Spent 8 months misreading my team's burnout and it cost us two good people

I kept seeing my senior dev take longer on tickets and figured they were just slacking off... turns out they were drowning but felt too awkward to say anything. It took a random 1-on-1 where they finally admitted they hadn't taken a real day off in 6 months for me to get it. After that I moved our team to a mandatory four-day sprint cycle with zero meetings on Fridays. Has anyone else found a structural fix that actually helped your team recharge without you having to guess?

2 comments

2 Comments

robin83628d ago

Does anyone else find that the smallest changes end up making the biggest difference? For my team, we started doing a 15 minute morning check-in where everyone just says how they're feeling, not what they're working on. At first people thought it was silly, but after a few weeks our lead engineer finally admitted she hadn't slept through the night in months because she was stressed about a deadline. We ended up moving that deadline and now she actually takes her lunch breaks outside instead of eating at her desk. Sometimes you just need to build a routine where people can be real without it being a big deal.

marymorgan28d ago

Honestly, that hits close to home. I had a similar wake-up call when my lead designer started showing up late and missing small deadlines, and I thought they just weren't caring about the project anymore. Turns out they were dealing with a sick parent and commuting chaos, not laziness. What worked for us was switching to a "no expectations" Wednesday where everyone blocks off their calendar for whatever they need, whether it's catching up on sleep, running errands, or just staring at the wall. It sounds dumb but it gave people space to admit they're struggling without the pressure of asking for permission.