Australian health care's burnout prescription

In Australia’s hospitals, the solution to rising incidents of burnout and psychosocial hazards may lie not only in increased resources, but also in the positive impact of effective, supportive management.

Australia’s hospitals are confronting a predicament that would test even the healthiest system. Demand for care is rising steadily, driven in large part by an aging population and the growing prevalence of chronic disease. At the same time, productivity is faltering and costs are climbing. The result is a workforce that is expected to do more, often with less.

Two recent studies indicate that many healthcare workers in Australia experience symptoms of burnout, ranging from emotional exhaustion to diminished performance. A recent Ahpra study identified burnout as the top reason for leaving among practitioners intending to quit their job.¹ The RACGP General Practice Health of the Nation 2023 report found that 71% of GPs in Australia said they had experienced burnout in the past 12 months.²

Healthcare organisations in Australia also suffer from lower employee engagement than other sectors. Among Australian healthcare and social assistance organisations in Gallup’s client benchmark database, 33% of employees are engaged, compared with 46% of employees in all sectors and well below the global health care and social assistance average of 50%.

Health care is, by design, a people-intensive enterprise. It relies on highly trained professionals, including doctors, nurses and technical staff, whose judgment, attention and emotional connection to mission are integral to their work. When these individuals are engaged, patients receive better care, teams collaborate and function more cohesively, and organisations benefit from improved performance against critical outcomes.

Why engagement matters

Gallup defines employee engagement as the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in their work and workplace. Decades of Gallup research on the relationship between workplace engagement and organisational outcomes show that engaged employees help their organisations achieve improved performance outcomes across all industry sectors.³

In health care, employee engagement is positively correlated with the following performance outcomes:

• Patient safety
• Quality of care and clinical outcomes
• Staff retention

Employee wellbeing

Engaged workplaces help create more favourable conditions for staff to perform at their best. In hospitals, this can mean catching a medication error before it reaches a patient or raising a concern about a flawed process and how it can be rectified. Conversely, when both engagement and psychosocial safety are lacking, problems can remain hidden until they become crises.

Engagement also promotes better employee wellbeing and stronger psychosocial safety. Based on Gallup World Poll surveys conducted from 2020 to 2025, engaged workers in Australia experienced lower levels of negative emotions like stress, worry and anger than actively disengaged employees: 37% of engaged employees in Australia reported feeling stress the previous day, 24% worry, 14% sadness and 11% anger. In contrast, 60% of actively disengaged workers experienced stress, 50% worry, 32% sadness and 27% anger.

Low employee engagement is not confined to Australia’s healthcare sector. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2026 Report reveals that in the country’s general working population engagement has stagnated for over a decade at about one employee in five, while measures of employee wellbeing have also declined steadily over this period.⁴

Breaking the cycle of disengagement, negative emotions and burnout requires more than resilience training or wellness initiatives. Rather, leaders must focus on fostering psychosocial safety and creating a workplace environment in which employees feel individually recognised and able to speak up, ask questions and admit mistakes without fear of reprisal. In such settings, risks are more likely to be identified before they escalate.

The vital role of managers

Managers are essential to building an engaged workplace. Gallup research has shown consistently that 70% of the variance in team engagement is attributable to the manager. This is because the manager’s influence is direct, immediate and consistent; they set goals and expectations, provide feedback, recognise contributions, support individual development and shape the day-to-day employee experience.

In practice, effective management is not complicated. Managers who emphasise clear communication, give meaningful recognition, identify opportunities for development and provide genuine support can have a measurable impact on their team’s engagement and performance. In high-pressure environments like hospitals, small, regular improvements in how teams are managed can result in meaningful gains in engagement and wellbeing.

Several Australian healthcare organisations have begun to make engagement a strategic priority, emphasising staunch support for managers to help them boost and sustain team engagement. Evidence clearly shows that an intentional focus on engagement helps build more resilient teams and fosters a culture in which staff feel valued and supported by their organisation.

A pivotal juncture for health care

The stakes are high for Australia’s healthcare system. An aging population is fuelling a continuing rise in demand; workforce pressures remain high and the strain on frontline staff is considerable. Against this challenging backdrop, the country’s healthcare leaders need to make engagement a strategic priority. A focus on creating a more engaged workforce culture that emphasises recognition, builds trust, and strengthens employees’ connection to mission and purpose is essential. A highly engaged workforce will enable Australia’s healthcare providers to deliver consistently high levels of care to the patients and communities they serve today and meet the growing needs of the future.

To care effectively for patients, healthcare systems must first care for and support their staff, not only by protecting their wellbeing, but by ensuring they are engaged in their work. For Australia’s hospitals, the best remedy may be less about doing more, and more about doing things differently.

^{1. Tan J, Divakar R, Barclay L, Bayyavarapu Bapuji S, Anderson S, Saar E. Trends in retention and attrition in nine regulated health professions in Australia. Aust Health Rev. 2025;49:AH24268. doi: 10.1071/AH24268}

^{2. General Practice Health of the Nation 2023. RACGP; 2023. Accessed 12 June, 2026. https://www.racgp.org.au/getmedia/122d4119-a779-41c0-bc67-a8914be52561/Health-of-the-Nation-2023.pdf}

^{3. The Relationship Between Engagement at Work and Organizational Outcomes, Q12 Meta-Analysis: 11th Edition. Gallup; 2024. Accessed 12 June, 2026. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/321725/gallup-q12-meta-analysis-report.aspx}

^{4. The Gallup State of the Global Workplace: 2026 Report. Gallup; 2024. Accessed 12 June, 2026. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx. This report includes country-level findings based on general working population survey data collected in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Gallup’s client benchmark database includes survey data from organisations that have partnered with Gallup to measure and enhance employee engagement.}

*Claire de Carteret is Managing Director, APAC at Gallup.

Top image credit: iStock.com/sturti