What does a burnout cost your organisation? The figures in full

Burnout is no longer a soft topic. It is one of the biggest line items on the absenteeism budget, and for many organisations it is one that stays largely invisible until it is too late. Below we set out what a burnout really costs: not only in euros for the organisation, but also what it means for the person living through it. And above all, what you can do about it.

Burnout is the biggest driver of absenteeism

Let us start with the scale of the problem. Burnout complaints have been the leading cause of sickness absence in the Netherlands for years. In 2024, around 8.2 per cent of all sickness absence stemmed from psychological complaints, burnout or overstrain (Evermood).

And it keeps rising. According to figures from ArboNed, based on more than a million workers, stress-related absence rose by 36 per cent in five years. One in four days of absence now relates to stress. Little wonder that absenteeism ranks among the most pressing themes for HR in 2026 (TrendsinHR).

So this is not a one-off incident that happens to catch you out now and then. It is a structural and growing risk that affects almost every organisation, regardless of sector or size.

What it costs: the two sides of the bill

The cost of a burnout runs higher than most people think, because it involves more than continued salary alone. Broadly speaking, it falls into two categories.

Direct costs

This is the visible part. An employee with a burnout is away for a long time. Stress-related absence lasts 252 days on average, and with a full burnout that climbs to around ten months (ArboNed). Other sources put it at roughly 290 days during which someone is either unavailable or not fully fit for work (Evermood).

If you work with average absenteeism costs of 340 to 360 euros a day, a single burnout quickly tops 100,000 euros. That figure is made up of continued salary, the costs of the company doctor and reintegration, and any cover.

Indirect costs

This part appears on no invoice, yet it often weighs more heavily. Think of the work that piles up or gets absorbed by colleagues, the extra pressure that puts on the team, the loss of knowledge and experience, and the time a manager spends on support and reintegration. A burnout rarely arrives alone: the overload that leads to absence often touches the people around it too, and so one case of absence can become the start of more.

A worked example

Suppose an employee is off for eight months. Add up continued salary, cover and support, and you are quickly looking at around 90,000 to 110,000 euros in direct costs. On top of that come the hours that colleagues and the manager lose, the productivity that was already dropping in the months before the absence, and the risk that a second person buckles under the extra pressure. The real figure is therefore almost always higher than what sits on paper.

What it means for the employee

Behind every one of these figures is a person. A burnout is not a quick rest. It often means months of being unable to work, sometimes unable even to manage simple everyday tasks. Recovery is slow and comes with setbacks, and the return is fragile: a restart that is too quick or too demanding regularly leads to a relapse.

The consequences also reach well beyond work. It affects someone’s self-confidence, relationships at home and sometimes their finances. Many people who have been through a burnout describe it as a rupture in their life, a period that still echoes for years afterwards. An employer who takes this seriously therefore looks not only at the absenteeism budget, but also at the duty of care owed to the people who work for them.

What it means for the organisation

Beyond the direct bill, a burnout affects the organisation in ways you do not see straight away, but which weigh heavily over time:

• Team morale and workload. When someone is off, the work spreads across those who remain. Pressure rises exactly where it was already high, and that increases the chance of further absence.
• Knowledge and continuity. When an experienced employee is away, a good deal of knowledge disappears for a time and ongoing projects become vulnerable. Bringing cover up to speed costs time and money.
• Employer reputation. In a tight labour market, word gets around. An organisation where people burn out finds it harder to attract new talent and harder to hold on to the talent it has.
• Managers’ attention. Reintegration and support take up a lot of your managers’ time, time that does not go into the work itself.

In short, the true price of a burnout is not a single figure, but a sum of money, human suffering and lost continuity.

It is a legal obligation too

Many employers see work-related stress as a wellbeing theme that comes on top of everything else. Legally it is not. Psychosocial workload, PSA for short, falls under the Dutch Working Conditions Act (Arbowet). Employers are required to identify the risks through the risk assessment and evaluation (RI&E) and to run preventive policy (ArboNed). PSA accounts for around a quarter of all psychological absence.

The cost of burnout, then, is not only a financial matter, but also one that touches your obligations as an employer.

From cost item to investment

The good news: this is largely preventable. And prevention pays for itself quickly. If a single burnout costs you more than 100,000 euros, a prevention approach only has to avoid one case of absence to pay for itself. For most organisations, that makes the sums easy.

Prevent one burnout a year and your entire prevention approach has already paid for itself.

But the gain is broader than money alone. An organisation that actively steers on resilience finds that workload becomes easier to discuss, that people stay healthy in the workforce for longer and that turnover drops. For the employee it means being heard sooner, rather than only coming into view when it is already too late.

Prevention starts with getting a clear view of where the pressure lies. You cannot steer on something you do not measure. A resilience assessment maps, per employee and team, how resilience stands and where the risks lie, before complaints arise. From that insight you can work in a focused way on the domains that need attention, rather than broadly and without direction.

That is exactly the thinking behind our approach: developing resilience structurally and embedding it, so the topic stays continuously visible and behaviour genuinely changes. Not as a one-off project, but as a fixed part of how the organisation works.

In closing

A burnout easily costs an organisation more than 100,000 euros, and that is before the indirect damage and the human suffering. At the same time it is one of the most preventable cost items there is. Those who invest early in measuring and strengthening resilience not only save money, but also meet their legal duty of care and keep people healthy in work for longer.

Want to know where the risks sit in your organisation? Start with the Resilience Scan, or read on about how to prevent burnout as an employer.

Sources

• ArboNed, Stress-related absence keeps rising
• ArboNed, Psychosocial workload
• Evermood, Absenteeism prevention tips for HR managers
• TrendsinHR, Absenteeism and mental resilience as a prevention tool

Frequently asked questions

What does a burnout cost on average?

An average burnout leads to roughly 290 to 320 days during which an employee is either unavailable or not fully fit for work. At average absenteeism costs of around 340 to 360 euros a day, that quickly comes to more than 100,000 euros per employee, and that is before you count indirect costs such as cover and lost productivity.

Is an employer obliged to act on work-related stress?

Yes. Psychosocial workload falls under the Dutch Working Conditions Act (Arbowet). Employers are required to identify the risks through the risk assessment (RI&E) and to run preventive policy to counter work-related stress and burnout.

Does investing in prevention pay for itself?

Almost always. Because a single burnout easily costs more than 100,000 euros, a prevention approach only has to avoid one case of absence a year to pay for itself. On top of that it delivers less visible but very real gains, such as lower workload across teams, retained knowledge and a stronger employer reputation.