More flexibility, more automation, but Australian workers still burnt out. Why?

It’s all too easy for HR managers and organisational leaders to see burnout as a workload problem or as something that comes down to individual resilience. In doing so, they risk overlooking a big piece of the puzzle, by Vikki Maver.

New Australian research from Robert Half has revealed that 45 per cent of leaders believe their employees suffered more from burnout last year than they did in 2024. Meanwhile, 41 per cent say burnout has increased for themselves and other business leaders.

Before unpacking what sits behind these figures, it’s worth pausing on a simple question: what comes to mind as the central cause of burnout?

If “too much work” is your first thought, that’s hardly surprising. It’s almost automatic. Long days, heavy task loads, and constant pressure are the usual suspects.

But here’s the paradox. According to Roy Morgan, in 2025, many Australian workers continued to enjoy flexible work arrangements, with almost half (around 46 per cent) working from home at least some of the time, allowing greater control over the working day.

Meanwhile, last year marked a sharp acceleration in AI adoption across Australian workplaces, significantly reducing many manual and repetitive tasks that once consumed people’s workdays.

So if burnout persists, are heavy workloads really the whole story?

The picture is more complicated. And more layered. While workload remains a major contributor, burnout is increasingly caused by the changing nature of work and the significant communication challenges that come with it.

In the same Robert Half research, 24 per cent of employers identified a lack of communication and support from managers as a contributor to employee burnout. That means a significant number of leaders already recognise that burnout isn’t just about how much work people are doing, but about how work is communicated, framed and supported.

It’s the ultimate irony. The very things designed to make work easier – flexibility and automation – have also introduced new pressures.

Working from home means blurrier boundaries, fewer informal check-ins and more decisions made in isolation. At the same time, as AI takes over routine tasks, the work that remains is more complex and more ambiguous.

In this new environment in which many teams now operate, one thing ultimately determines whether work feels manageable or exhausting: clear, skilful communication.

Make no mistake, good communication has always been central to effective work and healthy workplace cultures. But in many so-called modern workplaces, meaningful, human-centred communication is increasingly seen as a decorative “nice to have”, not something proactively developed or invested in.

Leaders, in particular, set the tone and standards for communication by what they model, accept and tolerate.

When communication is either absent or poorly executed from the top, a worker’s mental load escalates. Unclear expectations and poorly framed messages force people to fill in the gaps themselves. And over time, that constant extra effort drains energy and focus. Enter burnout.

With so much focus on new tools and platforms to improve productivity, it’s tempting to assume employee wellbeing will follow, as if efficiency automatically reduces stress. It rarely does. What consistently makes the difference is investment in people, particularly the communication skills that make work clearer and less draining.

It’s no surprise then that organisations that treat communication as a core capability are better equipped for the realities of modern work.

And it’s not a one-and-done capability either.

Communication shows up everywhere: in how people write, how they speak, how they present ideas, how they negotiate, and how they handle difficult conversations. Each of these moments either reduces mental load or adds to it – depending on how skilfully they’re handled.

As people move into more senior roles, the stakes only rise. Their communication travels further, shapes more decisions and affects more people. So gaps in capability become more visible and more costly.

This doesn’t mean communication capability should only be addressed once people move up the ladder. In fact, the greatest impact comes from treating communication as a core capability from the outset, starting with graduates and early-career employees.

Today, with Gen Z accounting for around 27 per cent of the Australian workforce (and projected to reach about one-third by 2030), many of the communication skills organisations rely on can no longer be assumed. A digital-first upbringing has meant fewer opportunities to develop the skills and confidence their more experienced colleagues once learned informally. And if leaders don’t help early-career professionals build those skills, the gaps become more embedded and more expensive to correct later on.

It’s all too easy for HR managers and organisational leaders to see burnout as a workload problem or as something that comes down to individual resilience. In doing so, they risk overlooking a big piece of the puzzle: the link between burnout and communication capability across the organisation.

So, what now for your workplace?

Start by asking a few uncomfortable questions. How clearly is work framed? How timely are conversations? How well are decisions explained? When communication is clear, timely and consistent, work feels more manageable for your people, even when it’s demanding.

The good news? Each of these signals is the result of communication skills that are either left to chance or deliberately developed. The choice is yours.

Vikki Maver is the founder and lead trainer at Communication Skills Academy.