The signs of overload that show in your data, not in conversation
Echipa HR 365 · reviewed 2026-09-08 · 5 min read
People do not announce that they are struggling. They usually say it at two moments: at resignation and at the exit interview. In between, the signals exist and sit in data you already hold — timesheets, leave, absences, delivery rhythm. None is conclusive alone; three of them at once, in the same person, almost always is.
The five signals
| Signal | Where it appears | Indicative threshold |
|---|---|---|
| Consistent hours beyond schedule | Timesheets or hour records | Over 6 h a month, three months running |
| Leave not taken | Leave records | Over 60% of the balance still unused on 1 September |
| Short, frequent absences | Absence records | Three or more isolated days in two months |
| Deliveries on the last day | Work deadlines | Over 70% of work delivered in the final 24 h |
| Withdrawal from the optional | Attendance at meetings, sessions, conversations | A visible change from their own pattern |
The thresholds are indicative and mean something only against the person’s own pattern, not against the team average. Somebody who has always worked into the evening signals nothing by it; somebody who never did and now has for three months does.
Why untaken leave is the best signal
Because it is the least ambiguous. Overtime can come from a temporary peak; absences can have a thousand causes. But somebody who does not take their leave, despite having the days, is communicating either that they do not feel safe being away, or that they have nobody to leave the work with. Both are organisational problems, and both are yours.
It is also the signal readable earliest: the balance is visible in June, not in November. A mid-year check gives you four months in which you can still change something.
At team level, not at person level
The same signals, read across the team, say something different and are less invasive. A team where half the people still have over 60% of their leave unused in September does not have five individual problems, it has a sizing problem.
What it means, in capacity
A team of 8. On 1 September, average balance remaining: 14 days out of 21. They have to be taken before year end.
- Leave days to absorb in 4 months
- 8 × 14 = 112 days
- Working days available in the period
- ≈ 85 per person
- Missing capacity in the final 4 months
- 112 out of 680 person-days, i.e. 16%
- If they are not taken
- a carried-over obligation and a team that never stopped all year
- What the figure shows
- the final quarter has 16% less capacity than the plan assumes
Nu intră în calcul:
- public holidays, which shorten the available period further
- sick leave, which cannot be planned
The result figure is useful in a conversation with leadership, because it moves the subject from “people are tired” — which gets disputed — to “the final quarter’s plan assumes capacity we do not have”, which does not.
What you do when you see three signals
In this order
- Manager — an individual conversation that starts with what you observed, not with a question about how they feel
- Manager — ask what they would hand to somebody else if they could — the answer is usually the list to work from
- Manager — take something concrete off their plate, that same week; a promise without a visible change is worse than nothing
- Manager — check the same signals a month later; if they have not moved, the problem is sizing, not organisation
The first step has a phrasing that matters: “I have noticed that over the last three months you have consistently worked beyond schedule and have not taken any days” is an observation the person can confirm or qualify. “Are you ok?” gets “yes” in every case, including the ones where they are not.
Is it not surveillance to look at someone’s hours and leave?
These are operational data you hold anyway for payroll and planning. The difference between surveillance and management is what you do with them: if the outcome is a conversation and a task removed, it is management.
What if the person denies it?
You do not press. You have said what you observed and offered a concrete change; if they refuse, you note it and check again in a month. Sometimes the denial is genuine, sometimes it is the need not to look like they cannot cope.
Where to start
Open the leave records and look at your team’s balances. Those with over 60% remaining, in September, are your conversation list — and it is a list you already have, without measuring anything new.
For each name on it, check the second and third signal. Whoever has all three is the person you talk to this week.
The signals in managers
Managers are, statistically, the people with the most untaken leave and the most hours beyond schedule in any team. Nobody applies the same checks to them, because they have no manager as close by — and the result is that the problem is discovered at the same moment as with everybody else: at resignation.
The correction is simple and rarely applied: the same five signals are read for managers too, and the conversation is held by their own boss or by HR. An overloaded manager does not lead badly out of character, but because they no longer have the time — and the effect propagates to everyone in their team.
Balances, hours and absences in a single view, per team
The three signals are read from one screen, per person and per team — so the conversation happens in September rather than at resignation.
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