Curb urgency culture or employees will burn out: A lesson for HR

We all want it done…now!

There’s always an urgency to respond to an email, get a task off your desk, or just get whatever needs to get done, done. This pressure has led to the emergence of urgency culture, where every task feels like it’s on fire.

We’re all responsible for it. When your to-do list feels insurmountable and you feel like you’re running every day in a constant race to get things done, it becomes overwhelming. 

Employees are trying to clear things off their desks as fast as they can, but more tasks are falling into their laps with competing deadlines. And that’s often when employees snap. They start delegating tasks left and right, trying to make themselves feel better about their own workload.

Urgency culture leads to stress, burnout and doesn’t really improve productivity. And there are warning signs HR should be aware of to combat it. 

A sense of unproductive busyness pervades teams, and so employees who are natural delegators peg all tasks as urgent and all time as scarce. At times, it feels like we’re inside a constant stress alarm.

And that’s why we’re seeing such high rates of burnout among Gen Z employees. A 2024 report from Gallup found that 48 per cent of Australians experience daily feelings of stress, compared to a 41 per cent worldwide average.

So what can HR professionals do to combat urgency culture in the workplace? In this blog, we’ll explore why you need to stay on top of urgency culture and how to address it meaningfully.

Temperature check 

It’s clear that urgency culture can get out of hand. That’s why HR needs to proactively measure the climate, especially when things are going “well” and burnout is low.  

Because by then, they’ve already started to feel overwhelmed, anxious and exhausted. And when that happens, that can leave HR teams feeling stressed and under the pump to have the temperature check conversations they need to have with employees.

The point of a temperature check is to find out how employees are feeling. See what the balance is between job demands and job resources in their world week.

One of the best things you can do is implement weekly check-ins. Either by conducting them externally as an HR unit, or by creating safeguards and measures for managers to conduct them with employees. 

Because without that kind of regular temperature check happening in teams or between leaders and their staff members, it can be really easy to miss an urgency culture problem.

Dig and dive deeper

If you’re starting to notice urgency culture in your organisation, think about what that looks like through an employer lens. Because you might have an urgency culture problem emerging. 

It could be coming from an executive or board level and might require conversations about how resourcing levels are imposing unsustainable burdens, and noticing where bottlenecks emerge.

A challenge for HR leaders is to make sure they have the right tone in organisational culture. You need to ensure you’re thinking with a value mindset. Valuing the work employees are doing as opposed to the tasks they’re doing. 

And it’s fine if the pressures are coming from certain leaders or teams rather than from the executive level. But it’s important to get a sense of where it’s coming from. 

Ultimately, it’s HR’s job to determine if there’s genuine urgency in deliverables and to make sure people have the resources and support they need to navigate it.

Add some breathing room

Encourage managers to also demonstrate good behaviour in their work. It’s about role-modelling commercial intelligence alongside emotional and psychosocial intelligence. 

In order not to burn employees and exhaust them, you need to think about what the demands of the market and our clients are and build in a buffer room. You can suggest managers add a 20 per cent “hope” buffer to any task or project they are responsible for, to account for Murphy’s Law. 

Because what can go wrong, will go wrong. 

Either way, if your organisation can respond positively urgency culture, it communicates to employees that you care. 

Managers will start to see the benefits and see things like less illness, worn-down bodies and absenteeism go down. Because it’s really hard to stay engaged if employees are constantly feeling overwhelmed and anxious. 

Urgency culture does more harm than good. Overloading employees with constant urgent tasks leads to stress, burnout, and inefficiency, exactly what HR professionals strive to avoid. 

About us

Martian Logic has been empowering HR teams for years with simple, scalable solutions that help organisations thrive. Our intuitive HRIS goes beyond basic administration, it streamlines recruitment, onboarding, performance tracking and employee surveys. Whether you’re looking to prevent burnout, optimise project timelines, or create a more balanced culture, Martian Logic helps you stay ahead of urgency culture. Contact us today to discover how our platform can boost engagement, retention, and long-term success.