burnout

The state of California has proposed new legislation that will discourage managers and supervisors from contacting their employees outside of contract work hours. If enacted, this legislation could significantly impact modern work expectations in California and potentially across the country. 

Setting work boundaries is crucial for individuals to avoid burn-out and keep a healthy work-life balance. However, it is challenging for professionals to set these boundaries with their supervisors and bosses when each party has a different understanding of the expectations. A legal obligation to honor contract hours as the only available hours for an individual will set a clear boundary, beneficial to promoting balance for both direct reports and executives. 

When managers stay past normal work hours and email, chat, or contact others on their team they send implicit communication that those receiving the communication should be working as well. Even if a superior says they do not expect overtime, their sending of emails or messages implies to others that they should be working as well. Getting a late-night email from a boss can be stressful and lead to overworking and burnout of professionals across all levels. Limiting these communications will enable individuals to truly log off at the end of the day and step away from work. 

The California law is based on a concept called “right to disconnect.” Right to disconnect means that once an employee is outside of explicitly stated contract hours, they have no obligation to respond to any communication unless related to an emergency or schedule change within the next 24 hours. Several countries around the world have adopted this mentality working to promote work-life balance and mental health, France, Canada, Portugal and others work to support their citizens (CNBC).

Nevertheless, monitoring employee contact outside of contract hours is a challenging task and will likely take weeks or months for the turnaround in the government to report a complaint to eventually charge a fine to the individual in violation. To better promote work-life balance in this sphere, managers and leaders should consider new ways to limit work to work hours. For example, managers should set clear, explicit team expectations for work and communication habits. Additionally, managers and leaders should be considerate in utilizing their team's preferences and experiences to create a team norm. 

To further promote work-life balance, managers should consider “transition time” to and from work that will optimize efficiency and energy within a team. Transition time is a short amount of time in between different parts of a person's day that allows a small break to reflect and prepare to move forward while leaving the stress from the previous focus behind. Transition time helps mitigate stress and burnout and aids in creating feelings of control and preparedness. Many individuals may have transition time on a train or in a car during a commute. Through the COVID-19 pandemic transition to online work, many individuals lost their transition time between work and home life changing professionals' ability to recharge and prepare for the next phase of their day. 

Although it is sometimes challenging for managers to limit work contact, managers should be deliberate in promoting transition time. When a team member has adequate time to mentally prepare for their day, they will have higher energy and show increased efficiency while at work. On the other hand, without transition time, individuals may come into work feeling disorganized or unprepared, leading to a disheveled and inefficient work day. Once managers have set clear expectations with their team, they may focus on promoting autonomy for their team's growth and learning. 

Moving forward, promoting transition time for remote or hybrid employees is a great tool for improving focus and preparedness in the workplace along with prioritizing mental health and work-life balance. Transition time is a critical component of a person's day that encourages well-being and productivity. Here are 3 tips for individuals trying to find transition time to cultivate healthy habits and optimize performance. 

Transition time can appear in all different mediums. For example, some individuals may like to sit and listen to music or meditate. To be effective in using transition time, individuals should consider making lists to prioritize what items need to be handled in a day in which order. For example, an individual may get to work and create their work to-do list for the day and after work, they could do the same thing for their home life. Or, an individual could use transition time every day after work to create their to-do list for the next day. Either way, lists are a great tool for transition time to focus on activities and priorities. Knowing the order of tasks, time constraints and priorities allows for increased productivity and efficiencies throughout the day. 

2. Recap Activities

Transition time could be a moment of reflection or a recap of big events. For example, if an individual is nervous about a meeting, they may take time before to prepare their resources and a moment after to reflect and recap the meeting. Using transition time in between different focuses enables individuals to leave the stress from the first task behind and move into the next task energized and prepared. 

3. Set Boundaries

As discussed above, after-hours communication and messages from bosses can be a significant stressor in an individual's personal life. Using communication boundaries and set expectations can add to the impact of transition time. If an individual logs off for the work day at the end of contract hours and takes a moment to reflect and prepare for the next day but is later contacted by their boss, the value of their transition time is lost. Transition time works best when individuals are shifting from one focus to another, but if after-hours communication is occurring, this deteriorates the benefit of transition time for the direct report who is now asked to shift back to work mode. 

In working to prioritize mental health, work-life balance, and boundaries in the workplace, it is crucial for direct reports and their superiors to fully understand the mental impact of burnout and its causes. Managers who promote balance and well-being for their employees will see increased productivity and focus within their teams. 

In today’s fast-paced work environment, clear and consistent communication between employees and their managers is paramount to success. A critical aspect of this communication is being able to effectively understand workload capacity, and recognize when an employee is approaching a stage of burnout. To ensure that no one is overburdened with tasks, managers need to ensure and consider the circumstances of each employee. To effectively follow through with this both the employee and manager must have a platform or system to communicate and openly discuss workload, stressors from the work environment, and potential feedback. Additionally, goal setting should be a primary focus and metric used along with benchmarking to follow and understand employees’ productivity capacity. Open communication prevents burnout, enables a more productive team, and, fosters a healthy workplace culture. A primary concern of communication with employees and managers is understanding the workload is capable of each person.

A primary concern of communication with employees and managers is understanding the workload manageable by each person. Every employee has different limits and boundaries for the work they’re able to complete and different strengths and weaknesses enabling them to be efficient in different roles. When a team goes without a platform for communicating workload, it is common for employees to become overwhelmed, which leads to an ineffective and frankly unorganized team.

When employees are able to communicate their capacity to their managers, they can indicate whether they are at full capacity or if they have bandwidth for additional tasks. This transparency not only helps managers allocate work more effectively but also gives employees a sense of control over their responsibilities. By understanding what their team members can handle, managers are better equipped to balance the distribution of tasks in a way that maintains productivity without overwhelming anyone.

Capacity management strategies are used to optimize the resources of a team, and ensure that workloads are matched to employees' capacity if employees have already taken out multiple projects adding more tasks could lead to an overwhelm and decrease productivity. AIM Insights is a primary resource companies can utilize to organize and align goals, benchmarks, and progress for managers and their direct reports. AIM Insights enables managers to analyze and track capacity and expectations in a transparent measure with their employees. Aim insights enable managers to analyze and track capacity and expectations in a transparent measure with their employees.

Burnout is a prevalent concern in the current workforce. Commonly in industries where high pressure and deadlines sculpt team culture, professionals are feeling burnout and changing careers accordingly. Without being monitored burnout severely impacts employees and the organization as a whole, possibly causing irreparable damage in the loss of valuable talent, but, burnout doesn’t become apparent until the individual has really reached their tipping point. So employees may hesitate to raise concerns, and then the employee will have found a new employer before resolving the issues or bringing them to someone’s attention. 

This is another prime example of why communication platforms are crucial for maintaining a beneficial work environment, and culture. If employees have a direct channel to communicate struggles and concerns, they can easily share their feelings and their experiences within the team. A productive executive team will help managers identify patterns or signs of burnout early on. 

When managers actively communicate with their direct reports about their work experiences and stress levels, they can provide effective solutions, such as redistributing tasks or potentially modifying to more realistic deadlines. This proactive approach is paramount to sustaining a healthy, productive workforce and ensuring that employees can thrive in their environment. 

Employees already staffed on multiple projects can be added to others which will generally cause a decrease in performance. Frequently, this snowballs into a plethora of other issues, including low-performance reviews, low engagement, employee turnover, and overall negative workplace culture. On the other hand when employees are utilized they may feel unimportant or unvalued, which can lead to to an engagement or a lack of motivation. The key is for managers to find the right balance, and they can only do so through effective communication and clarity with their direct reports.

A productive communication platform would allow managers to keep track of individual workload and assignments, allocate tasks and review each person‘s capacity, and analyze how much of an employee's time is being utilized, through real time visibility and data analytics into the status of each employee managers can make better informed decisions on the day-to-day tasks and assignments for each of their team members.

AIM Insights allows tracking metrics, and can be useful across different measures for a variety of users. The implementation of overall management ratings will enable a variety of users to understand the skills and efficacy of an individual. An implemented tracking system would enable managers and employees to view progress, assignments and expectations and establishes open and direct communications. 

The ability to communicate workload capacity, concerns, and availability is crucial for maintaining productive workplace culture, and balance. By providing employees with the opportunity to communicate and share their experiences with their managers, organizations can optimize their workforce. Effective communication and capacity management are paramount to fostering a culture of transparency, trust in collaboration for every level to thrive in. By prioritizing transparent communication and supporting employee well-being, organizations can build a resilient, engaged workforce that drives long-term success.

As the team leader, managers play an essential role in their teams, guiding and empowering them to reach their fullest potential. Although managers are a critical component of the team they lead, challenges can arise when managers become so integral to workflows that they cannot take time off without bringing productivity to a halt. Effective managers are able to balance their strong leadership capabilities while implementing mechanisms that allow their team to function for short periods autonomously. 

Given all the harmful repercussions stemming from over-reliance on managers for workflow productivity, it’s evident that this creates systemic vulnerabilities. When a manager finds themself too involved in workflows, it often stems from internal and/or external pressures. Many are driven by the fear of disrupting the team, causing deadlines to slip, or quality to decline. Some managers experience external pressure from senior leadership due to strict demands for perfect performance. Other causes may be a lack of trust in oneself, caused by impostor syndrome, or even a lack of trust in their team. Regardless of the source of the pressure, they can trap managers in a cycle of over-involvement, even when the over-involvement is detrimental to the team's long-term success. 

The behaviors exhibited by over-involved managers and the pressures that cause them are similarly reflected in PTO culture. When managers feel indispensable, they and their teams will be more resistant to logging off to take personal time. Especially in organizations with “unlimited PTO”, employees may take less time off due to the implicit pressure to keep workflows progressing. Managers' modeling the expectations of constant involvement gets internalized and practiced by staff. 

This team norm of manager reliance for workflows creates a cycle: managers are overloaded by workflows and feel pressured not to take time off, which increases team dependency and conveys the message that no one on the team should take time off. As a manager, it is critical to break the feedback loop and create a balanced approach that prioritizes managers’ ability to take time off without causing disruptions. 

Managers who develop a more balanced approach positively impact themselves and their team. Dedicating time for personal time off works to limit the effects of burnout while also increasing personal motivation. Additionally, avoiding dependency of workflows on a singular manager can prevent costly disruptions later on for the organization. Most importantly, prioritizing managers’ ability to not overly involve themselves in workflows can foster a culture of trust and responsibility, positively impacting the team's productivity. 

Rather than taking on all the responsibility and being involved in all decision-making processes, managers should identify tasks that can be completed by other team members to allow for more efficient progress. Delegating simultaneously distributes the workload more adequately throughout the team and encourages team members to take ownership of new tasks. Managers may be hesitant to delegate tasks; slowly delegating more responsibilities to employees helps to ease managers and direct reports into this new dynamic. 

2. Cross-train Employees

Cross-training employees ensures there are multiple team members who can step up and assume some of their managers' responsibilities in their absence. Through additional training and development, team members can become equipped with a wider skillset to prepare them for additional responsibilities. Conducting continuous training works to build confidence in the capabilities of direct reports. 

3. Document Procedures 

An obstacle for others to assume managers' responsibilities while they take time off may simply be a lack of proper documentation. Managers with specific procedures for processes, but no documentation for said processes, create unnecessary knowledge gaps. Accessibility of proper documentation removes reliance on memory and expertise, allowing other team members to conduct sufficient procedures without constant direct oversight. 

4. Effective Management Software 

Utilizing performance management software can streamline tasks and promote team collaboration. AIM Insights, a performance management software, utilizes monthly surveys to uncover gaps between team sentiments and managers' perceptions. These monthly surveys, along with AIM’s goal benchmarking capabilities, can transform managers' ability to delegate and better understand their teams' needs. 

Teams shouldn’t encounter a scenario in which the team cannot exist if someone takes the day off. Not only does this pressure from extreme team reliance harm managers, but the organization as a whole. Managers who recognize they are so integral to the workflows that they cannot take time off must reevaluate why these sentiments are held and how they can adapt their management style to allow their team to function adequately on its own at times. 

In early March, weeks after a difficult round of layoffs at Finverity, a mid-sized fintech firm based in Austin, Chief Operating Officer Daniel Kim sat quietly in his office, reviewing an email draft for the third time. The company had just let go of 40 employees, nearly 20% of its workforce, as part of a necessary restructuring. On paper, the move secured another 18 months of runway and realigned Finverity toward its most profitable tools. But the human cost was palpable.

The halls were quieter. Slack messages had taken on a colder tone. Managers reported a sharp decline in employee engagement, and HR flagged an uptick in anonymous feedback about "leadership silence" and burnout. For the employees who remained, trust had cracked. Daniel knew the numbers looked better, but culture, morale, and credibility had taken a hit.

This was the moment Daniel decided to stop focusing solely on operational recovery and start leading the emotional one. 

When layoffs occur, many leaders default to generic statements: “We’re realigning resources,” or “This wasn’t an easy decision.” A short internal memo is sent out, a brief all-hands is held, and then leadership often attempts to return to business as usual.

But “business as usual” rarely exists after a layoff.

The absence left behind isn’t just about empty desks or missing team members, it's about the emotional and psychological aftermath. Employees are left with unanswered questions: Am I safe? Why were certain people let go? Could this happen again? What does this say about our future?

Layoffs fundamentally alter workplace dynamics. They often introduce:

Without open, ongoing communication from leadership, that silence gets filled by speculation, anxiety, and worst-case assumptions. What could have been a moment of unity becomes one of fragmentation.

Don’t rush into “getting back to normal.” After a layoff, what was “normal” no longer exists. The emotional toll is real grief, guilt, anxiety, and distrust often simmer beneath the surface. The worst thing a leader can do is ignore it.

Instead, create intentional space for open dialogue. Host team check-ins where employees are encouraged to share how they're really feeling, and not performatively, but authentically. Acknowledge the loss, validate the discomfort, and resist the urge to pivot too quickly into productivity talk.

Layoffs are not just operational events—they are emotional ones. Leaders must create space to process burnout, fear, and grief. Hold honest conversations, not to fix things immediately, but to listen. This can happen through small-group meetings, anonymous feedback tools, or one-on-one check-ins. Most importantly, leaders should reaffirm their commitment to the remaining team through visible, ongoing action—not just reassuring words.

After giving space to reflect, teams need a new direction. Avoid forced optimism and instead focus on building a future grounded in clarity. Reframe the internal message from what was lost to what is now possible. Use forward-looking language like “Here’s where we’re headed,” or “This is how we’ll rebuild together.” A vision workshop or all-hands Q&A can reinforce alignment and give employees a sense of purpose in the new chapter.

Buy-in grows when people feel ownership. Invite departments to co-create goals, and connect their work back to the company’s mission. When people can see how their role fits into the bigger picture, engagement follows. Empower team leads to facilitate planning sessions that allow input from all voices—not just top-down directives.

Morale isn’t rebuilt through pizza or ping pong—it’s rebuilt through trust and real conversation. Host “Reconnection Days” or off-site sessions that focus on culture, values, and vision. Drop the presentations. Instead, prompt teams to reflect on what they want their culture to feel like moving forward. These gatherings should prioritize honesty and shared understanding—not performance metrics.

Rebuilding trust is a process, not a moment. Leaders must regularly check the pulse of their teams through surveys, anonymous feedback, or town halls. Share progress transparently—what’s improving, what still needs work, and what’s being done about it. Celebrate small wins, especially moments of collaboration or resilience. Progress may be slow, but consistency builds momentum—and that momentum restores belief. Using tools such as AIM Insights can help with tracking and reinforcing progress.

In the months that followed, Daniel Kim didn’t just regain the confidence of his team, he helped redefine what leadership looked like in a post-layoff workplace. By choosing transparency over distance, dialogue over damage control, and shared purpose over performative perks, he reminded his company that trust isn’t rebuilt through strategy decks, it’s earned through presence, honesty, and follow-through.

 For leaders navigating the difficult terrain after a restructuring, the lesson is clear: the business may survive the layoff, but the culture only survives if you lead what comes next with heart.