More office workers at risk of burnout...Related consultations also increased by more than 20%
Aug 04, 2025
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The World Health Organization (WHO) defined burnout syndrome in 2019 as 'properly managed chronic workplace stress'. According to a report released last year by the LG Management Institute, Millennials in Korea face mental health crises, especially those in their 30s experience burnout and depression more often than other generations, and their mental health levels are below the global average.
According to a recent psychological examination of domestic office workers in the first half of 2025 conducted by the research team of EAP (Employee Assistance Program), a subsidiary of Nudge Healthcare Co., Ltd., the ratio of burnout-related counseling increased by 21.8% and the ratio of burnout-risk groups increased by 10.6% compared to the previous year.
In particular, the increase was noticeable among women and those in their 40s and 50s, suggesting that burnout risks may spread to all-round emotional risks within the organization, centering on specific population groups.
As attempts to increase sustainability within related organizations spread, the EAP system is in the spotlight as a practical solution. EAP is a welfare program in which organizations systematically support the psychological and emotional problems of executives and employees, and in recent years, it has expanded its scope to not only the members themselves but also the family unit, contributing to actual quality of life improvement.
According to Workplace Outcome Suite (WOS) Global Report No. 6 released in 2024, employees using EAP (Workplace Support Program) saw a 23% reduction in average monthly absenteeism and work loss hours from 43 hours to 33 hours. In addition, EAP-introducing companies recorded a return on investment (ROI) of about 5.11 times the cost of input.
This trend is also accelerating in Korea. EAP specialized company 'Dine', a subsidiary of Nudge Healthcare Co., Ltd., operates 'Nudge EAP' as a structural solution to support emotional recovery and organizational resilience. It provides integrated EAP services that link the entire process from psychological diagnosis of members' job stress and emotional changes to 1:1 non-face-to-face counseling, face-to-face counseling linked to 1,400 counseling centers nationwide, organizational customized content provision, and regular reports based on emotional data. Dain's EAP solution aims to build a psychological safety net for the entire organization beyond the recovery of individual employees. To this end, not only counseling but also various programs such as emotional leadership education, crisis intervention process, and early detection of high-risk groups are promoting 'replacement recovery'. In fact, clients who used Dain's EAP counseling service on burnout-related topics from January to July 2025 showed an average decrease in psychological risk by 31.4% compared to before counseling.
"Now that burnout and emotional exhaustion have emerged as major issues for office workers, EAP is becoming an essential psychological infrastructure beyond mere welfare," a Dain official said. "The more organizational welfare based on emotional recovery is established, the more sustainable the company and its members will be able to grow."
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
