Workplace Burnout: When More Overtime Isn’t Enough to Fix a Staffing Problem

A months ago, I wrote about an exciting milestone in my career: I had officially been converted from a consultant to a full-time employee at the company where I had been working.

At the time, it felt like a major accomplishment.

After spending so much time as a consultant, becoming a permanent employee made me feel like I had finally found some stability. I was excited about the opportunity to continue growing with the company, become more involved with the team, and hopefully have a better sense of what the future would look like.

And, for a while, things actually did get better.

We managed to catch up on our workload. The pressure that had been building seemed to ease, and I started to feel like perhaps we had finally reached a more manageable rhythm.

But then things started changing.

One by one, the other consultants on our team were let go or their contracts came to an end. By August, many of the consultants who had been helping us were no longer around.

The workload didn’t disappear when the people did.

Instead, the work stayed.

And eventually, we started falling behind again.

Fewer People, More Work

One of the biggest differences I’ve noticed is how much more time I’m spending at work.

Before, I was averaging around four hours of overtime per week. That already felt like a significant amount of extra time, especially when you consider that those hours add up over the course of a month.

Recently, though, I’ve been averaging closer to eight hours of overtime per week.

That’s essentially another full workday.

I’ve been putting in those extra hours because I genuinely want to help the team catch up. I’m not someone who enjoys watching a backlog grow while knowing I could potentially do something to help.

So I’ve tried to contribute where I can.

I’ve stayed later. I’ve worked through more tasks. I’ve tried to help move things along so that the rest of the team isn’t overwhelmed.

But I’m beginning to realize something important:

Working more hours doesn’t necessarily solve a staffing problem.

There are only so many hours in a day, and there’s only so much one person can realistically accomplish.

There’s another issue, too.

When you’re reviewing someone else’s work, you’re relying on the work being prepared correctly in the first place.

If the person preparing the work doesn’t do a good job, the reviewer doesn’t simply get to review it and move on. The reviewer has to stop and figure out what’s wrong.

Sometimes that means researching an issue. Sometimes it means correcting the work. Sometimes it means going back through information that should have already been researched or resolved before the work reached the reviewer.

That creates another layer of work.

Instead of:

Prepare → Review → Complete

it becomes:

Prepare → Review → Find Problems → Research → Correct → Review Again → Complete

And when you’re already short-staffed, that extra time matters.

You can work eight hours of overtime every week and still feel like you’re getting nowhere if the process itself isn’t working efficiently.

You Can’t Outwork A Staffing Problem

The hardest lesson I’m learning right now is that dedication has limits.

I can work late.

I can take on additional tasks.

I can volunteer to help coworkers.

I can put in four hours of overtime.

I can put in eight hours of overtime.

But at some point, none of that changes the underlying problem.

If a team doesn’t have enough people, the solution isn’t necessarily to ask the remaining employees to work more.

That’s how burnout begins.

People start staying late because they’re trying to help.

Then staying late becomes normal.

Eventually, the extra hours become expected, even if nobody explicitly says they are expected.

And before long, the employees who are still there are exhausted from trying to compensate for the people who aren’t.

The irony is that the people who care the most can sometimes be the ones who end up carrying the heaviest burden.

They see the backlog.

They see their coworkers struggling.

They know that if they don’t step in, something might not get done.

So they step in.

Then they do it again.

And again.

Until they’re working twice as hard just to keep things from falling further behind.

I Don’t Regret Helping

Despite everything, I don’t regret trying to help my team.

I care about the quality of our work.

I care about my coworkers.

And I want us to succeed.

What I need to change is the belief that I personally have to fix everything.

There’s a difference between helping your team and sacrificing yourself for your team.

What I’m Taking Away From This

This experience has changed the way I think about being a good employee.

Being a good employee doesn’t mean saying yes to everything.

It doesn’t mean working unlimited overtime.

It doesn’t mean being available every weekend.

And it doesn’t mean feeling personally responsible whenever something goes wrong.

Being a good employee also means recognizing your limits.

It means communicating when the workload becomes unrealistic.

It means helping when you genuinely can, but understanding that sometimes you simply can’t.

Most importantly, it means recognizing that staffing and workload are ultimately organizational problems.

Employees can help manage those problems, but they can’t permanently solve them by working themselves into the ground.

Right now, our team is trying to do more with fewer people.

I’m going to continue doing my part.

But I’m also trying to remind myself that my part has limits.

I don’t want to reach a point where working eight hours of overtime every week becomes normal. I don’t want to spend all my energy trying to catch up only to find that we’re still behind the following week.

And I don’t want to carry guilt over decisions that weren’t mine to make.

Sometimes supporting your team means staying late.

Sometimes it means stepping up when someone needs help.

And sometimes, supporting your team means recognizing that you can’t be everywhere, help everyone, or fix every problem.

That’s a difficult lesson for someone who wants to be dependable.

But perhaps it’s also one of the most important lessons I’ve learned since becoming a full-time employee.

I wanted stability when I made the transition from consultant to permanent employee.

What I’ve learned instead is that being permanent doesn’t necessarily mean things become easier.

Companies change.

Teams change.

People leave.

Workloads increase.

Responsibilities shift.

And sometimes, the people who remain have to figure out how to adapt.

I’m still optimistic about my future here. But I’m also learning that loyalty shouldn’t mean ignoring my own limits.

I can care about my team without carrying the entire team.

I can help without taking responsibility for everything.

And I can look back at the times when I wasn’t available without automatically assuming that I let someone down.

Maybe that’s the real lesson in all of this.

Sometimes, doing your best has to be enough.