In Short
- HR teams are under a particular strain: emotional responsibility without psychological training, and a constant conflict of interest between the company and the workforce.
- Four psychological mechanisms explain why this work has a lasting impact: unfinished tasks consume mental focus, other people’s emotions are automatically absorbed, constant availability prevents recovery, and personal self-care gets lost in the process.
- Self-care can be trained: strengthening resilience, setting clear boundaries, consciously processing emotions after difficult conversations, networking with other HR professionals, and drawing on professional support when needed.
89 percent of HR professionals and executives in Germany would choose a career in HR again. At the same time, more than half of HR leaders feel stressed and under pressure.
Especially because they feel so connected to their work, the strain on HR teams is often very high. They know how to support employees through crises, enable leaders to communicate empathetically, and set up wellbeing programs. But who takes care of those who take care of everyone else?
Why HR-Selfcare Is So Important
Many HR professionals consider their strain to be a personal issue. Yet, many of the challenges in HR are structural in nature.
- Sensitive and Emotionally Taxing Conversations: HR takes part in many conversations that can be stressful: they mediate conflicts between employees, handle terminations, support employees affected by burnout, and communicate reorganizations—all while constantly absorbing and processing criticism from various directions.
- Emotional Responsibility Without Psychological Training: In many companies, HR is the first point of contact for psychological strain. HR teams are not mental health experts, yet they share responsibility for employee mental health.
- HR is Caught in the Middle: HR implements corporate decisions while simultaneously representing the interests of the workforce. This creates a perpetual conflict of interest.
- Big Tasks, Small Budget: While other departments invest in technology and personnel, HR is expected to deliver maximum results with limited resources.
- Their Own Strain Remains Invisible: Preventive, de-escalating, and stabilizing work is rarely noticed. It only becomes visible when something goes wrong. 56 percent report that there is little appreciation for their work in their company. Added to this is a structural gap: HR generally lacks professional supervision and peer-to-peer case reviews.
But self-care matters for another big reason: it’s a key driver of business success. When the HR team is burnt out and stretched past its capacity, everyone suffers: the team, the leaders, and ultimately the whole organization.
Psychological Background: Why are HR managers under so much strain?
Some workdays don’t end when you clock off. A conversation lingers in your mind, a response to a difficult topic comes through in the evening, the tension from a conflict stays with you. Behind this are psychological mechanisms that affect everyone, but are triggered particularly often in HR. Four of them are central to everyday HR work.
1. Unfinished tasks consume attention
When we transition to the next task, a portion of our attention remains stuck on the previous one—especially if it is left unfinished. Sophie Leroy described this effect in 2009 as “Attention Residue”. However, the task doesn’t actually need to be completed: in a follow-up study, taking just one minute to briefly note down where to resume and what remains open was enough. After that, participants found it significantly easier to fully engage with the next task.
2. Other people’s emotions affect those around them
People automatically mimic the facial expressions, voice, and posture of the person they are interacting with, thereby synchronizing emotionally. As early as 1982, Swedish emotion researcher Ulf Dimberg proved that an angry face activates the eyebrow muscles of the observer—even when the face is shown so briefly that it cannot be consciously perceived.
Situations become even more exhausting when these emotions must be hidden. Appearing calm and clear while feeling deeply shaken is strongly linked to emotional exhaustion, according to an evaluation of 95 studies.
3. Constant availability drains you
HR is the point of contact for everyone on the team, for managers, and for executive leadership. This quickly creates the feeling of having to be available at all times. Yet availability after hours hinders recovery even more than the actual workload itself. Working from home blurs this boundary even further, as there is no clear separation between work and personal life.
4. Self-care is overlooked
Many HR professionals care more about the workforce than about themselves: everyone else’s needs take priority, while their own come last or not at all. As a result, HR managers regularly push past their own boundaries, often without even realizing it.
HR-Burnout – an underestimated risk
The consequences of this continuous strain are serious: The Sage study “The changing face of HR”, which surveyed over 1,000 HR leaders worldwide, reveals an HR burnout rate of 82 percent. Furthermore, 62 percent of respondents are seriously considering leaving the HR field altogether.
This has consequences not only for those affected, but also for the entire company and all employees. HR professionals who are permanently overworked are less able to perform their core tasks, which can directly impact the quality of their work.
Typical warning signs in everyday HR work
| Level | Signals |
|---|---|
| Physical | Fatigue despite sleep · Insomnia · Headaches and back pain · Susceptibility to infections |
| Emotional | Feeling of Emptiness · Irritability· Declining motivation · Indifference despite high workload |
| Cognitive | Difficulties Concentrating · Indecisiveness · Rumination |
| Behavioral | Social withdrawal · Cynicism toward work and others · Loss of empathy · Presenteeism |
Self-Care for HR: How can HR-Professionals Boost Their Own Mental Health?
Building Resilience
Resilience is not a personality trait that you either have or don’t have. Resilience is like a muscle that can be trained.
Three internal competencies form the basis for this:
- Self-awareness: Recognizing physical signals (tension, restlessness, sleep issues), emotional reactions, and automatic thought patterns early on.
- Self-responsibility: Even though not everything can be controlled, how you handle it is in your own hands. HR professionals can learn to act consciously rather than functioning on autopilot.
- Self-development: Taking boundaries seriously, trying new approaches, and reflecting regularly.
As a starting point, it can be helpful to identify your own stressors. External stressors, such as noise, time pressure, or difficult conversation partners, can often be targeted and changed or reduced.
Internal stressors are often more deeply rooted and require more attention:
- “Everything has to be perfect” – Perfectionism as a constant source of stress
- “I want to please everyone” – Over-accommodation as a source of exhaustion
- “I am the only one who can do this” – An excessive need for control
- “I can’t say no to that” – disregarding one’s own boundaries
- “If I don’t manage this, I’ll lose my job” – Fear of failure under pressure
Building Resilience
Resilience is not a personality trait that you either have or don’t have. Resilience is like a muscle that can be trained.
Three internal competencies form the foundation for resilience:
- Self-awareness: Recognizing physical signals (tension, restlessness, sleep problems), emotional reactions, and automatic thought patterns at an early stage.
- Personal responsibility: Even if not everything can be controlled, it is up to you how you deal with it. HR professionals can learn to act consciously rather than reacting automatically.
- Self-development: Taking your limits seriously, trying new approaches, and reflecting regularly.
Internal stressors are often more deeply rooted and require more attention:
As a starting point, it can be helpful to identify your own stressors. External stressors, such as noise, time pressure, or difficult people to deal with, can often be specifically changed or reduced. Internal stressors are frequently more deeply rooted and require more attention:
- “Everything has to be perfect” – Perfectionism as a constant source of stress
- “I want to please everyone” – Over-accommodation as a source of exhaustion
- “I am the only one who can do this” – An excessive need for control
- “I can’t say no to that” – disregarding one’s own boundaries
- “If I don’t manage this, I’ll lose my job” – Fear of failure under pressure
Setting Boundaries
Setting clear boundaries is particularly difficult in HR because helpfulness is part of the job description. Nevertheless, it’s one of the most effective measures against chronic stress.
- Define and stick to fixed working hours, even if it feels unusual at first.
- At the end of the day, take a moment to reflect: How often did I take on tasks today that were outside my area of responsibility?
- Communicate priorities openly. Unrealistic expectations often arise when it’s not clearly communicated what is feasible and what is not.
Practical tip – your inner shield: Before a difficult conversation or conflict, it can help to visualise an inner image – a shield, a glass dome, a light. It sounds unusual, but it helps to maintain emotional distance without becoming defensive.
Processing emotions
Small rituals can help process emotions – especially after difficult conversations.
Do not confuse compassion with suffering along: Suffering along means experiencing the other person’s emotions yourself. Compassion stays with the other person and asks: “What does this person specifically need from me right now?” Sentences like “That is their fear, not mine” help with this. Emotional detachment is not cold or inhumane, but rather a prerequisite for maintaining long-term performance.
HR for HR: Mutual Support
Parking emotions: After a difficult conversation, take two minutes to write down what is currently on your mind and consciously put the note away. In this moment, no solution needs to be found; it is simply about creating the feeling that the matter has been put to rest for today.
Scheduling buffers: Ten minutes between a distressing conversation and the next appointment. Without this break, part of your attention carries over into the next meeting.
Sharing experiences with people who have been through similar situations is one of the most underestimated resources in everyday professional life.
- Openly discuss challenges with colleagues and let them know when you need support.
- Actively seek networking opportunities with other HR professionals: HR networks, communities, and informal discussion formats.
- Establish peer case discussions and supervision sessions, provided the team is large enough. These offer a structured space to work through difficult situations together.
Self-Care as a Strategic Tool
Self-care is one of the prerequisites for maintaining long-term productivity.
Here are a few methods that work without much effort:
- Check-in: Take a moment to pause, for example in the morning or before a difficult conversation: “How am I feeling right now – physically, emotionally, mentally?” Three breaths are often enough to get out of autopilot.
- Micro-breaks: Two minutes away from your screen, without scrolling. Look out of the window, roll your shoulders, drink some water. Small, mindful breaks reduce stress hormones and restore energy.
- The 5-4-3-2-1 technique: See five things, touch four things, hear three things, smell two things, taste one thing. This exercise brings you back to the here and now.
- Actively schedule recovery time and develop well-being rituals: exercise, good sleep, and deliberate breaks.
Seek External Support
Sometimes it helps to talk to someone who isn’t part of the system. It’s even more effective if that person also has the necessary professional expertise to provide guidance.
- 1:1-Sessions With Psychologists: Easily accessible and anonymous via digital platforms. nilo also has psychologists who specialize in organizational psychology and understand the dynamics HR professionals experience on a daily basis.
- HR Roundtables on the nilo-Platform: Exchange ideas with other HR professionals in a safe environment.
- Guided meditations and stress management exercises as an integral part of daily life.
- Actively encourage personal responsibility: Encourage employees to use available resources – and lead by example.
What Companies Can Do to Relieve HR
Self-care eventually reaches its limits. Some causes lie within the organization, and that is where they must be solved.
This is how companies can relieve their HR teams:
- Psychological risk assessment for HR: According to Section 5, Paragraph 3 of the German Occupational Health and Safety Act (ArbSchG), mental stress must be included in the risk assessment, applying from the very first employee.
- Clearly define responsibilities and boundaries: What falls under the role and what does not? Without a clear answer, HR becomes the dumping ground for everything no one else feels responsible for.
- Empower leaders: Many inquiries only reach HR because leaders lack the confidence to conduct difficult conversations. Training managers in communication, conflict resolution, and handling mental health issues directly relieves the burden on HR.
- Provide capacity and budget for peak workloads: Waves of layoffs, restructurings, or team crises are predictable exceptional situations. Interim staff, external support, or a budget buffer prevent the peak workload from falling entirely on the existing team.
- Establish professional support for HR: Supervision, peer case consultation, or 1:1 psychological sessions are standard practice in helping professions. In HR, they remain the exception—even though the emotional strain is comparable.
Those Who Take Good Care of Themselves Take Better Care of Others
HR is a demanding job – and that is not going to change fundamentally. Restructuring, conflicts, constant emotional strain, the “sandwich” role: these are all part of the job.
What can be changed is how we deal with it. At a structural level, we need organizations that understand that their HR team is not an unlimited resource and that actively provide the necessary budget and support services.
And on a personal level, HR professionals have more influence over their own situation than it often seems in everyday life. Communicating boundaries, asking for support, and taking one’s own workload seriously – these are decisions that everyone can make for themselves. HR for HR begins with giving yourself the same attention you give to others every day.
