A Time for More Care: Reimagining Our Desired Futures
Care as a design principle for workplace well-being
We are living in a moment where burnout feels less like an exception and more like the baseline level of functioning. Whether you’re leading others, showing up for your community, or simply trying to meet your needs and responsibilities in an unpredictable world, the constant demand to do more with less is exhausting. Many of us have learned to normalize exhaustion, and even as our capacity for creativity and connection wears down, we keep pushing through the fatigue, brain fog, self-doubt, and distress. We are praised for “resilience” while we are demanding safety, hoping for care, and longing for change.
A recent Scientific Reports article published October 2025 shared that during the height of the pandemic, prevalence rates for secondary traumatic stress among healthcare workers globally reached 65% and over 80% reported moderate burnout symptoms. Healthcare workers, particularly nurses, emergency room physicians, and intensive care staff, face the highest risk for secondary traumatic stress and burnout. We know burnout and secondary trauma don’t only affect helping professionals. Earlier this year, Forbes referenced the February 2025 study from Moodle, conducted by Censuswide, citing 66% of American employees were experiencing some form of burnout. Women are disproportionately affected by burnout, and Gen Z and millennials consistently report the highest rates of burnout.
The impact of the emotional and physical exhaustion, cynicism and detachment, and inefficacy (feeling incompetent or a lack of achievement) ripple through teams, classrooms, families, and community encounters. Numbness, irritability, memory problems, difficulty concentrating, or withdrawal show up in our relationships at work, home, and across systems–maybe you’ve noticed in customer service experiences. The cycle and patterns continue, opportunities for rest and repair are missed, and feeling irritable, depleted, ashamed, and guilty becomes a new baseline.
What if underneath the symptoms of burnout and secondary trauma– depletion, emotional detachment, feelings of inadequacy, and avoidance– was grief. Often, we hear these symptoms described as interpersonal issues or a signal for more self-care and coping strategies. I believe they often signal grief for how disconnected we’ve become from each other and our values. How might we witness and contain each other’s grief and build capacity for more care for one another in our workplaces?
At Desired Futures, I believe care isn’t just a personal practice, but a design principle. The ways we build systems, workplaces, and relationships either sustain us or drain us. When we center care for the human experience, we create possibilities to lead with courage and compassion, to create with intention instead of urgency, and collaborate for meaningful change.
Repair, healing, and reimagining sustainable improvements are not meant to be individual practices or achievements. This work is both deeply personal and inherently collective. Individual and collective care, and accountability can coexist. We can tend to our own nervous systems, rest, and realign to our values, while normalizing and socializing compassionate practices and designing systems of care with and for each other.
Organizations should prioritize interconnected strategies that involve systematic monitoring and evaluation for signs of secondary traumatic stress and burnout, supporting the early identification and intervention before symptoms or conditions become severe. We must normalize and socialize the language around experiences of traumatic stress reactions and burnout symptoms to reduce stigma and encourage help-seeking and resilience building behaviors. Support systems in the workplace must be accessible and timely, with multiple avenues. Psychological safety is imperative to ensure staff can discuss emotional impacts without fear of professional consequences. Dedicated time and space for emotional regulation and resilience-building practices should be integrated into design and culture rather than reinforced as an individual responsibility. When staff are supported in collaborating with leadership on improving the work experience (i.e., schedules, workflows, policies aligned with capacity), meaning and purpose are fostered and staff feel valued and cared for, reducing the risk of secondary traumatic stress and burnout.
Organizations that integrate intentional, collaborative care as a trauma-informed design principle into operational frameworks will shift the workplace culture and employee experience. As a result, organizations will be better positioned to protect and retain their workforce, maintain quality service delivery, and build and sustain organizational resilience during times of uncertainty.
As a therapist and consultant at Desired Futures, I help people and organizations name what’s been lost to burnout and trauma and reimagine new ways forward. If you’re feeling overwhelmed and under-resourced, you are not alone. We all deserve spaces that hold unconditional regard for our humanity, honor the weight of our past experiences, recognize our needs today, and summon the courage to slow down, listen with empathy, and imagine what’s next with compassion. Our desired futures begin with how we care for one another, now.
I’m Andi Phillips, a licensed clinical social worker with nearly two decades of experience across education, community, and health care settings including over ten years in federal health care leadership. Before starting Desired Futures in 2025, I served as the first social worker Chief Well-being Officer for the federal government, leading innovative strategies aligned with the Reduce Employee Burnout and Optimize Organizational Thriving (REBOOT), a nationwide initiative to develop and implement interventions to reduce burnout among federal health care workers. Today, I am helping organizations transform workplace culture and organizational health to create desired futures rooted in care, creativity, and connection. I also provide therapy to individuals and couples in Illinois who identify as high-achieving professionals, LGBTQ, or neurodivergent who may be struggling with mental health, identity, relationships, or work/life balance and are seeking clarity, confidence, and sense of purpose. You can learn more about my work at Desired Futures Counseling & Consulting.
For any inquiries, please contact:
Andi M. Phillips, LCSW
Email: andi@desiredfuturescounselingandconsulting.com
Website: https://www.desiredfuturescounselingandconsulting.com
