Your team is more burned out than they're letting on

Would you stay in a job that requires you to work 15-hour shifts? That’s an average 95-hour work week with just five hours of sleep a night.

This actually happened in an investment banking firm, where one employee even said: “The sleep deprivation, the treatment by senior bankers, the mental and physical stress...I’ve been through foster care and this is arguably worse.”

To make things worse, the majority of these were 1st year analysts who were not entitled to overtime pay. So there was not a single silver lining in this setup, just a whole lot of stress, burnout, and psychological harm.

And this isn't isolated to Wall Street. Research shows that 82% of employees globally were at risk of burnout in 2025.

This can’t be the norm. Managers have a responsibility to recognize that this level of mental strain doesn't just hurt performance. It destroys people.

Take a chance on psychosocial safety

Workplaces that take psychosocial safety seriously stand a better chance of preventing these kinds of outcomes. But first, we need to understand what psychosocial safety is.

Psychosocial safety is the practice of identifying and addressing the work-related risks that can harm employees' mental and emotional health. These risks can range from more visible ones like harassment and bullying, to less obvious ones like excessive workload, lack of autonomy, or unclear job expectations.

In 2025, burnout in the American workforce hit a six-year high, with nearly three in four employees experiencing moderate to very high stress at work. The picture globally isn't much better. Employee engagement fell to 20%, its lowest point since 2020, costing the world economy an estimated $10 trillion in lost productivity.

This is exactly why standards like ISO 45003 and Australia's Safe Work Australia Model Code of Practice exist. They give organizations a way to actually act on psychosocial safety, not just talk about it. It also doesn’t hurt to support days like the World Day for Safety and Health at Work to help keep the conversation going, as a reminder that this isn't a conversation workplaces can ignore.

What counts as a psychosocial hazard at work?

Technically, anything that can harm a person’s mental state at work counts as a psychosocial hazard. The most common ones would include risks like:

Excessive workload

The most consistently cited hazard, since just about any industry can relate to this. Work overload covers everything from excessive overtime, unrealistic deadlines, insufficient staffing, and too many assigned tasks. A US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) survey found that 70% of workers felt pressured to work very fast, and 43% said job demands regularly spill into their personal lives.

Workplace bullying and harassment

In the US, workplace bullying and harassment are the second leading causes of stress at work, affecting 79.3 million workers, with a single bully costing a business up to $100,000 per year. Bullying includes humiliating, intimidating, excluding, and undermining colleagues. On the other hand, harassment most commonly takes the form of sexual harassment, offensive jokes targeting someone's identity, and racial discrimination.

Low job control

This hazard refers to a workplace culture where employees have little to no say over what, when, or how they do their work. At first glance it seems minor, but it's one of the more insidious psychosocial hazards precisely because it's invisible and easily normalized. Roughly one in four workers feel they have no say in how their work gets done.

Workplace isolation

While loneliness exists across all work setups, it's significantly more common in remote and hybrid environments. Research found that fully remote workers report the highest levels of loneliness at 25%, followed by hybrid workers at 21%, compared to just 16% for on-site workers. It may look small, but millions of workers are quietly struggling without the small human interactions that make a workday bearable.

So, what can managers actually do?

Psychosocial safety won't fix itself. And while most managers know the term, fewer are sure what it actually looks like. Here are five places to start:

How Managers Can Improve Psychosocial Safety at Work

Normalize workload talks

Once you notice your team is already burned out, it’s already too late. By the time you can see it, the person has already been running on empty for a while. That’s why getting ahead of it is key. Regular one-on-one and more casual “how’s the load” conversations can give people a chance to flag issues before they become bigger.

Act on feedback

Trust erodes fast when feedback goes nowhere. If someone raises a concern or provides feedback on their workload but nothing happens, they won't raise anything again. You don't need to have all the answers immediately, but you do need to respond. Even a quick "let me look into that and get back to you" goes a long way. Acknowledge it, say what you're doing about it, and follow up.

See the warning signs for burnout

Burnout signs are easy to spot, you just need to keep an extra eye out for them. There’s common patterns that usually speak of burnout: someone who usually contributes starts getting quieter than usual or opts out from the team socially; or someone who is consistently working late and logging in early. Also make sure to check up on your high performers, as they are often the last people to say they’re struggling and may even be a safety risk.

Cut the ambiguity on expectations

Don’t leave people in the dark because ambiguity breeds stress. Start setting clear expectations for each person in your team. Ask if they’re okay with the amount of deliverables per week or work priorities they have. When expectations are clear and communication is consistent, people can actually focus on their work instead of guessing what's wanted from them.

Lead by example

It all starts at the top. Teams take their cues from their managers, so you have to practice what you preach or they’ll lose respect for you. The way you work sets the standard: if you skip breaks, reply at midnight and push through stress, your team will assume that's the expectation. Being visible about your own limits isn't a weakness. It gives people permission to do the same.