Half of employees are facing burnout… and no one seems to care.

Image credit: ChatGPT

According to a 2024 study by BCG surveying over 10,000 employees in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, the UK, and the US, more than half of them report experiencing burnout.

Once again, the most affected areas are marketing, branding, and creative industries.

What happened to us? How can a company function if half its talent doesn’t want to work or can’t perform as expected?

The toxic workplace culture has reached unproductive extremes.

It’s astonishing that companies squander their potential by pushing their employees to the point where they’re unable to deliver results.

“On the other side of that door, there are thousands of people waiting to take your job,” says a boss on the verge of breaking down.

Is that what’s driving them to burn out their employees? It doesn’t seem to be working.

LinkedIn is flooded with job postings looking for the infamous “1-Man Team”—essentially dismantling an entire department and piling the workload onto one person, paying them the same, and then watching them burn out.

The results? Poor—very poor. Creativity has taken a nosedive. Brands are going through a period of shallow, uninspired work that lacks depth and finesse. A quick look at YouTube ads or the cheap marketing attempts on Instagram and Facebook makes it abundantly clear.

Image credit: ISTOCK.COM/TANYAJOY

The crisis isn’t on its way—it’s already here. And it’s not just economic; it’s social, too.

In pursuit of the same (unrealistic) financial results during a crisis, companies are willing to burn their talent just to hit the numbers.

The solution doesn’t seem close, and corporate culture shows no signs of adopting medium- or long-term thinking.

Welcome to labor precarity and fast-food branding—a trend that seems all too comfortable in its mediocrity, while the other half of your colleagues bite their pencils and count the hours until their next therapy session.