In many workplaces, concern naturally focuses on the employee who is visibly struggling.
The person who is absent, overwhelmed, tearful or telling their manager that they cannot cope is more likely to attract attention and support.
But what about the employee who is still delivering?
They meet their deadlines. They answer the emails. They take on the additional task when somebody needs help. They are dependable, conscientious and often the person others turn to when something needs to be done.
From the outside, they appear to be coping extremely well.
And that may be precisely why nobody notices the cost.
Coping and wellbeing are not the same thing
In more than twenty years of therapeutic work, I have often met people who have become exceptionally good at functioning under pressure.
They may have learned to push through tiredness, minimise their own needs, anticipate what other people require and keep going long after their body has begun signalling that something needs to change.
These qualities can be highly valued in the workplace.
The person who never says no may be described as committed. The perfectionist may be praised for their standards. The employee who answers messages outside working hours may be seen as dedicated.
Yet behaviour that looks like resilience from the outside can sometimes be something quite different.
A person can be performing well while living with chronic stress, anxiety, poor sleep, constant mental activity or a persistent feeling that they can never completely switch off.
Their ability to continue functioning doesn’t necessarily tell us how well they are.
Why some people find it so difficult to stop
We sometimes treat workplace behaviours such as perfectionism, people-pleasing and over-responsibility simply as habits that need correcting.
But it can be useful to become curious about what sits underneath them.
For some people, being helpful, capable or highly attuned to other people’s expectations has become deeply familiar. Saying yes may feel safer than disappointing somebody. Asking for help may feel uncomfortable. Resting while there is still something to be done may produce guilt rather than relief.
The person may understand intellectually that they need stronger boundaries and still find themselves agreeing to one more task.
This is where our understanding of the nervous system can add something important to workplace wellbeing.
Our nervous system is continually responding to information from around us and within us, including cues associated with safety and threat. Some responses become so familiar that they happen automatically.
This doesn’t mean every hardworking employee is driven by an old protective pattern. But it does mean we should be careful about assuming that continued performance is evidence that somebody is thriving.
What messages does the workplace reinforce?
Organisations can have excellent wellbeing policies and still unintentionally reward behaviours that work against them.
A policy may encourage employees to maintain healthy boundaries while the people who are visibly rewarded are those who are constantly available.
Leaders may tell staff to take breaks while rarely taking them themselves.
An organisation may encourage people to speak openly about stress while workloads quietly communicate that there is no room to struggle.
Employees notice these inconsistencies.
Culture is communicated not only through what an organisation says, but through what happens every day: what is praised, what is expected, what is modelled and what feels safe to say.
If the dependable employee learns that their value lies partly in always being able to cope, admitting that they are struggling can become especially difficult.
Look beyond visible distress
Preventative workplace wellbeing therefore requires us to broaden the questions we ask.
Rather than waiting until somebody visibly stops coping, managers and leaders can become curious about the patterns that precede that point.
Who regularly works beyond their hours? Who rarely takes a proper break? Who continually volunteers when the team is stretched? Who finds it difficult to delegate? Who is carrying responsibilities that have gradually become normal simply because they have always managed them?
Importantly, this shouldn’t become another form of surveillance or an invitation to diagnose employees.
It is about creating conversations in which people don’t have to reach breaking point before their needs are taken seriously.
Managers might ask, “What is taking most of your energy at the moment?” or “Is there anything you’ve become used to carrying that we should be looking at together?”
Those questions can reveal much more than simply asking, “Are you okay?”
Creating permission, not simply policy
One of the most valuable things an organisation can create is genuine permission: permission to have limits, to ask for support, to take recovery seriously and occasionally to say, “I don’t have the capacity for that.”
That permission has to be demonstrated, not merely written into a wellbeing document.
When leaders model reasonable boundaries, when workload conversations happen before someone becomes overwhelmed, and when asking for help is treated as responsible rather than weak, employees receive a very different message.
Perhaps one of the most important shifts in workplace wellbeing is therefore a deceptively simple one:
Stop asking only who is struggling — and begin noticing who has become exceptionally good at coping.
They may be the person everyone believes they don’t need to worry about.
And they may be the person we most need to remember to ask.
About the author
Sandra Nathan MBACP, MFHT is an Integrative Counsellor, Transformational Coach and Nervous System Regulation Specialist with more than 20 years’ experience supporting adults, children, couples and professionals. Her work focuses particularly on anxiety, chronic stress, overthinking and the protective patterns that can influence how people respond to pressure. She is also an Advanced EFT Practitioner and Level 2 Cognomovement Practitioner, and author of Becoming Your Best Self: A Journey of Hope, Healing and Lasting Change. Sandra works online internationally and from Harley Street, London.
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