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Burnout isn’t a mystery – we’re just looking at the wrong data 

 

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The numbers don’t lie. In 2023, more than 125,000 people in Belgium were out of work for over a year due to burnout, according to new figures from the Riziv. That’s a staggering increase of 9.37%. While media outlets rushed to point to causes – remote work, digitalization, workload – one crucial question remains largely unaddressed: what do we really know about the root causes of burnout? 

There isn’t a single expert who can confidently say: this is why burnout is skyrocketing. We’re missing the right data to truly understand the problem.

Kristof De Smet, Health Expert at FTI 

From reactive to proactive data 

Right now, we mostly measure what’s gone wrong: who’s burned out, for how long, and in which sector. But that’s post-mortem data. We’re looking in the rearview mirror, when we should be looking ahead. What are the early warning signs of burnout? What patterns do we see in those who drop out long-term? 

 

Top-level sports show us how it should be done. It would be unthinkable for a first-division soccer team to lose 10 to 15% of its players without immediate intervention. Nothing is left to chance – every variable (training load, heart rate, sleep, nutrition, etc.) is measured and analyzed. Not out of control, but out of care. 

We should be analyzing well-being data the same way we analyze sports, sales, or marketing data. It’s the only way to act proactively.

Kristof De Smet
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    Kristof De Smet, Health Expert at FTI and CEO at Belleheide sports and experience center

Faster, harder, but at what cost? 

Since 1950, labor productivity has risen by over 160%. What used to take eight hours, we now do in three. But instead of finishing sooner, we just keep going longer. It’s like asking a marathon runner to maintain his record performance for 100 kilometers. 

Eliud Kipchoge reached the finish 24 minutes and 30 seconds faster compared to the year 1947. What followed at the finish was rest and recovery. Logical, right? However, we do not extend this reasoning to the workplace.

Kristof De Smet

We don’t actually know what this structural acceleration is doing to our mental and physical health. We lack the insights. So, many companies stick to well-intended but scattered efforts, without any structural follow-up. 

 

Why aren’t we measuring? 

There’s still no structural response. Maybe because the cost of burnout is mostly absorbed by the government, not the employer – unlike in sports. Or maybe because CHROs still don’t have a full seat at the boardroom table. 

While sales and IT leaders often move up to CEO roles, people experts are still stuck on the sidelines. That says a lot about how we view human capital.

Kristof De Smet

Data is also fragmented, privacy-sensitive, and hard to unlock. Bringing the right data together takes vision, collaboration, and a fundamental mindset shift: measuring to support, not to control. Top athletes already benefit from that shift. On the work floor, we still have a long way to go. 

 

Time for more maturity 

At FTI, we want to accelerate that awareness. Through initiatives like Elli, the Energy Level & Lifestyle Initiative, we help organizations gather well-being data safely and ethically, link it across platforms, and analyze it through an intuitive dashboard. Not just reactively, but preventively. 

 

Because burnout isn’t a mystery. We just need better data.