Speaking / Talk 02
Burnout's quiet cycle.
How your best people break, and why it shows up in the kitchen first.
The brief
The misunderstanding most companies make about burnout: it happens to people who work too much and hate their job. In high-growth tech and AI organisations it more often happens to the opposite. The people who love what they do but have lost the capacity to do it.
The earliest signal is rarely on the engagement survey. It's in the kitchen. Skipped meals, more caffeine, second-helping carbs, lunch at the desk. Each small change feeds the next, and the cycle runs faster than HR's quarterly check-ins can catch.
This talk maps the loop, shows where it's interruptable, and gives leaders concrete signals to act on before someone goes off sick.
Audience takeaways
What leaders walk out with.
- 01
The four-stage loop: pressure → eating change → energy drop → behaviour change. Why it accelerates instead of self-correcting.
- 02
Six behavioural signals that precede burnout by 8-12 weeks, visible to a manager who knows what to look for.
- 03
Why the standard wellbeing toolkit (meditation app, EAP line, "set boundaries") doesn't break this loop, and what actually does.
- 04
The two systemic levers a People team can pull this quarter without rolling out a new programme.