Ndifreke Essien’s New Research Offers Hope for Burned-Out Nonprofit and Healthcare Workers

Michael Adesina

For more than 15 years, Ndifreke Deborah Essien has been at the forefront of human resources reform, building equitable systems for organizations as varied as the Cambridge Education – Mott MacDonald Group Malala Fund, the Centre for Communication and Social Impact (CCSI), and the World Bank.

Now, her latest scholarly work is shining a spotlight on a crisis facing mission-driven organizations in the United States: burnout, inequity, and unsustainable workforce practices.

Her new article, Toward Sustainable Human Resource Systems: Evidence-Based Strategies for Workforce Retention and Well-Being in U.S. Social Impact Organizations, published in the International Journal of Applied Research in Social Sciences, has quickly gained traction among academics and practitioners alike.

The research addresses a troubling reality — nonprofits and healthcare providers are losing staff at alarming rates, often struggling to retain the very people needed to carry out their missions.

Drawing on her international leadership experience, Essien and her co-authors make the case that employee well-being and organizational sustainability must go hand in hand.

The paper lays out a series of evidence-based strategies — from transparent compensation frameworks to artificial intelligence-driven HR analytics — designed to curb burnout and improve retention.

At the heart of her findings is a simple but powerful idea: organizations that prioritize fairness, empathy, and equity don’t just retain their staff — they thrive.

“Workforce sustainability requires treating employee health, engagement, and equity as integral to an organization’s long-term mission success,” the article states.

For Essien, this is not abstract theory. As a former HR Director at the Malala Fund, she oversaw reforms that cut pay disparities and reduced staff turnover by 20 percent in less than a year.

At CCSI, she spearheaded a transition that moved more than 60 staff members from temporary consultancy engagements into secure, full-time direct employments.

And at the World Bank, she continues to apply predictive workforce analytics to shape talent acquisition and recruitments across more than 20 countries.

Her scholarship, therefore, emerges directly from the challenges she has solved on the ground.

“Ndifreke’s research shines at the intersection of theory and practice,” remarked one peer reviewer of the article. “It provides HR leaders with actionable, evidence-backed strategies at a time when workforce sustainability is not optional but essential.”

What sets this work apart is its resonance with the moment. Across the U.S., nonprofit leaders report that high turnover and burnout threaten the stability of their programs.

By aligning global best practices with U.S. workforce realities, Essien’s article is being recognized as a roadmap for organizations desperate for solutions.

For Ndifreke Essien, the publication is more than another academic milestone — it’s a continuation of her mission to transform workplaces into fairer, healthier, and more sustainable environments.

As one award citation recently put it: her work is not just about “fixing HR,” but about redefining what it means for organizations to care for the people who make their missions possible.