Here’s something I’ve learned from years of working in different spaces: by the time someone tells you they’re burned out, they’ve usually been struggling for months.
Burnout doesn’t announce itself. It creeps in slowly, disguised as tiredness, explained away as “a busy season,” normalised as just how work feels now. And because we’ve all gotten very good at performing okay-ness, the signs are easy to miss if you’re not looking.
But they’re there. And if you lead a team or manage people, learning to spot them early can make the difference between a recoverable rough patch and losing good people entirely.
The Numbers Are Worse Than You Think
Before I get into the signs, let me share something that struck me: according to recent research, 72% of U.S. employees now face moderate to very high stress at work, a six year high.1 More than half of employees reported feeling burned out in the past year.2 And burnout related disengagement costs employers an average of $3,999 per employee annually in lost productivity and health impacts.3
This isn’t a handful of struggling individuals. This is most of the workforce.
The challenge is that burned out employees don’t usually wave a flag. They quietly disengage, call in sick, or eventually leave, often before anyone realises how bad things had gotten.
So what are some things you can look for?
1. Sick Days and Unplanned Absences Start Creeping Up
This one is close to home for me. I’ve watched colleagues, dedicated, capable people, start taking more sick days when burnout set in. Not dramatically. A Monday here. A Friday there. Coming down with illness that lingers.
Research confirms this pattern: burnout is a significant predictor of sickness absence, with employees in the highest burnout category taking more than twice as many sick days as those in the lowest.4 In fact, sick leave for mental health reasons now accounts for 27% of all workplace sick leave, up four percentage points from the previous year.5
The absences aren’t the problem but the symptom. When someone’s system is running on empty, the body starts demanding rest whether or not the calendar allows it.
If you’re noticing a pattern of increased sick days across your team, especially unplanned ones, it’s worth asking what’s driving it.
2. The Countdown to Leave Becomes Desperate
I remember this feeling vividly: crawling toward my next leave day. Counting down the weeks, then the days, then the hours. Not excited for a holiday, exactly, just desperate to stop.
When people start living for their time off rather than finding any energy or meaning in their work, that’s a warning sign. It’s not only “looking forward to vacation” but survival mode.
You might notice it in how people talk about their leave: less “I’m excited to visit my family” and more “I just need to get through these next two weeks.” Or you might see people hoarding their leave days anxiously, afraid to use them in case things get worse.
Pay attention to the emotional quality of how your team talks about rest.
3. Irritability and Shortened Fuses
Burnout doesn’t just make people tired. It makes them reactive.
I’ve felt it myself, snapping at small things that wouldn’t normally bother me, feeling disproportionately frustrated by minor inconveniences, losing patience with colleagues and patients I genuinely got along with.
It’s what happens when someone’s emotional reserves are depleted. They don’t have the buffer anymore to absorb the normal friction of work.
In a team, this can show up as:
- Sharper responses in emails or meetings
- Less patience for collaborative problem solving
- Conflict between people who normally get along
- Withdrawal from team conversations
If someone who’s usually warm becomes consistently short tempered, burnout might be the explanation, not attitude.
4. The “Always Available” Employee Suddenly Isn’t
This one’s counterintuitive, but watch for it.
Some of your most at risk employees aren’t the ones who complain or push back on workload. They’re the ones who never do. The people who say yes to everything, who flex their schedules around the business, who take leave when it’s convenient for everyone else, never when they actually need it.
I’ve known colleagues like this. They seemed fine. Reliable. Accommodating. And then one day, they weren’t. They’d crash, or they’d quietly resign, or they’d suddenly become unavailable in ways that seemed out of character.
What happened? They’d been running on fumes the whole time, but because they never set boundaries, no one noticed until there was nothing left to give.
If you have team members who are too accommodating, check in with them. They may need permission to prioritise their own needs.
5. Presence Without Engagement
Sometimes the most burned out people don’t miss work at all. They show up every day, but they’re not really there.
This is presenteeism: being physically present while mentally and emotionally checked out. Research suggests it’s actually more costly to organisations than absenteeism, quietly draining productivity by a third or more.6
It looks like:
- Doing the minimum to get by
- Disengagement in meetings (cameras off, silence, minimal contribution)
- Work that’s uncharacteristically sloppy or late
- A sense of going through the motions
The dangerous thing about presenteeism is that it’s invisible from the outside. The person is at their desk. They’re responding to emails. But the spark is gone.
What Actually Helps
Spotting these signs is only useful if you do something with the information. Here’s what I’ve seen work:
Normalise the conversation. If you wait for people to come to you, you’ll miss most of them. Ask directly, not “are you okay?” (everyone says yes) but “what’s been hardest lately?” or “how’s your energy been?”
Look at workload honestly. Heavy workloads (35%) and long work hours remain the top drivers of burnout.1 If your team is constantly underwater, no amount of wellness initiatives will fix the problem. The work itself has to be sustainable.
Model rest. If leaders don’t take leave, don’t disconnect, and don’t set boundaries, no one else will feel permission to either. What you do matters more than what you say.
Make support accessible. This is where I come in. Sometimes people need a space to talk, confidentially, without fear of judgment or career impact, about what they’re experiencing. Coaching can be that space.
One Thing You Can Start Today
You don’t need to schedule another wellness workshop or add a mental health event to the calendar. You can start smaller than that.
Try opening your next team meeting with 60 seconds of intentional breathing. Not a meditation session. Not an app. Just a simple pause before diving into the agenda.
Here’s how it works:
“Before we get started, let’s take a minute to arrive. If you’re comfortable, close your eyes or soften your gaze. Take a slow breath in through your nose for four counts… hold for a moment… and exhale slowly through your mouth. Let’s do that together two more times.”
That’s it. Sixty seconds.
It sounds small, but here’s what it does: it signals that this is a space where slowing down is allowed. It gives everyone’s nervous system a moment to shift out of reactive mode. And over time, it normalises the idea that we don’t have to be running at full speed every second of the day.
You don’t need to be a wellness expert to lead this. You just need to be willing to pause.
A Note on Balance
I want to be clear: rest isn’t a reward for productivity. It’s a requirement for sustainability.
Some of the most burned out people I’ve worked with are the ones who felt they couldn’t take leave when they needed it, only when the business could spare them. But there’s never a perfect time. And waiting for permission to rest often means waiting until you crash.
The goal isn’t to eliminate stress from work. That’s not realistic. The goal is to build environments where people can recover from stress, where rest is protected, boundaries are respected, and struggling is something you can name out loud.
That’s what sustainable looks like.
If You’re Seeing These Signs
If you’re reading this and recognising your team, or yourself, you’re not alone. More than half of the workforce is in the same boat.
The good news is that early intervention helps. When organisations take burnout seriously, before people hit the wall, the trajectory changes. People stay. They recover. They re-engage.
If you’d like to talk about what support could look like for your team, I’m always happy to have that conversation. No pressure, no pitch, just a real discussion about what your people might need.
References
- Aflac. (2025). 2025-2026 Aflac WorkForces Report. aflac.com
- NAMI. (2024). The 2024 NAMI Workplace Mental Health Poll. nami.org
- Lee, B.Y. et al. (2025). The Health and Economic Burden of Employee Burnout to U.S. Employers. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. ajpmonline.org
- Borritz, M. et al. (2007). Burnout as a predictor of self-reported sickness absence. Occupational and Environmental Medicine. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Euronews Health. (2025). More workers struggling with stress, anxiety, and burnout. euronews.com
- American Association for Physician Leadership. (2025). Research: Why Employees Work While Sick and How Leaders Can Stop It. physicianleaders.org