Employee Burnout in the GCC: Silent Killers of Performance in 2026

Why Healthy Workplaces Matter More Now Than Ever

At a time when we see multiple reports of employee burnout and extreme cases of toxic work cultures, our purpose statement of ‘enabling productive and happier workplaces’ becomes more relevant than ever. While the advancements in humankind’s understanding of theories and concepts of motivation and performance clearly tell us that organisations cannot expect superior performance from employees who are stressed and over-loaded, some organisations irresponsibly allow their managers to push for an erroneous approach of putting more workload and tight timelines, hoping to extract more out of employees.

With the recent tragic episodes of young professionals dying of overwork across Asian countries, including at some of the big firms in India, it is clear that organisations, even those many swore by as professional multinationals, are also getting it wrong.

The Misunderstanding of Performance in Modern Workplaces

The real issue is that of ‘Performance’ being mistaken for

• Extended hours of work
• Weekends work
• A false sense of ‘urgency’ and meeting of deadlines
• Not so clearly defined expectation of ‘quality’
• Furthermore, post covid, the boundary between office timings and personal timings has almost fallen
• The reach of technology is invading personal space.
• Coupled with the fear of job-loss, given the higher supply-to-demand ratio in these developing countries, makes for a devastating recipe, creating toxic, over-stressed workplaces.

In fact, we should no longer call these toxic workplaces, but instead toxic employment relationships. It is wrong to assume its impact is limited to the workplace. The toxicity created gets into the psyche of the individual, and that’s the reason we have the tragic issues of suicide, death due to overwork, ill-health and even PTSD, as is being claimed by so many employees across industries in the recent past.

While many indicate this to be a symptom prominent amongst young professionals (probably, as they are keen to prove themselves in the industry at the start of their careers), the truth is that toxic work culture impacts employees at all levels of the organisation (except probably those who are at the top of the pyramid or at the giving end of it).

A Preventive Approach: Redefining Performance Before Harm Happens

Instead of planning for managing ‘post-trauma’ issues, such as having employee-wellbeing counsellors or mentors to give employees, the shoulder once the harm is done, the need is to get the concepts of ‘performance’ versus ‘not-really-performance’ right at the organisation’s top-tier and in ensuring that this ‘clarity’ percolates down throughout the organisation. The idea is to have happier employees and not first stress out the employees and then provide psychological support!

Our advice to clients is similar to what we practice in our firm – absolute performance and excellence orientation while at work for the 8 hours, 5 days a week, but no reason for employees to be working additional hours or over weekends if the performance at the workplace is managed well.

This requires well thought through process/es and associated systems implemented to manage it, and more importantly, a desire for the leadership to hold those managers accountable who expect (or influence or force) their team members to work extra hours every day or over the weekends. While there could be business exigencies that require extra work at times, those should be few and far.

A Multi‑Pronged Strategy for Firms in the UAE and GCC to Build Healthy, High‑Trust Workplaces

Organisations need to adopt a multi-pronged, holistic approach to address this critical issue. We have put the following seven (7) items as fundamentally important:

• Top Management’s resolve
• Defined processes
• Aligned systems for the defined processes
• A well-defined set of HR policies
• What monitors, reports and highlights any such workplace practice aberrations on an ongoing basis.
• Make this aspect a part of the performance management system (PMS) of the managers, such as having a well-balanced (weighted factor) around the way they manage their teams, including the aspect of nurturing a healthy and motivating employment relationship.
• As the organisation grows in size, a ‘purpose’, i.e., with a thought-through purpose, a role such as that of ‘Employment Relationship Wellbeing Manager’ needs to be incorporated in the company, which is mandated with the responsibility of driving a healthy workplace and employment relationship.

Our experience in building strong performance management processes for client organisations, especially post the COVID years, shows us that the aspects of work-life balance, employee burnout and outdated performance management systems, if not addressed well and in time, can be a derailing factor for organisations of all sizes – irrespective of all the other great initiatives they undertake.