The Cost of Caring: Employee Mental Health and Well-Being in a Time of Ongoing Transformation
EMPLOYEE WELL-BEING | LEADERSHIP | INSTITUTIONAL TRANSFORMATION
Photo by Yan Krukau
Many teams are driven by mission and goodwill. But these aren't enough to sustain the work long-term.
Across higher education, many staff report working while unwell and struggling to fully disconnect during holidays.[1] This is not resilience, it’s a warning sign. It also reveals a deeply committed workforce that often pushes to the point of exhaustion. In this post, I’ll cover what burnout is, its causes, and how leaders can help address it.
Burnout isn’t always obvious. It may show as a colleague joining fewer meetings, a staff member sharing fewer ideas, or a faculty member not asking questions. It can appear as trouble sleeping, focusing, ongoing health issues, or anxiety about work. These aren’t weaknesses, but signs of being pushed too far.
What makes this especially hard in higher education is that burnout often affects the most committed people. Employees who feel strongly connected to their institution’s mission are more vulnerable when change is poorly managed because they want the work to succeed.[2] When it doesn’t, the disappointment feels personal, not just professional. In the first study on initiative fatigue in community colleges, participants described their experience of repeated, poorly supported change as “chaotic,” “frenetic,” and, at times, “traumatizing.”[3] When employees are experiencing this level of stress, meaningfully engaging in work can feel impossible.
What Drives It
Burnout in environments with lots of change usually comes from structural issues, not personal ones: too many projects at once, unclear communication about their importance, being left out of planning, and not enough resources to do the job well.[4] Research on inclusion shows that employees who are only included in name but see decisions already made feel more let down than those never asked at all.[5] Pretending to include people without real involvement sends a clear message about how much their time and opinions are valued.
What This Looks Like in Practice
The suggestions below focus on treating people with genuine care. When care is authentic, success often follows, but care remains the main priority.
Be proactive about recognizing burnout on your team. Don’t wait for team members to self-identify issues. Watch for behaviors such as withdrawal, increased cynicism, or declines in energy, and address these as signs of burnout, not performance failings.
Prioritize checking in with people, not just tracking project progress. Make time for conversations that focus on their well-being, asking about the personal impact of their work and what support they need. Listen actively to their responses.
Review your team’s workload before assigning new responsibilities. If the team is at capacity, openly discuss whether to pause, defer, or remove other projects before adding more. Involve all affected individuals in these decisions.
Connect new initiatives to each other and to a common purpose. Explain how different efforts relate and avoid isolated projects. Whenever possible, organize initiatives under a shared goal, create opportunities for cross-departmental teams, and support shared ownership.
Fully involve people in creating new initiatives by co-designing with them. Co-design means working together from the start rather than presenting finished plans. Value and integrate firsthand accounts from those affected.
Give a clear and honest explanation before starting anything new. State what the initiative is, why it matters, and what will be adjusted to accommodate it. Prioritize straightforward, respectful communication over messaging that could seem insincere.
Model sustainable work behavior as a leader by taking time off, setting clear work boundaries, and discussing the emotional impacts of the work. This demonstrates support for staff to adopt similar healthy practices. Leadership sets the cultural tone.
The Connection to Student Success
When educators are burned out, students notice. Burnout is linked to lower teaching quality, less consistent advising, and higher staff turnover, all of which disrupt the relationships that help students succeed. Institutions investing genuinely in the human conditions for change are more likely to see real improvements in student outcomes than those that keep layering initiative on top of initiative.[6] Investing in your people isn’t a bonus. It’s the foundation for everything else you want to achieve.
An abbreviated version of this content originally appeared on our Linkedin page.
This post is part of an ongoing series exploring the human side of institutional transformation in higher education. If you are thinking through how to support your teams during periods of significant change, T3 Advisory welcomes the conversation.
[1] Kinman, G. (2024, September 26). Burnout of administrative staff risks destabilizing colleges. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com
[2] Chin, E. G., & Clubbs, B. H. (2022). Pandemic issues: Faculty value alignment and burnout. Journal of Educational Research and Practice, 12(1), 51–62. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1346511.pdf
[3] Ellis, A. W. (2024). “Frenetic and exhausted”: Initiative fatigue at a community college [Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland Global Campus].
[4] Ouedraogo, N., & Ouakouak, M. L. (2020). Antecedents and outcomes of employee change fatigue and change cynicism. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 34(1), 158–179.
[5] Korsgaard, M. A., Sapienza, H. J., & Schweiger, D. M. (2002). Beaten before begun: The role of procedural justice in planning change. Journal of Management, 28, 497–516.
[6] Barnett, E. A., Cho, S., & Salazar, A. L. (2023). Implementing a caring campus: Strategies college presidents use to improve culture and support reform. Community College Research Center. https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/implementing-caring-campus-strategies.pdf