Why burnout is reshaping Singapore’s work culture

Work-life balance has now overtaken salary as the top motivator for jobseekers globally, according to Randstad’s 2025 Workmonitor survey. In a tight labor market, this finding might seem counterintuitive—until you look at the mental health cost of today’s work culture. Singapore, in particular, is a stark example: in October 2024, it ranked as the third most burnt-out city in the world.

The numbers speak volumes. Employment Hero’s Wellness at Work report showed that 61% of Singaporean workers were experiencing burnout in 2023—only a 1% improvement from the year before. Meanwhile, 56% of employees reported feeling unsupported in their mental health needs by their employers. Singapore also ranked lowest in Southeast Asia for employee mental health support. This isn’t just a blip—it’s an institutional failure.

Dr. Athenais Sivaloganathan, Health Advisor at International SOS, warns that burnout must be treated as a systemic risk. “Burnout is not an individual weakness,” she notes. “It results from excessive and prolonged emotional, physical, and mental stress.” In other words, the problem isn’t that employees can’t cope—it’s that the workplace is often designed in ways that make coping impossible.

Occupational burnout goes far beyond temporary stress or a bad week at work. It is a state of chronic exhaustion that often includes physical symptoms—headaches, high blood pressure, insomnia, and even gastrointestinal issues. On the psychological front, it can manifest as cynicism, detachment, irritability, and a deep sense of helplessness.

In teams, the warning signs are clear: rising absenteeism, high staff turnover, lower-quality output, strained working relationships, and an uptick in early retirement or medical leave. What’s especially worrying is that burnout is not confined to junior staff. Middle managers and even leadership teams are experiencing it at similar rates, often due to blurred boundaries between work and personal life—especially in hybrid environments.

Dr. Sivaloganathan also flags the risk of downstream harm: “In severe stages, burnout may even lead to depression or the misuse of alcohol and drugs.” The workplace may not cause these issues directly, but it can be the trigger. And when so many employees are suffering in silence, companies pay the price in the form of lost productivity, disengagement, and ultimately, reputational risk.

Many companies have rolled out wellness initiatives—from lunchtime yoga to stress management apps—but few are getting to the root cause of burnout. According to Dr. Sivaloganathan, the most effective approach is to embed mental health into the organization’s risk and business continuity frameworks. In other words, stop treating wellbeing as an afterthought or perk and start treating it like cybersecurity—vital, monitored, and owned by leadership.

Some of the most practical steps companies can take include:

• Redesigning work roles to reduce excessive bureaucracy and clarify expectations
• Conducting regular check-ins between managers and employees to identify early signs of stress
• Normalizing flexible work arrangements to support individual needs and energy rhythms
• Recognizing contributions regularly to build intrinsic motivation and emotional connection
• Training leaders and managers to detect burnout, hold supportive conversations, and model self-care

Critically, leadership matters. When executives work visibly punishing hours or treat exhaustion as a badge of honor, it sets a tone for the rest of the organization. “Leaders must lead by example,” says Dr. Sivaloganathan. That includes practicing self-care, enforcing healthy boundaries, and signaling that mental health is a performance enabler—not a sign of weakness.

The reality is, burnout isn’t just an HR problem—it’s a business continuity issue. If over half your workforce is showing signs of burnout, the operational risk becomes tangible. Productivity drops, talent churn increases, and healthcare costs rise. It also affects hiring. In a market where skilled labor is tight and demographic shifts are shrinking the talent pool, work-life balance has become a competitive differentiator.

Companies that ignore this are already losing talent—not to better pay, but to better environments. The Randstad survey made this clear: employees are willing to walk away from high-paying jobs if it means restoring their mental health. That should be a wake-up call to any C-suite still clinging to outdated assumptions about hustle culture.

This also has implications for investors. Firms that fail to manage employee wellbeing are more exposed to reputational risk, leadership instability, and erratic team performance. On the other hand, companies that actively build burnout-resilient cultures will likely see gains in engagement, innovation, and employer brand value.

In short: Work-life balance is no longer “soft.” It’s a hard metric with real financial consequences.

One of the most harmful misconceptions about burnout is that it stems from an individual’s inability to cope. This belief leads to misplaced solutions—telling employees to “do more self-care” rather than fixing the underlying issues in workload design, communication norms, and performance expectations. But burnout is not about fragility. It’s about misalignment. When people are asked to perform under unclear conditions, with unreasonable expectations and little support, even the most resilient individuals will falter. That’s not a personal flaw—that’s poor organizational design.

Hybrid and remote work have made this more complicated. Employees are always on, yet often feel unseen. Boundaries are more porous. Recognition can feel delayed or absent. Without intentional communication and leadership modeling, burnout festers in the gaps between meetings and the blurred lines between life and work.

If there’s one clear takeaway here, it’s this: Organizations must stop trying to “fix” the individual and start redesigning the system.

Singapore’s burnout crisis isn’t about weak employees. It’s about broken systems. When more than half the workforce reports chronic exhaustion—and that number doesn’t budge year after year—that’s not a signal to push harder. It’s a flashing red light for leadership to stop, reassess, and redesign.

What’s shifting is the mindset: younger professionals no longer see work as a place to prove their worth through suffering. They want to be well—and they want to work where wellness is structurally supported, not tacked on as an afterthought. Employers that recognize this shift early will attract and retain the best talent of the next decade.

In the long term, embedding mental health into organizational DNA won’t just reduce burnout. It will create more sustainable businesses—ones that understand that productivity, creativity, and loyalty all depend on people who feel whole, supported, and human. Burnout is not a failure of the worker. It’s a failure of design. And that means it’s fixable—if we’re willing to treat it with the seriousness it deserves.