broader workforce benchmarks. External data cannot capture every indirect cost or operating context, but it can help HR leaders connect employee-experience indicators to financial outcomes and build support for targeted investments.
The conversation changes when employee experience is positioned not as a stand-alone HR initiative, but as a business strategy. A focused dashboard that pairs workforce indicators with operational results can show where capacity constraints are creating risk, guide investment decisions, and track whether interventions are working.
Compliance Tip. Monitor retention, absenteeism, turnover, workload, and engagement trends using consistent definitions and appropriate access controls. Review results for patterns across departments and demographic groups, but avoid presenting small-group data in ways that could identify individual employees. Validate conclusions before taking employment action, preserve relevant records according to policy, and involve HR or legal counsel when data indicate possible discrimination, retaliation, pay, leave, accommodation, or safety concerns.
From Insight to Action
Technology can help organizations gather feedback, identify trends, and coordinate follow-through, but improving the employee experience does not always require a major investment. The most important first step is often a disciplined review of how work is assigned, how employees are heard, and whether managers have the capacity and authority to respond.
Organizations that listen consistently, manage capacity realistically, and design the employee experience intentionally are better positioned to retain talent, sustain engagement, and support long-term performance. Start now. Identify where workloads have expanded, review the employee signals already available, and choose one measurable improvement to implement and track. In an environment defined by doing more with less, sustainable performance depends on respecting employee capacity.
Ready to strengthen your HR compliance strategy while supporting a better employee experience? Request a demo of VirgilHR.
About VirgilHR Perspectives
VirgilHR Perspectives brings together conversations with leading HR practitioners, workforce experts, and compliance professionals to explore the trends shaping the future of work.