There is a real sense of people feeling totally exhausted. It is not just about needing a holiday but exhausted to the point that you just can’t think. The statistics also show the growing trend with 91% of UK adults stating they experienced high or extreme stress in 2024. Twenty-one percent of these people needed time off work. This level is unsustainable and is costing businesses £102 billion a year.
What has caused this to be such an issue? There is a sense of the “always-on” culture. The blurred lines between work and home (the joy of smartphones). The sense of pressure to do more with less and busyness being the new normal. But for some, this is breaking them.
Leaders in our organisations are seeing what is happening, including absence rates climbing, productivity dropping, people quitting and mental health concerns growing. We might see can be articulated using The Emotional Culture Deck as burned-out teams describe themselves as: Insecure. Guarded. Afraid. Paralysed. Stuck. It could prevent people from being innovative and collaborative, and for some they are just trying to survive from week to week. Many interventions that organisations are trying to merely treat the symptoms, not the cause.
From Burnout Epidemic to Sustainable High Performance
Sustainable high performance is not about doing more with less or just pushing harder. It is about creating conditions where people can perform brilliantly without destroying themselves in the process. Sustainable high performance happens when boundaries that are respected, not just suggested. Growth happens without constant overextension. Stretch exists, but so does recovery. Challenge is present, but so is support.
Using our integrated approach, Collaborate work with organisations to fix the root causes, not just patch the symptoms.
Our BREAKING™ framework helps identify where boundaries are not being managed and where expectations have become unrealistic. You cannot fix burnout without addressing these systemic issues.
STRETCH™ framework focuses on developing sustainable habits. You cannot grow and develop your teams if you are constantly pushing people past their limits? That is what STRETCH™ helps us to define and implement effectively.
Lumina Spark helps others to understand that we are all different. Some people recharge by diving into work whilst others need space. Lumina helps individuals recognise their patterns, especially their overextensions and spot the signs.
Leaders set the tone in an organisation, and our leadership programme helps them to find the right key. We help leaders model healthy boundaries and create sustainable high performance.
Organisations that do this work well do not just reduce burnout, they build sustainable high performance, a place where people can be productive without destroying themselves in the process.
Using the Emotional Culture Deck again, teams shift to feeling: Energised. Appreciated. Connected. Involved. Curious.
When you create sustainable high performance, you do not just reduce burnout. You unlock what people are actually capable of when they are not running on empty.
And that’s when organisations genuinely thrive.
