Across Health and Human Services, and increasingly in the corporate business world, a critical crisis of disengagement, overwhelm, and burnout is unfolding. The predictable response from organizations and their leaders is to focus on staffing arrangements, scheduling and workload reduction.

But what if this focus on workload is a Red Herring?

Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that demanding workloads should not be considered, but there are other variables that are having a bigger impact on our ability to manage the work effectively.

I’ve spent years working with staff and leaders in demanding sectors - from child welfare and healthcare to corporate environments. While the symptoms look like an inability to manage the demands of the job, my observation reveals a deeper truth: People are not necessarily complaining about the type of work or even the amount of work.

They are struggling with a profound sense of irrelevance and emptiness.

Focusing solely on workload is treating the symptom while ignoring the systemic disease. To fix burnout, we must move beyond the technical aspects of the job and explore the fundamental human ingredients required for thriving at work:

I refer to them as the Three M’s: Matter, Meaning, and Manageability.

Foundations for Sustainable Work: Matter, Meaning and Manageability

Matter – The Human Requirement

The need to matter is one of the most powerful forces driving human behavior. It is the foundation upon which high performance and wellbeing are built. In a professional context, Matter has three critical components:

1. I Matter: The individual must feel valued, seen, and respected as a unique person.

2. My Contributions Matter: They need to know their specific efforts have a tangible, necessary, and positive impact on the team, client, or organizational goal.

3. The Work Matters: They must fundamentally believe in the mission, purpose, and output of the organization.

When any of these three areas are compromised, a quiet sense of futility creeps in. Why exert maximum effort for a job that feels invisible or irrelevant?

Meaning – The Engine of Motivation

Meaning is the powerful experience that converts daily tasks into a fulfilling pursuit. For work to be truly Meaningful, two levels of alignment must be present:

1. Internal Alignment: The CORE 4

Every human holds what I call the CORE 4 - four internal forces of meaning and motivation that must be honored:

• Needs: What I require to feel safe and thrive at work (e.g., resources, clarity).
• Values: What I stand for and what is non-negotiable (e.g., care, respect, integrity).
• Goals: What I aspire to achieve professionally and personally.
• Strengths: What I am good at and what brings me energy.

2. Organizational Alignment: The Company Compass

The highest form of meaning occurs when the individual's CORE 4 aligns with the CORE 4 of the organization (Vision, Values, Mission, Values and Strategy). This intentional alignment – to the Company Compass - is what makes work feel purposeful and more meaningful.

Manageability – The Symptom, Not the Cause

Manageability is what everyone focuses on: scheduling, workload distribution, clear roles/responsibilities, and work-life balance.

Here is the big reveal: Manageability is infinitely harder when we do not feel like we Matter, or when our work is not experienced as Meaningful.

The reason people are struggling to "manage" their workload is often not the workload itself. It’s because the emotional and psychological tax of working in an environment that lacks Matter and Meaning has depleted their capacity. A simple email becomes a mountain; an unavoidable deadline becomes a source of acute suffering.

The commitment, focus, and energy needed to navigate difficult work have been sapped by the constant, low-grade suffering of feeling irrelevant.

The Payoff: Activating the Four Pillars of Optimal Performance

When leaders successfully address Matter and foster Meaning, the human system shifts from a state of preservation to one of optimal functioning, activating, what I refer to as the Four Pillars of Optimal Human Performance:

1. Energy: The fuel for sustained engagement.
2. Focus: The ability to be present and allocate cognitive resources effectively.
3. Commitment: The unwavering loyalty and dedication to the desired outcome.
4. Effort: The willingness to put in the hard work and persist through challenges.

When these four pillars are high, sharp, unwavering, and abundant, people are functioning at their best. Critically, high well-being and high performance are naturally intertwined - the work no longer feels like a burden, and in fact, it doesn't feel like work at all!

Getting to Better: A Practical Guide for Leaders

You have the power to transform the employee experience from burdensome to purposeful. Use these simple, practical, and immediately actionable strategies to elevate Matter and foster Meaning.

Five Actions to Elevate MATTER (Show Your People They’re Important)

1. **Prioritize "Face-Time": **Be fully present and prepared for all meetings, especially one-on-ones and performance reviews. Being late or cancelling a meeting tells an employee that they do not matter.
2. Regular, Specific Appreciation: Practice verbal and behavioral recognition by indicating exactly what the employee did and specifically how it impacted the team, the client, or the mission.
3. Invest in Their Future: Demonstrate tangible support for their development and success, signalling that you are invested in their growth and longevity with the organization.
4. **Take the "Relational Audit": **Genuinely solicit and respect their ideas and opinions about the work, asking, "What do you think we are missing?" and then acting on the best ideas.
5. Be Prepared: Ensure you are prepared for every conversation. Review their work, come ready with feedback, and dedicate the time to co-create a vision for their next phase of success.

Five Actions to Foster MEANING (Connect Effort to Purpose)

1. Lead with the CORE 4 Conversation: Make it a routine to ask your team members about their Needs, Values, Goals, and Strengths to get to know what truly motivates them.
2. Align to Strength and Flow: Focus on recognizing and utilizing an employee’s strengths. When people operate from their natural competencies, the work feels inherently more meaningful.
3. Link Work to Vision (The 'Why'): Intentionally and repeatedly connect their daily tasks to the company’s Vision and Mission. Show them how their contributions are directly "laddering up" to the organizational strategy.
4. Recruit for Values Alignment: Ensure that hiring and performance development processes explicitly screen for and reward employees whose personal values align with the company's stated values.
5. Encourage Personal Goal Setting: Invite employees to incorporate personal and professional development goals into their work plan. When their job helps them move closer to their own desired future, the work becomes exponentially more meaningful.

Conclusion: The Path to Sustainable Performance

The modern crisis of burnout is not a sign of lazy employees or excessive demands; it is a sign of fundamentals human needs not being met.

To solve the burnout crisis, leaders must stop looking for scheduling or workload solutions and start investing in the foundational human factors that elevate functioning and optimize performance. When your people truly believe they Matter, and the work holds Meaning, their work becomes much more Manageable.

Stephen de Groot is President and CoFounder at Brivia. He is the author of Responsive Leadership (SAGE, 2016) and Getting to Better: A New Model for Elevating Human Potential at Work and in Life (Fall, 2025).

To learn more about Stephen, his work and the Brivia approach click HERE.