Burnout shows up on the P&L long before it shows up in a survey — as turnover, lost output and absence. Estimate the annual cost for your own headcount, salary and sector. Every assumption is shown and sourced.
Your organisation · adjust the four inputs
5020,000
Total employees — scales every figure below.
Fully-loaded average — sets the cost of each departure and lost day.
Sets the share of staff in a burnout-risk state (22–34%).
3%40%
Your voluntary leaver rate — drives the turnover & vacancy lines.
Estimates are directional, based on published ranges (see method below). Adjust to your own numbers.
Estimated annual cost of burnout
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Turnover & replacement—
Vacancy & ramp-up—
Lost productivity—
Absenteeism—
Recoverable with early measurement
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Modelled annual benefit of catching depletion a cycle early — fewer burnout-driven exits and recovered productivity.
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people likely engaged but depleted — the pre-burnout group an engagement survey can't see, and where the cost concentrates.
Results combine published prevalence and replacement-cost ranges with Thrive at Work's four-market validation (n=5,922). Directional estimates to build a business case — not a guarantee of savings.
How this is calculated.
We estimate a sector-adjusted burnout rate for your workforce, then sum the four ways burnout converts into cost. Everything here is deliberately conservative and fully visible — it's a directional estimate to start a conversation, not a forecast.
Burnout rate
A sector baseline (22%–34% of staff), drawn from published prevalence ranges. Healthcare and public-sector roles sit highest; manufacturing lowest.
Turnover cost
We take your annual attrition, attribute ~40% of it to burnout, and value replacement (recruiting + admin) at 0.40× salary.
Vacancy & ramp
Each burnout-driven departure also loses output during the vacancy and the new hire's ramp to full productivity — valued at 0.35× salary. Replacement + vacancy together (0.75×) sit at the conservative end of the published 0.5×–2× range.
Lost productivity
Burned-out employees who stay still lose output (presenteeism). We apply a 15% effective-productivity loss to the burned-out share of payroll.
Absenteeism
We add 4 extra absence days per burned-out employee per year, valued at daily salary (salary ÷ 260 working days).
Recoverable
Catching depletion a cycle early prevents a share of burnout-driven exits and recovers lost productivity. We model the recoverable benefit at ~30% of the total cost.
Range
The headline is a midpoint; the range spans roughly 0.7×–1.4× to reflect the uncertainty in every input.
Capacity-gap estimate: roughly one in five employees fits the "engaged but depleted" profile in our four-market data — shown here as an indicative count, not a measurement of your workforce.
Gallup — State of the Global Workplace, 2024. Burnout prevalence and its link to turnover intent.
SHRM / Gallup — Cost of replacing an employee. Replacement cost commonly estimated at one-half to two times annual salary.
McKinsey Health Institute, 2023; Mental Health UK — Burnout Report, 2024. Sector burnout-prevalence ranges.
Thrive at Work — four-market validation, n=5,922, 2025–26. The capacity gap and the "engaged but depleted" share.
Common questions
How much does employee burnout cost?
It's driven mainly by turnover, lost productivity and absenteeism. For a 1,000-person organisation on an average salary around 60,000, the combined annual cost commonly runs into the millions. Enter your own headcount, salary and sector above for an estimate.
How is the cost of burnout calculated?
A sector-adjusted burnout rate, then four components: turnover (attributable departures × 0.40× salary replacement), vacancy & ramp (0.35× salary in lost output), lost productivity (15% presenteeism loss on burned-out staff), and absenteeism (4 extra days at daily salary). Every assumption is listed in the method section above.
Why does measuring capacity reduce the cost?
Most of the cost comes from burnout caught too late. Measuring capacity alongside engagement surfaces depleted-but-committed teams a cycle or two before sentiment or attrition move — while it's still reversible. See the science →