Most workforce conversations focus on extremes.

You’re either understaffed and in crisis, or you’re well-resourced and performing.

But in reality, most teams sit somewhere in between and that’s where the real risk sits.

Across organisations, a more common pattern is teams operating at 85–95% capacity. Busy, productive and delivering. Not visibly struggling. Not obviously broken.

On paper, it looks efficient.

In practice, it’s one of the fastest ways to drive burnout and disengagement.

The problem with “almost enough”

As Sarah Blanchard, Head of Talent Advisory at Solve, explains:

“Teams frequently sit at around 85 to 95 percent utilisation. They’re busy but not visibly in crisis, and that’s exactly where burnout builds.”

At first glance, running close to full capacity seems optimal; work is getting done, people are utilised, and there’s no obvious need to add headcount.

But sustained high utilisation leaves no room for recovery.

Unlike acute overload, which triggers intervention, this level of pressure is subtle and accumulates over time:

• There’s no space to think, only to execute
• Small inefficiencies compound into longer hours
• Work begins to bleed into personal time
• Learning and development are deprioritised

From the outside, everything looks stable, but internally, pressure is building.

Engagement depends on manageable workload

There’s a direct relationship between workload and engagement.

Employees who strongly believe their workload is manageable are significantly more likely to be engaged.

And the inverse is also true.

When workload remains consistently high:

• Cognitive fatigue increases
• Decision-making quality drops
• Frustration builds
• Engagement declines

There’s also a broader signal emerging across the market.

Psychological injury claims are rising sharply, particularly in Australia, where they have increased by 161% over the past decade. Mental health conditions now account for 12% of all serious workers’ compensation claims, with a 14.7% increase in just one year (2023 –2024).

These claims have not only increased in frequency, but in complexity as well. Employees experiencing psychological injury are off work for significantly longer periods and generate higher compensation costs than other types of workplace injury.

Often linked to workload intensity and lack of role clarity, these cases demonstrate a broader structural issue in how work is being distributed and sustained.

Why high performers feel it first

In “almost resourced” environments, pressure usually concentrates most heavily on high performers.

As Sarah puts it:

“High performers are often the ones absorbing the ambiguity. They translate strategy into execution and take on the stretch work, but that also means they rarely get relief.”

These individuals are typically:

• More capable of handling complexity
• Trusted with cross-functional work
• Relied on to unblock progress
• Given stretch opportunities

Which sounds positive, until it becomes constant.

High performers end up:

• Managing stakeholder complexity
• Filling gaps in process or structure
• Taking on additional responsibilities
• Operating continuously at a high cognitive load

And over time, that workload becomes unsustainable.

The trade-off organisations overlook

There’s an assumption that high performers want more responsibility, stretch and impact. While often true, these sentiments are often meant for the short term.

Without balance, the situation creates a trade-off organisations don’t always account for.

Sarah explains:

“If someone is constantly operating at that level, when are we allowing them to reinvest in their own growth, learning and development?”

When people are fully utilised:

• Learning is deprioritised
• Reflection disappears
• Development becomes reactive rather than intentional

And eventually, performance plateaus or declines.

In many cases, people don’t disengage immediately. They simply leave.

“We see very often where people sometimes leave to reset and readjust,” says Sarah.

Why this is a design issue, not a resilience issue

It’s easy to frame this as an individual problem regarding personal:

• Resilience
• Time management
• Prioritisation

But the pattern is too consistent across organisations to be explained by individual capability alone.

This is about how work is designed, specifically:

• How capacity is planned
• How work is distributed
• How pressure is released

Running teams at near-full utilisation is less a sign of efficiency and more a signal that there is no buffer in the system.

And without a buffer, even small increases in demand create sustained pressure.

The role of workforce flexibility

If sustained high utilisation is the problem, then capacity flexibility becomes part of your solution.

This is where contingent workforce models and surge capacity come into focus as both delivery levers and engagement mechanisms.

When used effectively, they allow organisations to:

• Absorb peaks in demand without overloading core teams
• Create space for learning and development
• Reduce reliance on a small group of high performers
• Maintain momentum without increasing burnout risk

This isn’t about replacing permanent teams, but about designing a workforce that can flex with demand without compromising the experience of the people delivering the work.

What to do differently

Addressing this issue requires a shift in how organisations think about capacity and performance.

1. Track “near burnout” signals

Don’t wait for visible failure, instead look for:

• Consistently high utilisation rates
• Reduced time for non-delivery activities
• Increased reliance on the same individuals
• Signs of cognitive fatigue

These are early indicators that pressure is building.

2. Create mechanisms to release pressure

High utilisation can be sustainable, but only temporarily.

It requires intentional release points:

• Project-based support
• Redistribution of work
• Short-term capacity injection

Without these, pressure compounds.

3. Rebalance work across the team

Avoid defaulting to the same high performers, instead:

• Create opportunities for others to step into stretch work
• Build capability across the team
• Reduce dependency on a small group

This will help improve both engagement and workforce resilience.

4. Protect time for thinking and development

Performance isn’t just about output, it also requires time to think, learn and improve.

If those elements are missing, performance becomes unsustainable.

The goal is sustainability

Teams that are clearly under-resourced create visible problems, while teams that are well-resourced create stable performance.

Meanwhile, teams that are “almost” resourced sit in a grey area, delivering today at the expense of tomorrow.

They don’t trigger intervention or show immediate failure, but over time, they erode engagement, performance and retention.

The goal isn’t to maximise utilisation. It’s to design a system where performance can be sustained without burning out the people responsible for delivering it.