When the right call is to Stop the Work

Why stopping people early is better than losing them later

Happy New Year, everyone!
The newsletter took a much longer holiday break than usual, but I’m finally back. 🙂

Today I want to talk about those moments when forcing people to do something against their will might actually be the best thing for them. You know that feeling when you sense something is off? Nothing you can really prove, no hard evidence, just a gut feeling that still makes your antennae go up.

A few years ago, at the beginning of the year, I started noticing that one of the people on my team was changing. Less responsive in discussions, physically present but not really there. Productive yes, but you could tell they were struggling. I had no concrete data to back it up, productivity had not changed, so it was also hard to give objective feedback. And from experience, feedback based on gut feelings rarely leads to anything good.

The first few times, I tried talking to them, asking the usual questions about how they were doing, if anything was bothering them, and so on. But those conversations didn’t get anywhere. Then I told them clearly: «You seem tired. Very tired».

They confirmed, but told me they were waiting to finish the current project before taking some time off. I told them that wasn’t the case and that they needed to stop immediately. I don’t remember exactly how many days I recommended, but I do remember telling them we would check in again near the end of that period to see if it should be extended.

When they came back, they were almost back to their old self. And they thanked me. They told me that only after taking the time off did they realize how close they had been to their limit.

It makes me chuckle to think that a few months ago, when someone pointed out that I was in the same situation, I didn’t want to take their advice. Another classic case of “do as I say, not as I do”.

Building a culture of care

On a different occasion, instead, I had a conversation at work about how to handle the time-off situation for one of the people on my team. In Italy (and I’m not sure if this applies in other countries), employees draw from two separate pools of time off: vacation days, which are usually taken in full days, and personal hours, which are mostly taken by the hour. One of the team members had accumulated a large number of personal hours, and one of the proposals was to simply pay them out to bring that number close to zero.

I refused to go down that path to avoid incentivizing this kind of behavior. If you reward people for not taking time off, you’re building a culture where those who don’t step away get rewarded. And that culture leads to burning people out.

There are many cultures where sacrificing yourself for work is seen as a sign of loyalty and considered a strength in an employee, and I, too, grew up in a similar environment.

Many years ago, when I was an Individual Contributor, my CTO scolded me on two occasions. The first time, I had a fever and went into the office. He told me I was being irresponsible and risking infecting the entire office, multiplying the damage. The second time, to avoid getting scolded again, I worked from home but still had a fever. «If you are sick, you don’t perform at 100%» he explained «and you extend your recovery time. You are doing harm to yourself and to us». At the time, it seemed over the top, but over time I realized he was building a culture.

Short-term optimization rarely leads to long-term results

If someone is pushing themselves past their limits, the real risk is mainly to them, not only the company. Letting (or sometimes forcing) someone take a week or two off at the first hint of exhaustion is an act of care. Protecting them now means they can come back healthy, energized, and able to do their best, rather than risking long-term burnout. Or, even worse, losing the person to a company that truly cares about its people.

Of course, as a leader, we also need to care about the business and the company’s interests. In the real world, there are deadlines and complex constraints to manage, and we have to find ways to balance everything. It can be difficult, no doubt, but finding solutions, whether by redistributing effort or adjusting the scope of a project, so that a person can still take time for themselves remains one of our responsibilities.

Here are some guidelines I try to follow to make sure people don’t push themselves past their limits:

Monitor the numbers
Vacation days are an objective indicator. If someone has accumulated a huge amount of time off, it’s a red flag, no matter how they seem to be doing.

Watch for gradual signs
Less responsiveness, lower participation, productive but struggling. Don’t wait for the person to hit a breaking point, intervene early.

Enforce rest structurally
Sometimes making people stop is better than saying «take time off whenever you want» because it removes the burden of the decision. There are different ways to do this: giving a few days off, extending weekends, and so on.

Don’t reward people who don’t stop
Paying out unused time, praising people for working while sick, these are all signals that build the wrong culture.

Lead by example
If you don’t take time off yourself, the team understands that it’s not something they are supposed to do.

TL;DR

It may feel paternalistic, but sometimes it’s important to protect people from themselves. Maybe it actually is paternalistic. But when someone thanks you for having made them stop, you realize that forcing the hand isn’t always a bad thing. Small actions like this matter because they help build a culture that values care and well-being, not just output.

Credits: Illustration 1