A few years ago the company I worked for had a great initiative. They were running monthly burnout surveys. They were anonymous. Quick to fill out. The idea was to catch problems early.
The numbers were consistent: every month, 70 to 90 percent of the team said they were approaching burnout or already there.
At first we took it seriously by adjusting deadlines, reshuffling priorities, and even tried to add headcount. But none of it made a dent. The system absorbed every fix and returned to its baseline: over-committed, reactionary, and always behind.
That’s when it clicked. Burnout wasn’t an anomaly. It was the product. We weren’t on the edge of something dangerous. We were living inside it.
So when I recently saw that 82% of employees say they’re at risk of burnout in 2025, I didn’t feel shocked. I felt recognition.
Personalizing a structural problem
We keep treating burnout like an accident. Like it snuck up on us. As if everyone just happened to take on too much at once, by coincidence.
But when 8 out of 10 people say they’re already running hot, it’s not a coincidence. It’s a system.
The bigger issue is how we respond.
We act like burnout is a personal problem with personal solutions. Take more breaks. Use your PTO. Try meditation. Go to therapy. Say no more often.
None of that touches the root. You can’t “self-care” your way out of a structure that runs on chronic overwork. You can’t deep-breathe your way out of a team culture that treats urgency as virtue.
If you say no to a meeting, the meeting still happens. If you leave on time, the work is still waiting. Eventually, someone starts questioning your commitment.
The real trick of modern burnout is that we start blaming ourselves for not thriving in environments that never made room for recovery in the first place.
Burnout isn’t a crisis. It’s a strategy.
If the system rewards speed, visibility, and saying yes, then of course the people trying to pace themselves look like under-performers. Of course the ones doing “just enough” start wondering if they’re falling behind.
Burnout becomes the proof that you were trying. And rest becomes the thing you have to earn.
That’s not an accident. That’s incentive design. And it works.
Try this instead:
So what do you do when the structure keeps pulling you toward the edge?
You start by naming it. Not to wallow in it, but to stop wasting time on the wrong fix.
Then you make small, deliberate shifts in the way you protect yourself and your team. Not heroic ones. Just enough to slow the fire down.
Here’s where I’ve seen it start:
Map the sprint cycles. Teams often get trapped in back-to-back “urgent” phases. If you never have recovery time, it’s not a sprint. It’s just a collapse in installments. Plot it out over the last 3 months. What patterns emerge?
Audit urgency. When something is “critical,” ask: according to whom? And what’s being protected - outcomes, or optics? Urgency without accountability is just pressure theater.
Say no directly. Not “I’ll try” or “Let me check.” Just: “We don’t have capacity.” No apology. No workaround. Say it the way finance says, “It’s not in the budget.”
Protect buffer time. Margin isn’t laziness. It’s how good teams stay sustainable. If everything’s scheduled to 100%, then one surprise breaks the whole week.
Model your real pace. If you reply instantly to every ping, people assume you expect the same. If you brag about staying late, no one believes you mean it when you say “take care of yourself.” Whatever you model is what people mirror.
The Bottom Line
Burnout isn’t a personal failure. It’s what happens when a team (or an entire company) normalizes overload and treats recovery as optional.
Most people don’t “break.” They wear down, quietly, then disappear. If 82% of people say they’re at risk, maybe it’s not a warning. It’s a mirror.
And maybe the goal isn’t to fix ourselves. Maybe it’s to stop pretending this is normal.