Ask an Expert: How can we differentiate between burnout and underperformance?

Q: As a manager working with strict performance metrics, how can I differentiate between an employee experiencing burnout and someone who may be underperforming for another reason, such as a poor role fit?

A: Data from SuperFriend’s 2024 Indicators of a Thriving Workplace (ITW) survey reveals that 52% of insurance professionals reported moderate to severe psychological distress in the past month. That’s just slightly below the national average of 56%. Despite this, only 6% had accessed mental health support through their workplace.

This disconnect signals that many employees may be struggling silently, and performance issues could be masking burnout.

Burnout is not laziness or incompetence. It is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion. It builds gradually through ongoing stress, excessive workload, lack of recognition, and insufficient recovery time.

We know that people can handle a lot of stress for periods of time. Stress can be positive force that motivates, energises and helps us perform better, solve problems and grow from new challenges. So, for example, when there's a peak like in a natural disaster, there’s an increase in claims, and things are hectic, people can thrive on feeling needed and having purpose.

However, it’s when stress becomes overwhelming or starts to feel unmanageable, that it transitions into bad stress or distress. What we need then is time to recover and repair.

Defining burnout

In the insurance sector, burnout is reported by 36% of workers - lower than the national rate of 55%, but still a significant figure. Importantly, 79% of those experiencing burnout rate their own job performance as “very low”. This correlation between burnout and performance highlights the danger of making quick assumptions about an employee’s performance.

The ITW framework identifies five workplace domains essential to fostering mental wellbeing: leadership, connectedness, safety, work design, and capability. The insurance industry scores well above the national average in most domains, especially safety, which includes strong policies and compliance measures.

However, capability remains the lowest scoring domain. This reflects a widespread gap in the confidence and skills of both leaders and staff to identify and manage mental health challenges at work.

Burnout is also strongly linked to leadership quality. SuperFriend found that industries with high leadership scores tend to have lower rates of burnout. Managers who support their teams with regular check-ins, empathetic conversations, and flexible work arrangements directly affect employee wellbeing and output.

Tactics to prevent burnout

Creating psychologically safe spaces for disclosure and regularly asking staff how they’re coping will help you be better positioned to detect burnout.

Work design is also a critical factor. The survey shows that customer-facing roles in insurance -such as call centre or claims staff - are at higher risk due to repetitive tasks, aggressive client interactions, and low flexibility.

A lack of control in how and when work is done increases stress and reduces resilience.

When you combine this with recognition being one of the industry’s lowest scoring psychosocial hazards, the picture becomes clearer: people who feel undervalued and overworked are more likely to suffer burnout.

Faced with performance concerns, it pays to look beyond metrics. A decline in output, motivation and creativity could be a signal of deeper mental distress. Leaders with targeted support strategies can retain valuable staff who may simply need recovery - not replacement.

Five evidenced-based ways to recover from burnout:

1. Connect with others: Foster strong workplace and personal relationships—connection is a powerful protective factor against burnout, helping to build purpose, perspective, and emotional support.
2. Prioritise rest and recovery: Burnout stems from prolonged stress without reprieve. Recovery starts with adequate sleep, regular breaks, and time away from work demands to reset mentally and physically.
3. Regain control through small actions: Reintroduce a sense of autonomy by focusing on what you can control—set boundaries, adjust your workload where possible, and identify one achievable goal each day.
4. Give back to others: Acts of giving—volunteering, helping a colleague, or contributing to your community—can restore a sense of purpose and connection, boosting emotional resilience and wellbeing.
5. Use available support systems: Access EAP services and wellbeing tools like SuperFriend’s Wellbeing Check-in, a Thriving Workplace Index, or other mental health resources. 

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