Burnout isn’t exactly new. But in 2025, it’s becoming more and more common for team members (and managers!) to experience it. It’s not just anecdotal, recent data shows as many as 9 in 10 UK adults have experienced high or extreme levels of pressure or stress in the last year.
At the same time, managers are in a strong position to spot burnout before it takes hold and to help your team with preventative measures if needed.
Warning signs of burnout that most managers miss
Contrary to popular belief, burnout rarely starts with a dramatic breakdown or a single moment where someone suddenly feels burned out. Instead, it tends to creep in quietly over time and can consist of a series of seemingly small moments that can compound over time.
These small moments may include things like:
- Quieter voices in meetings.
- Subtle drops in quality or pace of work.
- Sharpness or irritability in tone.
- More sick days, “camera-off” days, or disengagement from social events or conversations.
These can be the early signs to keep an eye on. In isolation, they may just be a sign that someone is having a bad day or feeling a bit off. But when they become common and almost normal for someone, then they may be a sign of a deeper issue that you need to pay attention to.
The thin line between busy and burnout
Being busy is a good thing and more often than not, actually energises us. Sure, we may have a super busy day and we go home feeling tired, but with it comes a sense of achievement at having done some great work that day. Busy means that you have a high workload that exists alongside clear goals and boundaries.
On the flip side, burnout is draining. It zaps our energy and can be compounding, meaning that even moments of rest and relaxation may not be enough to stop it. burnout can mean that we don’t feel in control of our workload. So instead of controlling it, our workload controls us and we’re just along for the ride.
The problem is that the line between the two can be very thin, making it hard to know if someone is busy in a good way or if the feeling of being busy is going to lead to them feeling overwhelmed.
Ask yourself and your team questions like:
- Do we feel challenged or crushed?
- Are we enjoying the journey that we’re on?
- Are we choosing priorities or reacting to everything?
- Do we start the week with energy, or apprehension?
- Do we finish the week tired but proud, or exhausted and empty?
Again, the odd negative answer here and there doesn’t necessarily mean that you or your team are suffering from burnout. But negative answers over a period of time or from multiple team members independently of each other, may indicate a bigger problem.
How to build a sustainable workload system
As experienced managers amongst you will know, you can’t prevent or treat burnout by telling someone to “work less”. If someone was just busy and perhaps pushing a bit too hard, then this may work. But burnout runs deeper than this and is often treated by looking at the systems, process and environment that someone is operating within.
Every company and team is different in terms of how they deliver work, but here are a few areas that you can look at to try and improve:
- Capacity planning: check the workload of your team and ensure that every piece of work is prioritised according to a deadline.
- Project rotation: rotate project teams and try to balance your most intense / difficult projects amongst team members i.e. don’t overwhelm your top performers.
- Protected time: enforce deep work time and if needed, no meeting blocks or days so that your team can get their head down and get stuff done.
- Visibility: use systems such as Kanban boards or visible workload trackers to see where your team is spending their team and that everything is balanced.
- Run regular one-on-ones: I’d advocate for weekly or at least bi-weekly, short one-on-ones with your team with a focus on managing workload and spotting the early warning signs of burnout.
Whilst these won’t always prevent burnout 100%, they can certainly be strong preventative measures for most team members and can be really good ways for you to spot problems as early as possible.
On the final suggestion of regular one-on-ones, I’d encourage you to drop in questions that can invite your team to tell you how they’re feeling about their workload. You don’t need to ask these every single week and over time, you’ll develop a strong instinct for when you may need to ask these kinds of questions:
- How busy do you feel on a scale of 1-10?
- Are any tasks making you feel overwhelmed or anxious?
- Do all of your tasks have reasonable deadlines?
- Do you feel that your workload is proportionate to the time that you have to deliver it?
- How is your calendar looking in terms of calls and meetings?
These, combined with the team questions mentioned above, should be kept in your back pocket and used when you need to take a temperature check on your team and assess if you need to step in and help work workload.
To wrap up, I’d like to say that burnout prevention isn’t a wellness perk, it’s a leadership responsibility. In 2025’s high-pressure environment, your ability to protect and manage your team’s energy is as critical as hitting targets.
Start simple – pick on prevention tactic or set of questions to ask from the guide above and start using it over the coming weeks. Your team (and your future self!) will thank you for it at some point.
