Burnout at work: symptoms, causes and what employers can do

According to the WHO, burnout syndrome is the result of chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is not a disease: it is an occupational phenomenon, which is why the biggest lever for preventing it lies in how the company organizes workload, roles and management, not only in what each person does on their own.

If your company already applies the CEAL-SM psychosocial risk questionnaire, it has much of the data it needs to start: workload, role, leadership and work-life balance, by unit. What is almost always missing is reading that data by team, crossing it with sick leave and turnover, and being clear about where to refer people.

What is burnout syndrome according to the WHO?

The World Health Organization included it in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) under code QD85, in the chapter on factors influencing health status, not among mental disorders. In its note of May 28, 2019 it defines burnout as a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed, and clarifies that it is not classified as a medical condition. The same note says the term refers only to the occupational context and should not be applied to other areas of life.

The definition has three dimensions: feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; increased mental distance from one's job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to it; and reduced professional efficacy. ICD-11 excludes anxiety disorders, mood disorders, adjustment disorder and disorders specifically associated with stress from the code. For HR this has a practical consequence: someone who is exhausted may also have depression or anxiety, and that is assessed by a health professional, not by the company.

What are the symptoms of burnout at work?

The person experiences the symptoms; what the company sees are signals. The WHO's three dimensions show up at work in different ways:

• Exhaustion: someone who used to get things done now arrives tired on Monday, short sick leaves keep repeating, more mistakes at the end of the day.
• Distance or cynicism: comments like "it doesn't matter what we do", less participation in meetings, new friction with customers or coworkers.
• Reduced efficacy: tasks falling behind for someone who was reliable, a sense of not making progress despite working more hours.

A single signal says nothing. What is worth looking at is the pattern by team: if overtime, short sick leaves and turnover all rise at once in the same unit, the problem probably lies in how that work is organized, not in the people. No manager should label someone as "burned out": they can ask how the person is doing, offer support and refer them.

What causes burnout in a company?

Burnout comes from work, so its causes are found in work. The CEAL-SM questionnaire from SUSESO (Chile's Superintendence of Social Security), used in Chile to assess psychosocial risks, measures 12 dimensions according to the Instituto de Seguridad Laboral (Chile's public workplace safety institute): workload, emotional demands, professional development, recognition and role clarity, role conflict, quality of leadership, peer support, insecurity about working conditions, work-life balance, trust and organizational justice, vulnerability, and violence and harassment.

Several of those dimensions overlap with the WHO definition. Sustained high workload and poor work-life balance push toward exhaustion. Lack of recognition and a sense of unfairness feed distance and cynicism. A confusing or contradictory role, with two managers asking for different things, erodes efficacy. In customer service, healthcare or collections, emotional demands weigh more than the number of tasks.

Why does it matter to HR?

Because mental health is already the leading cause of reported occupational disease in Chile. According to SUSESO's occupational disease statistics report, published in August 2025, 52% of individual occupational disease claims in 2024 were for mental health diagnoses. At the mutual insurance funds, of the occupational diseases qualified that year excluding COVID-19, 6,536 were mental health cases, 72% of the total, and each case meant an average of 39.3 days lost, with a median of 28.

Those figures do not measure burnout, which is not a diagnosis. They measure what reaches the mutual insurance fund once the strain has already turned into a condition with sick leave. What happens before that, the exhaustion that shows up in turnover, mistakes and workplace climate, is not recorded in any report, and the company pays for it anyway.

What does Chilean regulation require?

There is no law on burnout, but there is an obligation to monitor psychosocial risks. The Ministry of Health's Protocol for the Surveillance of Psychosocial Risks at Work, updated by Exempt Resolution No. 1448 of 2022 and in force since January 1, 2023, is issued under Law 16.744 on workplace accidents and occupational diseases. According to the ISL, companies and institutions with more than 10 workers must apply it, with the CEAL-SM questionnaire every two years and an application committee of 4 to 10 members, with equal representation of the company and its workers.

Since the Ley Karin (Chile's Karin Law, Law 21.643), that same questionnaire is the basis for assessing the risk of harassment and violence in the prevention protocol required by SUSESO Circular No. 3813. If your company already applies the CEAL-SM to meet the Karin Law, it already has the data on workload, role, leadership and balance that helps prevent burnout. We explain it in our Karin Law summary.

What the company does: prevent, detect and intervene

1. Read the CEAL-SM by unit with the application committee, not the company average. A low overall result can hide a shift or an area at high risk on workload or work-life balance. If a unit is so small that someone could be identified, group it with another before showing results.
2. Cross those results with your own indicators by team: sick leaves of a few days, overtime, turnover and accumulated vacation not taken.
3. Address the cause before the person. If the risk is in workload, review staffing and deadlines; if it is in the role, who decides what; if it is in leadership, that team's managers.
4. Train managers in three concrete things: noticing a change in someone, asking without diagnosing and knowing where to refer.
5. Make individual support available on every shift, with in-person care and a tool the person can use on their own, confidentially.
6. Measure every quarter with the same indicators as step 2, with an owner for each measure, and keep a record of what was done for the next CEAL-SM application.

Step 3 is the one most often skipped. A self-care talk for an understaffed team tells people the problem is theirs.

When to refer, and to whom?

The company supports and refers; it does not diagnose or treat. These are the routes depending on the situation:

• If the person believes their distress comes from work, they go to the company's mutual insurance fund or to the ISL, which assess and determine its origin under Law 16.744. The person can also go directly.
• If there is immediate risk, thoughts of self-harm or a crisis, the route is the nearest emergency room, SAMU 131 or the Ministry of Health's free suicide prevention line *4141, staffed by a psychologist 24 hours a day, every day, according to the MINSAL announcement.
• To guide someone who does not know where to start, Salud Responde answers at 600 360 7777, 24 hours a day.
• If the distress persists and is not urgent, the person sees a doctor or a psychologist in their health system.

What HR never does is ask for the diagnosis, discuss it with the team or make anything conditional on the person getting treatment.

How we work on burnout with companies

At Makana we work on both ends of step 5. Psychologists who visit teams on site, at the office, the plant or the remote worksite, across Chile, and an app with a Mental Health module that includes mood tracking, a sleep diary, tools for anxiety and a library of guided content. Alma, our AI, accompanies the person along the way; it does not replace a professional. The company sees only aggregated, anonymized information.

Usage is what decides whether a program works. At Marsh, the program reached 80% daily adoption (Marsh case). In before-and-after surveys of Makana users, reported stress fell 10.9% and perceived wellbeing rose 36%, and 94% say they feel better. Among people who use Makana at least once a month, absenteeism fell 17.5% compared with a control group, in the study with the UC School of Medicine and ANID (Startup Ciencia).

Frequently asked questions

Is burnout a disease?

No. The WHO classifies it in ICD-11 (code QD85) as an occupational phenomenon, not as a medical condition.

Does burnout entitle someone to sick leave?

Sick leave is issued by a health professional based on their diagnosis. If the condition is attributed to work, the mutual insurance fund or the ISL determines whether its origin is occupational.

What is the difference between work stress and burnout?

Stress can be occasional. Burnout, according to the WHO, is the result of chronic workplace stress that was not managed, with exhaustion, distance from work and reduced efficacy.

Is the company required to measure burnout?

Not under that name. It is required, if it has more than 10 workers, to assess psychosocial risks with the CEAL-SM every two years.

What do I do if an employee tells me they are burned out?

Listen without diagnosing, review workload and role with their manager, and offer the support routes: the mutual insurance fund if they believe the cause is work-related, and *4141 if there is immediate risk.

The next step

If your last CEAL-SM flagged risk in workload, leadership or work-life balance, that is where the plan starts. Come to the conversation with those results by unit and your sick leave from the past year, and together we will plan what the on-site psychologists and the app do in each team. See how we work with companies.

This content is for information only and does not replace an assessment by a health professional or by your administering body under Law 16.744.

Clinical review: Makana Team (internal review). Last reviewed: October 18, 2026.