Everyone knows by now that HR leaders are the rising stars of the C-suite. Thanks to the pandemic and the Great Resignation, they’ve taken on a slew of new responsibilities that have catapulted them into the workplace spotlight—but it’s come at a cost. CHROs are burned out. 

“This is the first time in years that collectively, the function is just worn out,” Paul Wolfe, leadership expert, author, and former CHRO at Indeed, Match.com, and Condé Nast, tells Fortune. “I always thought my job was tough because there’s so much subjectivity to it. But now, people in HR are really burnt out from all the stuff they picked up during the pandemic.”

Around 71% of HR professionals say their staff is more burnt out than before the pandemic, according to a 2023 survey of 217 HR leaders from consulting firm Gartner. That comes as no surprise to some industry watchers. Part of the reason for CHRO burnout is that these executives have taken on more responsibilities without a corresponding surge in resources. Or as Gianna Driver, the CPO of Lattice puts it: “I think many of us in the HR space would agree we have been asked to do more with less.”  

Around 30% of HR leaders expected budget cuts in 2024, while the same number expected their budgets to stay the same, according to a Gartner’s HR Budget and Efficiency Benchmarking survey released in May. That’s a very different landscape compared to just a few years ago—only 12% expected cuts in 2022. 

So why aren’t CHROs getting the resources they need? Many C-suites still have an outdated perception of HR teams, Piers Hudson, senior director for Gartner’s HR practice, tells Fortune. If a company’s top brass still views HR’s function as primarily administrative, they’re less likely to provide additional support. That’s why it’s crucial, he says, that CHROs advocate for themselves and their teams, start using technology to take over more menial tasks, and make a clear case to upper management about how their roles have changed and what they need moving forward.  

But some industry watchers like Patrick M. Wright, a professor of management at the University of South Carolina, are bracing for a surge of departures—something they say they’re already noticing.

“My guess is that a year from now, we’ll look back at the turnover among CHROs this year and find that it was kind of at an increased rate relative to past years,” he says.

Read more about how CHROs and their teams are figuring out how to “do more with less” here.

Brit Morse
brit.morse@fortune.com

Around the Table

A round-up of the most important HR headlines.

Professionals across various industries are vying to land a position in Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), even if that means working 80 hours per week for little to no pay. The Wall Street Journal

Companies are starting to place more value on in-office work, according to a new report, with many opting to eliminate fully remote work options in exchange for hybrid ones. Inc.

President-elect Donald Trump is set to challenge DEI policies at companies and universities when he takes office next month, lining up the Justice Department and other federal agencies to start investigations and bring lawsuits. Reuters

Watercooler

Everything you need to know from Fortune.

DEI in court. A lawsuit against one of Southwest Airlines' DEI programs could create a "new playbook" for DEI litigation moving forward. —Lila Maclellan

Paternity leave problems. An employment tribunal in the U.K. has found that Goldman Sachs unfairly dismissed an employee while he was on paternity leave for six months after the birth of his second child. —Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez 

Ousting top performers. As the federal government pushes for staff to return to the office full-time, a new working paper found that technology and finance firms that implemented these policies lost their most skilled and senior employees. —Sasha Rogelberg