One of the greatest risks to employers is employee burnout. A recent 24 Seven survey of more than 2,000 professionals across the marketing, creative, tech, beauty, fashion, and retail sectors found that nearly half (45%) say they’ve never felt more stressed about balancing their personal and professional lives. That’s despite real gains elsewhere: 79% say they’re engaged at work, for instance. But positive engagement numbers don’t cancel out the pressure employees are still under.
And once an employee has communicated that they feel burned out, it’s possible that their next communication could be a resignation letter.
Organizations that don’t address mounting workloads and insufficient staffing are relying on a loyalty that has its limits. Now, AI has added a new layer of stress.
The bottom line is this: Once an employee has communicated that they feel burned out, their next communication could be a resignation letter. That’s why managers must get in front of employee burnout before they get burned by it.
Employee burnout is the result of chronic workplace stress that manifests as a perpetual state of physical, emotional, or creative exhaustion.
Burnout can be caused by various factors, including heavy workloads, unrealistic deadlines, a lack of role clarity, poor communication, an absence of support from management, feeling unappreciated, a toxic workplace culture, or the expectation to constantly adapt to new AI tools and workflows. One does not need to experience all these things to reach the point of job burnout; sometimes it’s just a couple of these issues that, when left unaddressed, can light the flame.
Employees who have reached this stage are more likely to leave, and one departure can prompt others to consider their own options. If one burned-out employee is ready to quit, chances are others are feeling the same way.
To get ahead of burnout, employers need to make sure managers understand the warning signs so that when they begin to see them, they can act swiftly.
Here are some red flags that leaders should be keyed into when prioritizing employee burnout prevention:
Think of all the work that goes into recruiting new marketing, creative, and tech talent, and convincing them that your company is the one to join. All the effort that goes into the recruitment process shouldn’t stop once an employee is officially on board. To boost employee satisfaction levels and retention, strive to continually re-recruit them.
Managers should have regular 1:1 meetings with employees. These meetings provide an opportunity not only to talk about to-do lists and upcoming assignments but also to discuss how employees are feeling about their current projects – and work in general. Are there any particular stressors? Does the workload feel manageable? You can also use these touch-base meetings to give employees an opportunity to share about their personal lives, within reason, or chat about common interests. You might even ask for advice to show your employees that their opinions are valuable.
Communication shouldn’t stop with designated check-in times, though. If managers start to notice employee burnout signs, a separate conversation should be prioritized. Managers should ask for an honest conversation and then really listen. Sometimes just having the opportunity to get it all out on the table and vocalize pain points will be all that person needs. But it may also require the manager to take action to address those issues. If an employee tells you that they feel overworked or that the deadlines are stressing them out, managers need to be ready to work through potential solutions so the employee doesn’t feel like their openness was shrugged off.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget how much is assigned to one employee, especially if they don’t tell you they feel chronically overwhelmed. Perhaps you have a trusted member of your team who frequently volunteers to take on new projects and assignments. Because you’re busy too, you might inadvertently overlook that this person already has a full plate. And then you give something else to that person, meanwhile a colleague asks them for help on a project, and because they’re not the best at saying no, their plate rises so high that they can’t get out from under everything they have to do, and they hit a breaking point.
As a manager, it’s important to step back, look at your team’s individual workload levels and make sure one person isn’t consistently shouldering more than their fair share.
Consider bringing freelancers aboard your team to help alleviate burnout among internal employees. Freelancers can help during big projects and crunch times, but they can also offer expertise that can help lighten the load on your core employees. Highly skilled specialized freelancers can also bring a fresh eye to complicated challenges.
Freelancers can be brought on short-term or long-term. And if you partner with a specialized freelance recruiting agency like 24 Seven, we can have talent at the ready when your company needs it most.
Are you regularly emailing employees after-hours and on the weekends? Perhaps you don’t expect them to respond; maybe you even mention they don’t have to, but you’re the boss and the power dynamic is such that an employee might still assume you expect them to answer. Even if they wait to respond, their time off to rest and recharge has still been interrupted, and your request will likely linger in their mind.
Managers need to take an active role in helping set workplace boundaries. Hours and schedules should be set and then honored. Of course, there will be occasional extenuating circumstances – depending on project deadlines and unexpected life events – but work-related communication should mostly happen during work hours.
During those work hours, communication should be clear and direct. Allow employees to ask clarifying questions. If a new deadline is problematic due to existing priorities, can it be moved back? If not, can you bring others in to help ensure all the work gets done?
One of the easiest things managers can do to prevent employee burnout is to let their employees know that they’re appreciated.
Feedback is good; positive feedback is generally better. This is not to say that you can’t be constructive with employees on areas where they can grow and skills they can build, but it needs to be coupled with positive reinforcement. This may not always be possible, and there are times that call for tough conversations, which is why it’s so important that managers have already set the stage with enough praise to soften those blows. During hectic times, a proverbial pat on the back can lift morale and give a much-needed reminder to employees that their time and effort are indeed valued.
While some people may be shy when it comes to receiving compliments, it’s fair to assume that no one dislikes being told they did a good job. And better yet, when you communicate where your employees shined, you’re also helping them understand what they can do more of.
Do you have employees who respond to emails when they’re on vacation? Or employees still chugging along three hours after the workday ended? Or maybe someone who feels obligated to work when they’re sick? Managers need to encourage these people to log off.
Learning to unplug is a critical step for employees to take in preventing their own job burnout, but some people need more of a push than others.
Remind employees to turn their out-of-office reply on when taking time off and designate an alternative point person to deal with requests. If your employee is not feeling well, remind them that self-care is important and that it’s fine to take the day off. And if you see employees staying on way after hours, check in to see what they’re working on and remind them that it can be picked up the next workday. If they insist on staying on, encourage them to log off early another day in the near future.
And remember, as a manager, you should lead by example. Take your vacations, try not to work when you’re sick, and prioritize your own time when the workday ends. If your team consistently sees you working when you’re ill, answering messages during long weekends, and generally burning the midnight oil, they’re going to assume you expect the same of them.
AI has added a newer, less obvious layer to employee burnout. Employees aren’t just managing hefty workloads and tight deadlines anymore. Many are also trying to keep pace with tools and workflows that shift every few months, often without much training or support to help them adjust.
That pace isn’t slowing down. 24 Seven’s 2026 Salary Guide found that 82% of organizations plan to hire net-new AI-focused roles in the next 12 months, and 64% have increased their AI talent spend over the past year. Organizations are moving fast on AI. Employees are the ones left to keep up.
A few factors are driving this specific kind of strain:
New AI platforms and features launch constantly, and employees are frequently expected to pick them up on their own time, on top of their existing workload. Learning one tool well is manageable; relearning a new interface, prompt style, or workflow every quarter can easily wear people down.
Employees see headlines about AI everywhere and worry that not keeping pace will make them look replaceable or behind their peers. That anxiety is its own source of stress, separate from whatever AI tools actually add to their work.
When employees aren’t sure whether they’re expected to use AI, how much, or for what, they’re left guessing. Some overuse it to signal effort. Others avoid it entirely out of fear of getting it wrong.
Employees increasingly spend hours prompting, fact-checking, and revising AI output until it’s usable, hours that rarely show up in a project timeline. This invisible labor, sometimes called botsitting, still costs energy even when it’s not logged anywhere.
Some employees have picked up on the idea that heavier AI use reads as more productive or more innovative, so they lean on it constantly, whether or not it’s actually improving the work. This behavior, known as tokenmaxxing, turns usage volume into a stand-in for results, and chasing that volume becomes its own source of anxiety.
AI is supposed to free up time. In practice, many employees find that the time AI saves on one task gets absorbed by a higher volume of expected output elsewhere. When “AI will speed this up” turns into “so now you can take on three more projects,” the promised relief never actually reaches the employee.
This isn’t just about morale. Teams that feel supported in how they adopt AI, rather than pushed to keep up with it, are the ones who see the productivity gains AI promises.
While we can’t manage your teams for you, we can help you take some of the weight off their shoulders, whether the strain is coming from workload, headcount gaps, or the demands of adapting to AI.
24 Seven recruiters specialize in placing full-time, freelance, and embedded talent across marketing, creative, and technology. Our team has access to a wide network of highly skilled AI-fluent professionals who can step in on a short-term or long-term basis to lighten the load on your core employees.
We also partner with organizations directly on their AI adoption, helping build the workflows, guidelines, and training support that keep AI use sustainable rather than another source of pressure on your team.
Contact us today to see how we can support your team.