Burnout and stress remain a central risk
Research consistently shows that stress-related absence and burnout are still rising, especially among younger workers. While employers increasingly treat wellbeing as a productivity and retention issue rather than a benefits topic, the pressures on staff come from outside as well as inside the workplace. Studies suggest younger workers report significantly higher mental-health-related issues compared with older generations, driving renewed employer focus on prevention.
For example, Mental Health UK’s latest
Burnout Report reveals that high stress levels and mental health-related sick leave persist in the UK workforce, with chronic pressures going unaddressed and too few employers supporting recovery from burnout.
The report found younger workers were more likely to experience stress due to issues such as money worries, isolation, and fears around redundancy and job security. The January 2026 report describes a gap between what companies say and do on mental health, with nearly one in three (29%) saying employer raises awareness of mental health but managers do not have time, training or resources to meaningfully support staff.
The CIPD has welcomed the findings of the
Keep Britain Working review, which highlights an urgent need to address rising sickness absence and ill health across the nation’s working population. It argues that employers play a vital role in supporting people’s health and enabling them to remain in productive and fulfilling work and champions positive, fair and supportive working environments that directly benefit employee wellbeing, performance and productivity.
Speaking at the
CIPD conference, Professor Kevin Fong OBE, Science Broadcaster and Emergency Medical Doctor, emphasised the importance of human capital in organisations. In his keynote speech
Leading under pressure: What HR can learn from extreme environments, he argued that leadership in modern organisations must be redefined for a world characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). Drawing on his experience as an emergency physician and air ambulance doctor, he explained that effective performance in high-risk environments depends not on individual expertise alone but on mature leadership, collective intelligence, and the optimal use of human capability.
“Your human resource is your principal resource and your most adaptable one,” he said. “If you do not protect wellbeing, that resource is exhaustible. In an age focused on AI and digital technology, most of what we achieve is still only possible because teams of human beings mould themselves around the challenge and make the system fit for purpose.”
Wellbeing shifting from perks to organisational design
A major trend in forward-thinking business is the move away from “wellbeing initiatives” (apps, yoga, perks) toward job design, autonomy, and a more realistic assessment of workload. This reflects evidence that organisational factors have greater impact on wellbeing than any individual resilience or leadership training that might be offered to staff.
The CIPD’s health and wellbeing research emphasises the importance of:
- job control, workload balance, and supportive management
- flexible working structures
- psychologically safe cultures
The CIPD report identified a culture of fear around health and disability that is felt by employees and employers, especially line managers. This creates distance between people and discourages safe and early disclosure, constructive conversations and support just when they are needed most.
In addition, heavy workloads stand out as one of the most common causes of stress-related absence, followed by personal illness or health issues, relationships and family issues, and financial concerns. Management style also ranks highly among the main causes of stress-related absence according to the CIPD’s
Health and wellbeing at work report.
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Hybrid working has redefined wellbeing risks
Hybrid work has improved flexibility but also introduced new wellbeing concerns:
- blurred work-life boundaries
- digital fatigue
- isolation and reduced social connection
- longer effective working hours
As a result, many UK organisations are introducing right-to-disconnect policies, meeting-free periods, and workload audits to address hybrid-related stress.
While older workers may enjoy the opportunity to work from home more often, it is often their younger colleagues who struggle with a lack of contact and structure that comes with working in an office and being mentored.
The
CIPD report found that homeworking needs effective support to manage risks to mental health. It found mental health issues had increased rather than decreased among homeworkers, perhaps because it was more challenging to notice when employees could be experiencing poor mental health or stress if they were not physically present. It called on organisations to take proactive steps to support the health and wellbeing of homeworkers.
Leadership, culture, inclusion and wellbeing becoming interconnected
Wellbeing and leadership strategy increasingly overlaps with diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Research shows that employees who feel excluded or treated unfairly report significantly poorer wellbeing and engagement.
Key organisational trends include:
- inclusive leadership training
- psychological safety programmes
- equitable workload distribution
- anti-bias management practices
In his keynote speech at the CIPD, Professor Kevin Fong offered a compelling exploration of how individuals and teams cope with risk, make critical decisions under pressure, and perform in high-stakes situations. Professor Fong shared lessons from his work with UCL, NASA, and the European Space Agency, as well as how he advised hospitals on how to prepare for and operate effectively during Covid. He explained how planning, teamwork, and adaptability are essential in running successful organisations, and how it is important to recognise the specialist skills of the people in your team.
EDI and respect are essential parts of a successful organisation
“Equality, diversity, and inclusion has come in for a hard time, but we do not talk about it in the right way,” Professor Fong explained. “EDI is not something we should do only because it is decent behaviour, although that is true. In our service, when we arrive on the scene of a major accident, the 38 people working there become part of my team. If they do not feel equal to me, if I do not embrace the diversity of their opinion, and if they do not feel included in the solution, we will not reach the optimal outcome. For us, EDI is an operational imperative.”
Professor Fong also emphasised the fluid nature of leadership, and how in a major emergency, his role as the specialist doctor in the air ambulance is only one part of the operation.
“We talk often about leadership but rarely about followership,” he explained. “These systems are large, distributed, complex systems where nobody knows everybody else’s job. Leadership must become a distributed function. When the bell goes in the hangar and we walk out, I am not leading the crew; the pilots are leading because they control the technology most likely to harm us in the next 10 or 15 minutes.
“When we land, my paramedic leads the team because they have the operational expertise to manage the scene safely. I only take leadership when I reach the patient and assess what is wrong, what needs to be done, how fast, and where we go. Then leadership passes back again. Leadership in complex systems is a ball that moves from person to person at the right moment.
He explained that in a crisis, you survive by making decisions in uncertainty and committing to them.
“To follow well, you must identify when you need to cease being the leader, know the goals of the mission, and understand how to support the leader of the moment. That is what leadership and followership look like in modern systems.”
In other words, you must delegate authority to those with the expertise, and allow everyone to play their part, innovate, and transform.
“Innovation is not a few bright ideas from the C-suite; it means allowing the entire organisation to innovate. You will fail, but you will fail forward—every day you become slightly less wrong until eventually you are almost right.”
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