I see this daily in veterinary medicine, where high burnout rates cost the sector upwards of $2 billion per year. It's a challenging environment with long hours, stressful workloads and patients that can't even tell you what's wrong. But I've found that the best way to boost performance and even increase capacity with maxed-out teams is to address the underlying operational issues.
Work changes fast. New tools arrive, roles grow, and processes shift. Often, the training just doesn't keep up. That gap is learning debt. It builds up quietly and shows up in small ways. Like a normal week turning into a scramble because one key person is on vacation. Let's look at what this looks like in daily work, why we ignore it, and how to start paying it down.
Employees have heavy workloads, time-sensitive tasks, and a variety of responsibilities to attend to in their day-to-day. As a result, they might struggle to find the time necessary to dedicate to training and development activities. This problem becomes especially pronounced when they are asked to completely step away from their work to complete a full-length training module or watch a long how-to video.
We have this combination of what we want to achieve, but also how we achieve it," Daniela Seabrook, Adecco Group's CHRO, told Business Insider. "The behavioral aspect is really important for us." She said that driving the change is the company's intent to have "a continuous exchange between an employee and a leader" - not just a formal review once or twice a year. More frequent feedback is necessary, Seabrook, to keep up with the pace of change in business. "It's very important that the people know, 'Where am I? How am I doing? How am I developing?'" she said.
