Every company on Great Place to Work's ranked list of best employers has a chief purpose officer or purpose among the company's missions and goals. Its chief purpose officer, Kwasi Mitchell, who stepped into the role in 2020, told me that establishing purpose was a powerful talent-retention tool. The same is true for chief purpose officers. And a chief purpose officer can be used as a crutch, a way for a business to say, "Of course, we care," when employees raise issues with the culture. Instead of fixing the burnout problem, these executives can allow management to turn a blind eye and assume all is well, letting workplace rot set in even deeper.

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