Chartered Accountants Ireland has identified a common thread of discussion at our recent events and among our members more broadly, that of “burnout in the profession”.
Reflecting on the 2025 International Women’s Day theme #AccelerateAction and motivated by the desire to better understand and address this issue, the Institute team consulted with well-being leaders and members at Chartered Accountants Ireland, who are deeply invested in the topic - Dee France, Thrive Wellbeing Manager, Dr. Caroline McGroary FCA, Lecturer in Accounting at Dublin City University and Institute Past President and former Chair and Partner with Grant Thornton Ireland, Sinead Donovan FCA.
What is burnout?
What we learned is that there are common misunderstandings about the true meaning of burnout. While many consider burnout to be a state of physical exhaustion, it is in fact a multidimensional concept with three main components: exhaustion, cynicism and low professional efficacy, a definition now accepted by the World Health Organisation. It is also part of a complex psychological process, which is impacted by a range of factors, leading to a host of negative outcomes, including serious mental health and physical health issues, decreased job satisfaction and increased turnover intentions, among many more.
Challenging assumptions and seeking solutions
We also learned that while much research labels burnout as a “female experience”, these findings must be challenged. The reality is that burnout can be experienced by any gender, at any stage of career, in any profession. Generalisations such as this claiming that we, as women, are more prone to burnout than other genders, may imply that we are less resilient and more prone to stress, resulting in a range of negative career outcomes.
Burnout has also emerged as something of great concern to Gen Z (those born in the mid-90s) and Millennials (those born in the early-1980s). In the
Deloitte 2024 Gen Z and Millennial Survey, respondents outlined that work-life balance remained a top priority. That said, many feel they don’t achieve this balance due to long working hours, which is resulting in significant stress. In addition, the
2024 ICBE (Irish Centre for Business Excellence) Business Excellence Skillnet and UL Study found that future business leaders were reluctant to “step up” to leadership roles due to concerns over work-life balance.
In response to these studies, Immediate Past President of Chartered Accountants Ireland, Sinead Donovan, highlighted that burnout should not be an accepted culture in any profession. She further reiterated that as leaders in the accountancy profession, we have a duty to our current members, and the next generation, to show what a purposeful career looks like and how we can exist, and indeed thrive, in these roles without experiencing burnout. It should not be accepted as a side-effect of a successful career.
To this end, there was collective agreement that while there is a lot of valuable work being done by wellbeing teams across professions to support members, given the prevalence of, and increased attention on, burnout in recent times, we need to learn more about it and the extent to which it affects members in our profession. We also need to learn how to prevent it from occurring in the first place so that it becomes more of a rarity, not just another stepping stone to be endured.
#AccelerateAction – Stronger together
Therefore, as we celebrate International Women’s Day 2025, we encourage our many stakeholders in the accountancy profession, as well as colleagues in other professions, to #AccelerateAction against burnout and to support each other while doing so.
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