Overwork is slowly burning us out. So why do we normalise it?

Ric Marks remembers the moment well, when sustained workload and operational pressures left him exhausted.

In charge of 30 people working on a government IT contract, Marks’ work carried 24/7 requirements, on-call pressure, constant urgency and delivery expectations that gradually pushed beyond what felt sustainable.

Marks said it wasn’t one single incident but the accumulation of invisible load: always being available, carrying escalation pressure, managing people across locations, and feeling responsible for delivery.

“It was eye-opening when I realised how easily overwork can become normalised. I was exhausted, and the workload made me feel I needed to leave the job,” he says. The impact on his health and family was significant.

“We often reward the hard worker, the late finisher, the early starter who keeps going the extra mile. But when people are doing that regularly, we should be asking why the structure requires it.”

His experience is an example of how psychosocial hazards in the workplace can be seriously detrimental to worker health. These hazards aren’t obvious, physical ones, and they can be things like long work hours, high workloads, poor support, harassment, remote work and poor management.

Bullying and burnout

Claire Harrison, managing director of Brisbane-based Harrison Human Resources, says these invisible threats to mental health exist in almost every workplace.

Currently, the biggest concerns in corporate jobs are bullying and burnout. In health and community services, it’s trauma exposure, and aggressive customers are on the rise in retail.

Hybrid and remote work is another source of trouble and it is difficult to detect. “We’re not seeing them regularly, so we can’t recognise the signs,” she says.

The recent surge in workplace mental health conversations isn’t simply employees speaking up, she says, it’s largely driven by legislation introduced about two years ago that placed greater responsibility on employers to act. But gaps remain.

For Harrison, the answer starts with education, specifically, mental health first aid training for leaders. “There are definitely employers that still don’t think it’s an issue. And that’s sad because it costs the country a huge amount of money,” she says.

Small business owners at risk

These hazards can be particularly pronounced in small businesses, says Therese Ravell, director at Impact HR, where due to the size of the business, there is often no HR team to help define the roles needed in the company.

Position descriptions may not exist and if they do, they are simplified bullet points on a page. When there is no clarity around handover points, tension or blame can occur.

“Workplaces need to stop treating sustained overwork as commitment.”

“One employee will often perform more than one role, juggling responsibilities constantly. While this can be exciting for some, others may find it leads to confusion around the expectations and prioritisation of their workload,” Ravell says.

Workplace safety, particularly psychosocial safety, is complex. It uses jargon and it is an area where many owners of small to medium businesses feel incredibly uncomfortable.

“They are afraid that if they ask if someone is OK, they won’t be able to provide an appropriate response. They aren’t psychologists,” she says. “But if something doesn’t sit normally for an employee, ask them, ‘are you ok?’. Be prepared to listen and work through together.”

Other than the stress, Marks says he became better at managing the effects of these hazards on his physical and mental health.

“I sleep and eat properly, watch my nervous system, and slow down when I feel that warning state building. I’ve learned to change my cadence before things escalate,” he says.

The experience has shaped the work he does today as founder of Ultimate Marks. His focus is on load-bearing leadership a concentration of responsibility, decision pressure, emotional regulation and operational accountability inside organisations.

“Workplaces need to stop treating sustained overwork as commitment and start asking what is broken in the structure when people have to keep absorbing more than the role should require,” he says.

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