The American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL), in partnership with Laudio, a Boston-based digital health SaaS company, today released its Fall 2025 report, An Early Warning System for Nurse Burnout: Metrics and Strategies. The analysis showed that, while overall staffing has improved and floating between units has decreased, new challenges have come with this progress. Nurse workloads have grown heavier, making it hard for many nurses to take sufficient breaks, leave on time, or use their paid time off (PTO). Notably, several signs of burnout have worsened over the past two years.
The report outlined the following key indicators of burnout:
- PTO Threshold: When 50 percent of nurses on a team haven't taken PTO in six months, early-tenure nurse turnover increases significantly.
- Extended Hours: Nurses frequently leaving late is the strongest predictor of burnout, linked to a 2-6 percent higher overall nurse turnover rate.
- Break Patterns: Teams where nurses often skip breaks experience annual retention drops of 15 percent or more among early-tenure nurses.
- Unscheduled Absences: When these occur frequently, they create staffing gaps that place additional pressure on the broader team.
“Leaders who address these invisible stressors can create truly supportive and sustainable work environments that better support nurses and the patients they serve,” Claire Zangerle, DNP, RN, ECO of AONL, said in a statement.
"Our goal with this analysis was to show how available operational data can help nurse leaders predict role-related nurse burnout," said Tim Darling, President of Laudio Insights and Co-Founder of Laudio, in a statement.
The analysis used a national workforce dataset of 95,000 nurses and their managers from over 150 hospitals.
