I recently had the pleasure of presenting at an event for health care HR leaders in New York City. To prepare, I did a rapid review of the latest and most robust academic research in health care to understand the challenges facing employees in the industry and potential solutions. Here are my findings.

Health care workers don’t need me to tell them that the industry is in the midst of a perfect storm, with several factors exacerbating each other in what organizational strategists call a “wicked” problem. Although these factors have eased since the pandemic, the industry is still in crisis.

With these deeply interconnected challenges, one would be forgiven for finding this an unfixable problem. And, indeed, it’s hard to know where to begin with a solution. Of course, all these challenges need addressing.

However, as an organizational behavior scientist, I think there is a worthy argument to be made for looking at burnout as a good starting point for intervention. First of all, when people are

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