The burnout nobody sees coming

I want to talk about the employees most at risk of burnout. Because they're often the last ones anyone thinks to check in with.

The employees nobody worries about

They're delivering. Meeting deadlines. Supporting their colleagues. Taking on more when others are struggling. From the outside, they look absolutely fine. Yes, maybe they're pushing quite hard and you aren't really sure how they do it all, but they're getting results, so let's not rock the boat, shall we?

Until bam. Burnout.

What high-functioning stress actually looks like

I know how it works. I am queen of overperform, never stop, never good enough, slap on a smile and keep going. High-functioning stress has been a feature of my life for as long as I can remember. You get very good at looking like you're coping.

Until one day you're not. Until your body says: no more pretending, no more ignoring the warning signs. I'm going to make it IMPOSSIBLE for you to carry on. You clearly won't listen to anything else.

Why it's so easy to miss

That's exactly the problem with high-functioning stress. It's so hard to spot from the outside. Performance stays high, at least for a while (sometimes months, even years). But underneath that, the nervous system is sneakily borrowing from tomorrow to get through today. By the time the signs become obvious, you're often already looking at exhaustion, disengagement, sickness absence or resignation.

What to do about it

This is exactly the territory I work in with Dr William Bird MBE at Intelligent Health. He brings the medical insights and I bring the corporate cynicism, which results in what I always find to be an insightful and genuinely engaging conversation about High-Functioning Stress: The Burnout Nobody Sees.

We recorded the full conversation and it's up on YouTube, well worth a watch: High-Functioning Stress: The Burnout Nobody Sees.

If any of this resonates, personally or from an HR perspective, get in touch and I'll let you know about upcoming sessions, or we can talk about what building this thinking into your organisation could look like.

You'll leave any conversation on this knowing what to look for, how to have better conversations with your people, and what it really takes to build a culture where sustainable performance is the standard.

Spot it early and you get to choose what happens next. Leave it too long, and your body will choose for you.