diff --git a/darshan-runtime/lib/darshan-posix.c b/darshan-runtime/lib/darshan-posix.c
index 6e4752d54298fe7e4b3823d92e2a71317c35e091..696cc5f87e0f9c0ff3359c143767187776876f89 100644
--- a/darshan-runtime/lib/darshan-posix.c
+++ b/darshan-runtime/lib/darshan-posix.c
@@ -1426,6 +1426,7 @@ void darshan_shutdown_bench(int argc, char** argv, int rank, int nprocs)
 
     if(rank == 0)
         printf("# 1 unique file per proc\n");
+    DARSHAN_MPI_CALL(PMPI_Barrier)(MPI_COMM_WORLD);
     darshan_shutdown(1);
     darshan_global_job = NULL;
 
@@ -1449,6 +1450,7 @@ void darshan_shutdown_bench(int argc, char** argv, int rank, int nprocs)
 
     if(rank == 0)
         printf("# 1 shared file across procs\n");
+    DARSHAN_MPI_CALL(PMPI_Barrier)(MPI_COMM_WORLD);
     darshan_shutdown(1);
     darshan_global_job = NULL;
 
@@ -1472,6 +1474,7 @@ void darshan_shutdown_bench(int argc, char** argv, int rank, int nprocs)
 
     if(rank == 0)
         printf("# 1024 unique files per proc\n");
+    DARSHAN_MPI_CALL(PMPI_Barrier)(MPI_COMM_WORLD);
     darshan_shutdown(1);
     darshan_global_job = NULL;
 
@@ -1495,6 +1498,7 @@ void darshan_shutdown_bench(int argc, char** argv, int rank, int nprocs)
 
     if(rank == 0)
         printf("# 1024 shared files across procs\n");
+    DARSHAN_MPI_CALL(PMPI_Barrier)(MPI_COMM_WORLD);
     darshan_shutdown(1);
     darshan_global_job = NULL;