High performers can appear fine while burnout builds beneath the surface. Business leaders can reduce the strain by reviewing workloads, protecting focus time, and changing how work is assigned. Insights from experts in the field show practical ways to support strong employees before performance and well-being suffer.
- Audit Capacity and Offload Administration
- Ask What They Would Remove
- Separate Client Care From Reconciliation
- Expose Ownership Through Daily Huddles
- Share Emergency Coverage Then Restore Reserves
- Route Interruptions Through Shared Queue
- Redesign Workflow to Relieve Bottlenecks
- Review Priorities and Reassign Tasks
- Change Conditions Before Output Falls
- Protect Peak Focus Time
- Redistribute Default Decision Authority
- Remove Routine Volume, Preserve Meaningful Work
- Identify Energy Drains and Shift Duties
- Match Solutions to Individual Needs
- Observe Carefully Before You Intervene
- Cut Scope and Reassess Load
- Frame Rest as a Long-Term Strategy
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Audit Capacity and Offload Administration
Burnout is often a capacity issue first and a people issue second. In financial services we reward hustle. Commission structures, adrenaline and success breed a culture of busyness. So when one of my brokers started to show the signs I was wary of jumping straight to “take a holiday.”
After all, in my experience, high performing brokers rarely recognize when they’re overloaded. Sure, they’re dealing with a mountain of complex files, racing against settlement deadlines and are exhausted, but telling them to get away for a long weekend isn’t going to solve the problem.
In this case, the solution wasn’t to “rest harder,” it was to restructure how we work to improve sustainability. The first step was to audit their workload to get a true picture of broker capacity, moving beyond just looking at closed files and delving deeper into the pipeline. Often, fear of missing out on deadlines is enough on its own to take a broker over the tipping point.
This conversation opened my broker’s eyes to just how much admin was holding them up, and together we found a way to immediately offload some of that pressure. From that moment on they would receive no new intake files and I matched them up with one of our junior processors to take some of the admin load off their hands.
Rather than a top-down instruction, this solution came about by talking openly with my broker about capacity and putting them in the driver’s seat. Not only did this solution give my broker some breathing space to get back on top of things, it also meant we didn’t compromise on our service offering or see a dip in performance.
That’s why I’m a huge advocate for regularly auditing your team’s broker capacity. It’s a critical piece of good broker management and key to sustainable operations.
Austin Rulfs, Founder, SME Business Investor, Property & Finance Specialist, Zanda Wealth
Ask What They Would Remove
Your best people will say yes right up until the day they quit.
That’s why I never guess when a top performer starts to burn out. I ask one question: “If I could take one thing off your plate this week, what would it be?”
Some people are worn down by volume. Others are stuck on the one task they hate. Those need different fixes, and the answer tells you which. Let them pick, then make it happen that same week so they see it. Usually it’s one recurring thing, like a weekly report or a client call they dread, and it was costing more energy than the hours suggested.
I also give people a reason to say no. At my agency I’d rather hear on Tuesday that Friday is at risk than watch someone quietly absorb it. Then we decide together what slips.
Zac Hunter, CEO, Thelemata
Separate Client Care From Reconciliation
When a high performer starts burning out, I don’t look at their hours first. I look at what they’ve stopped doing. If someone who used to answer organizers with energy starts sending one-line replies, or quits suggesting fixes, that’s my signal. Strong people rarely say they’re overwhelmed. They just get quieter.
So I skip the “Are you okay?” check-in, because the answer is always yes. I ask, “If you could hand off one thing tomorrow, what would it be?” In my experience, that question has gotten me more honest answers than any wellness survey.
The change that’s worked best came out of that exact conversation during our fall rush, when school and booster club orders all land at once. One of my most reliable people was owning every campaign from kickoff to delivery. We split the role. She kept the organizer relationships she loved, and someone else took over order reconciliation. Her output didn’t drop. Her stress did.
My advice is to ask about the task, not the feelings. People can always name a task.
Burnout usually isn’t a motivation problem. It’s a design problem.
Chantel Wilt, Manager of Operation, Good Clean Fundraising
Expose Ownership Through Daily Huddles
After 25 years in healthcare construction, I’ve learned high performers usually burn out because they become the “hero” everything routes through. The first decision is whether the problem is volume, unclear ownership, or a leader who has made themselves the bottleneck.
The conversation I use is blunt but private: “What decisions are only moving because you touch them?” Then we list what they must keep, what someone else should own, and what can stop entirely.
I had to learn this myself. Early in my career I treated exhaustion as proof of commitment, and later realized a burned-out PM makes expensive decisions before they even notice it.
The change that works is a daily huddle: same time, same team, same format — today’s work, what’s trending wrong, and what went right yesterday. It gets problems out of one person’s head and turns workload from heroic rescue into visible ownership.
Mike Toftely, Founder, Building Construction People Group
Share Emergency Coverage Then Restore Reserves
I have a somewhat unpopular perspective on burnout. I think we’ve put too much emphasis on what managers should do to reduce workloads and not enough on personal accountability, prioritization, and whether people are doing work they genuinely love.
As a leader, I believe my job is to set a good example by taking time off myself, teaching people how to prioritize, and holding them accountable for managing their time and energy.
But I also run a wildlife park, and sometimes the animals don’t give us the luxury of a sustainable workload.
This summer, we had a premature giraffe calf who needed around-the-clock intensive care. When an animal’s life depends on you, you show up, even when you’re exhausted. We couldn’t just eliminate the work, so we had to get creative. We brought in people from other departments, paired experienced staff with junior keepers who could learn and help, and found ways to share the responsibility. We also made sure people were laughing, staying hydrated, and supporting each other through an incredibly demanding season.
The key is recognizing that it’s a season, not a sustainable way of operating indefinitely. When the crisis is over, you have to prioritize recovery and give people the opportunity to recharge.
I believe people are capable of extraordinary things when they’re passionate about their work and feel connected to its purpose. Our job as leaders isn’t necessarily to make the work easier. It’s to help people prioritize, build teams that support one another, and recognize when it’s time to push hard and when it’s time to rest.
LynnLee Schmidt, Integrator / COO & CMO, Tanganyika Wildlife Park
Route Interruptions Through Shared Queue
When a high-performing employee shows signs of burnout, I first try to understand what is making the workload difficult. Their results may still look good because they are working longer hours to keep up. That is why I would not wait for missed deadlines before starting a private conversation. I would ask, “What are you doing each week that does not appear on your task list?” High performers can become the person everyone asks for help. They may be checking other people’s work, answering questions and solving urgent problems while still carrying their own full workload.
If those extra requests are the main problem, I would change how they reach the employee. A practical option is to move routine questions into a shared ClickUp queue and assign a rotating person to handle them. I would explain the change to the team myself, so the employee does not have to keep telling colleagues no. Then we would review their current tasks and agree on what to pause, move or give a later deadline. I would also ask which responsibilities they want to keep, because reducing pressure should not mean taking away work they enjoy. After a week, we would check whether the changes actually helped. My main question would be, “Can you now finish your work within your agreed hours?” If the answer is still no, we need to reduce the workload further.
Maggie Nelson, Head of People and Operations, Court Case Finder
Redesign Workflow to Relieve Bottlenecks
I would look at workload and how they’re supported within the system.
A common issue with medical practices is that reliable staff can become the go-to for any urgent tasks, meaning there is a bottleneck and everyone relies on them.
Start by asking them to identify exactly which tasks are taking over their time and see what can be delegated. Take a look at repetitive tasks, make sure you know who is responsible and delegate any admin tasks to other trained staff/virtual support.
This is not to give an individual a couple of days off but to change the environment creating pressure.
Treat the signs of burnout as an issue with their workflow and take steps to investigate it.
Dr. Ricardo Abraham, Internal Medicine Practicioner, Founder & CEO, Medical Staff Relief
Review Priorities and Reassign Tasks
When a high-performing employee starts showing signs of burnout, I think the first step is having an honest, private conversation to understand what’s contributing to their stress. Often, these employees take on more responsibilities because they’re dependable, but that doesn’t mean their workload is sustainable. One effective approach is reviewing their priorities together, identifying tasks that can be delegated, and adjusting deadlines where possible. I also think it’s important to follow up regularly rather than treating it as a one-time conversation. The goal is to help them maintain their performance without sacrificing their well-being.
John Elarde III, Operations Manager, Clear View Building Services
Change Conditions Before Output Falls
The first thing I do is resist the obvious conclusion. When a strong performer starts to fade, the instinct is to say they’re tired and need a break. But burnout is usually a response to the job, not a flaw in the person. The research points the same way: it tends to come from workload, lack of control, unclear expectations or too little support, and Gallup has found that how a person experiences their workload matters more than how many hours they work. High performers are especially exposed, because the reward for doing well is usually more responsibility, and they keep saying yes.
So I start by asking, not assuming. A real conversation early beats a perfect response late, because by the time someone says they’re struggling, it has usually been building for weeks. The question I care about is what is making the work unsustainable, and what we can change about the work itself.
Then I change the work, not the person. A few days off helps, but it doesn’t last if the same load is waiting when they return. Reduce what’s on their plate, clarify priorities, move tasks to someone else, give them more say in how the work gets done. None of that works without trust. We’ve never denied a leave request, and I’d rather someone ask early than push through quietly. Trust isn’t a perk you hand out after someone proves themselves. It’s the operating cost of not managing adults like children.
Alon Pearl, Founder & CEO, VA Masters
Protect Peak Focus Time
Start by finding out whether the person is short on hours or short on recovery, because the fix is different. Someone who is simply overloaded needs work taken off their plate. Someone who is running hot with no real off-switch can have a modest workload and still be depleted, and cutting tasks won’t touch that.
The mechanism is easy to miss in your best people. High performers tend to treat their own stress response as normal. They keep pushing through the body’s signals to stop, and over time the body stops sending the quiet ones. By the time they look burned out, the warning system has been overridden for months.
The most useful conversation I’ve seen is a plain, specific one about rhythm rather than effort. Ask them when in the day they do their sharpest work, when they hit a wall, and what they do right after the wall. Most will say they push through it with caffeine or more meetings. The body works in waves of roughly 90 minutes, and a person who never lets a wave come down eventually loses the top of it.
A high performer who is protected from constant interruption in their best window, and who takes a real break after each block, usually recovers capacity faster than one who simply gets a lighter load. I’m describing a pattern I see in coaching, not a controlled study.
Burnout is rarely fixed by a person trying harder to rest, so the manager’s job is to change the conditions around the work.
For your readers: this week, ask one strong performer on your team to name their best two hours and defend them from meetings.
Wilson Meloncelli, Human Performance Consultant, Mavericks Consulting
Redistribute Default Decision Authority
As an executive recruiter, I think one of the biggest mistakes an organisation can make when a high performer shows signs of burnout is treating it as a motivation problem. Often, the person hasn’t lost their drive at all. They’ve simply become the person everyone relies on, and over time, too much responsibility has accumulated around them.
I recently worked with an executive who had gradually become the default person for decisions that should have been shared across the leadership team. The instinct might have been to offer them more support or encourage them to take some time off, but the more useful conversation was about what they could genuinely stop doing. We looked at which responsibilities required their experience and which had simply landed with them because they were dependable.
Redistributing some of that operational work gave them room to focus on the decisions where they added the most value. It also meant establishing clearer ownership elsewhere in the team, rather than allowing everything to escalate to one person.
For me, the important distinction is between helping someone cope with an unsustainable workload and actually changing the conditions that created it. High performers don’t always need another resilience conversation. Sometimes they need permission, and practical support, to do less of the wrong work.
Phil Moran, Managing Director, Oryx Executive Search
Remove Routine Volume, Preserve Meaningful Work
Acknowledge what you see as their burnout, not as a judgment, but as a caring observation. If they agree with your observation, open the conversation with what you will take off their plate, not with “how are you doing?” People believe the workload will change when they see a commitment removed in that same conversation.
Then choose carefully what goes, involving them in those decisions as much as you can. Relief feels like a demotion when it takes away the meaningful work, so remove the volume, such as routine approvals, recurring meetings and tasks anyone could do, and keep the work that gives them purpose.
Energy is the reason. A client once told me she was worried about burnout in her organization. People who are burned out are not very productive, and people with plenty of mental, physical, emotional and spiritual energy do their best work. The meaningful work is a source of that energy, so protect it.
What is one conversation or change that helped someone regain a sustainable workload?
There have been many and they always involve a conversation not a decision that I make on my own. Make the focus on energy and meaning and recognize that your awareness and acknowledgement of their burnout is a big help in itself, not a full solution, but a big help.
Kevin Eikenberry, Chief Potential Officer, The Kevin Eikenberry Group
Identify Energy Drains and Shift Duties
When a high performer shows signs of burnout, I respond quickly and directly, and I start by acknowledging what I am seeing and asking what is draining their internal battery right now. I use the “internal battery” metaphor because most of us manage a phone battery better than our own energy, and burnout often comes from too many “apps running in the background” of work and life. In the conversation, we identify what can be “deleted” or reduced, including Focus overload and the weight of Regret, Offenses, Guilt, or Shame that can quietly consume capacity through my framework called “FROGS.” Then we reset the workload through delegation as a conversation of agreement, not a dump and run, with clear scope, deliverables, bandwidth, and resources. That combination gives them permission to protect energy and a practical path back to sustainable performance. We can also look at their three most challenging relationships and find ways to “empty” assumptions, value misalignment or expectations to lessen the emotional load from those people.
Dr. Janice Perkins, Executive Coach, Janice Perkins
Match Solutions to Individual Needs
Over the years, working across different teams and companies, I’ve learned not to treat burnout as one problem with one solution. The first thing I look for is what actually changed. Sometimes the issue is simply workload: too many deadlines, too much context switching, or not enough recovery time. But sometimes the workload is not the real problem at all. A strong employee may be frustrated because their role has become repetitive, they have little room to make decisions, their ideas are not being used, or they no longer see a path to grow professionally.
That is why I pay attention not only to output, but to changes in behavior. A high performer may still deliver for quite a while, so lower productivity is often a late signal. Earlier signs can be less initiative, fewer ideas, more frustration, or simply a noticeable drop in the energy they used to bring to the work.
One practice I find especially useful is regular one-to-one conversations where feedback goes both ways. The goal is not to ask, “Are you burned out?” but to understand what has made the current way of working difficult to sustain. Sometimes the answer is very practical: the person has not had a proper break in a long time, or part of the workload needs to be redistributed. In other cases, the conversation reveals that they have simply outgrown the role and need more responsibility, a different kind of challenge, or space to develop new skills.
The important part is that the conversation leads to a real change. Otherwise, even a very good one-to-one becomes just another meeting. Sometimes the right response is less work. Sometimes it is different work. And sometimes it is giving a strong employee the room to grow before they start looking for that opportunity somewhere else.
Hanna Shabunko, Marketing Manager, launchOptions
Observe Carefully Before You Intervene
It can be difficult to recognize when your highest-performing employees are suffering from burnout. Unlike other employees who, early on, may start missing work or turning out subpar results, they don’t always exhibit the signs until they are well into the burnout phase.
If you think one of your high-performers is showing signs of burnout, before you decide how to respond, take time to really observe their behaviors. Maybe they are just having an off day or are tired. Don’t jump to conclusions before you have the facts.
When an employee at this level becomes disengaged or starts missing deadlines, it’s pretty safe to assume they are experiencing some level of burnout. To find out where they are, initiate a private conversation. Be careful to never be accusatory; always come from a place of supportive collaboration when it comes to solutions.
Figuring out why they have become burnt out is probably the most important task. Maybe they are being micromanaged and need more autonomy. They could be beginning to recognize a lack of growth opportunities. Whatever it is that you pinpoint, brainstorm together about ways to address the issue.
For a while, you may need to provide them with extra support. If you can take something off their plate, do it. Once you’ve addressed the issue, they’ll be back to their high-performance standards.
Dr MIchael Kane MD, Chief Medical Officer, Indiana Center for Recovery
Cut Scope and Reassess Load
When a high performer starts showing signs of burnout, my first decision is to treat it as a workload design problem, not a resilience problem. High performers burn out because they absorb work: they take the hard review, the incident, the question nobody else can answer, and they do not complain until they are already past the line.
The conversation that has worked for me, with engineers I mentor and senior peers I work alongside, starts by naming the pattern out loud: your output is still strong, and the cost of producing it has become unsustainable. Then I ask what they are carrying that nobody can see. It is rarely the main project. It is the invisible load around it.
The change that helped most was cutting scope, not standards. We listed everything on the person’s plate, picked the one or two things only they could do, and moved or paused the rest, including a visible piece of work, so the relief was real and not a pep talk. We also agreed a checkpoint two weeks out to look at hours and energy honestly, not output.
What I have learned: do not wait for the performance to drop before acting. With high performers, performance is the last thing to go. By the time it moves, you are no longer preventing burnout. You are negotiating a resignation.
Vishnuvardhan Reddy Kaithapuram, Software Development Engineer, Amazon
Frame Rest as a Long-Term Strategy
The most common mistake with a high-performing employee showing burnout signals is reaching straight for the workload. Cutting their projects, extending their deadlines or sending them on vacation, usually is the wrong first move.
High performers have tied their identity to output in a specific way. When you take work away, you threaten the identity before you restore the capacity. They go on the vacation and come back more anxious than they left. The load reduction creates no durable change. The thing that drove them into burnout was years of running at full capacity without learning how to recover. Removing some of the capacity demand won’t teach them the missing skill.
Before deciding on a response, I look at three things. Is this person losing cognitive sharpness, losing emotional range, or losing their sense of effectiveness? Those three signal different root causes. Cognitive struggle usually means sleep debt and physiological exhaustion. Emotional flattening is often the detachment phase of burnout. A sudden drop in sense of effectiveness is the beginning of the collapse that follows if nothing changes. Each of these calls for a different conversation.
I avoid the standard “you need to slow down” opening. What I use instead is something that reframes the issue as business strategy: “I need you here for the next decade, and the way you are working right now is a two-year plan.” That lands with a high performer in a way permission-to-rest never does, because it treats their longevity as a strategic asset instead of their current output.
The specific change that moved the needle most often was a daily practice to actually recover their nervous system between demands. Five minutes of structured breathing at their desk, twice a day. The behavioral shift of using it is the harder part, and it is the piece that produces the change.
Sandra Campuzano, Breathwork Facilitator for Corporate Teams & Executives, Regreso a Respirar
