HR leaders are burned out and eyeing the exit after years of nonstop work

Everyone knows by now that HR leaders are the rising stars of the C-suite. Thanks to the pandemic and the Great Resignation, they’ve taken on a slew of new responsibilities that have catapulted them into the workplace spotlight—but it’s come at a cost. CHROs are burned out. 

“This is the first time in years that collectively, the function is just worn out,” Paul Wolfe, leadership expert, author, and former CHRO at Indeed, Match.com, and Condé Nast, tells Fortune. “I always thought my job was tough because there’s so much subjectivity to it. But now, people in HR are really burnt out from all the stuff they picked up during the pandemic.”

Around 71% of HR professionals say their staff is more burnt out than before the pandemic, according to a 2023 survey of 217 HR leaders from consulting firm Gartner. That comes as no surprise to some industry watchers. Part of the reason for CHRO burnout is that these executives have taken on more responsibilities without a corresponding surge in resources. Or as Gianna Driver, the CPO of Lattice puts it: “I think many of us in the HR space would agree we have been asked to do more with less.”  

Around 30% of HR leaders expected budget cuts in 2024, while the same number expected their budgets to stay the same, according to a Gartner’s HR Budget and Efficiency Benchmarking survey released in May. That’s a very different landscape compared to just a few years ago—only 12% expected cuts in 2022. 

So why aren’t CHROs getting the resources they need? Many C-suites still have an outdated perception of HR teams, Piers Hudson, senior director for Gartner’s HR practice, tells Fortune. If a company’s top brass still views HR’s function as primarily administrative, they’re less likely to provide additional support. That’s why it’s crucial, he says, that CHROs advocate for themselves and their teams, start using technology to take over more menial tasks, and make a clear case to upper management about how their roles have changed and what they need moving forward.  

But some industry watchers like Patrick M. Wright, a professor of management at the University of South Carolina, are bracing for a surge of departures—something they say they’re already noticing.

“My guess is that a year from now, we’ll look back at the turnover among CHROs this year and find that it was kind of at an increased rate relative to past years,” he says.

Read more about how CHROs and their teams are figuring out how to “do more with less” here.

Brit Morse
brit.morse@fortune.com

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