We are experiencing high turnover on our delivery team. What weekly leading metrics can we add to our scorecard to spot employee burnout before people start quitting?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

High employee turnover is a classic lagging indicator. By the time a key employee submits a resignation letter, the damage is already done. To protect your culture and retain your best talent, you must track weekly leading indicators of team stress on your scorecard. This allows you to identify issues early and address them before they lead to expensive departures. For more on the difference, see [shifting our focus from lagging results to weekly leading indicators](/qa/leading-vs-lagging-scorecard-metrics).

Key Weekly Metrics to Spot Burnout

Here are three crucial weekly leading metrics to add to your scorecard to proactively identify potential burnout:

1. Overtime Hours Per Employee
• If your delivery team is consistently logging more than five to ten hours of overtime per week, burnout is imminent.
• Tracking this metric weekly provides an immediate flag for over-utilization and potential stress.

2. Weekly Team Pulse Score
• This is a simple, one-question digital survey sent to your staff every Friday.
• It asks them to rate their stress level or engagement on a scale of one to five.
• A dropping average score is an early warning sign of a cultural issue or systemic overload. This can indicate a need to [set weekly measurables that remain relevant](/qa/seasonal-business-scorecard-goals) even during busy periods.

3. Missed One-on-One Meetings
• In the EOS framework, consistent communication is vital for team health.
• If your managers are skipping their scheduled check-ins with their direct reports, employee frustration will climb rapidly.
• This metric can highlight manager overload or disengagement, both of which impact team morale and the ability to address individual stress.

Proactive Burnout Prevention

By tracking these three metrics weekly, your HR or operations lead can identify burnout trends early. This allows your leadership team to bring these capacity and stress issues to the Level 10 Meeting for IDS (Identify, Discuss, Solve), solving the root causes of burnout before they turn into costly departures. For guidance on keeping these meetings productive, consider [how to review our weekly scorecard in under five minutes](/qa/how-to-review-scorecard-under-five-minutes). Focusing on these leading indicators helps shift from reactive problem-solving to proactive intervention. If managers are struggling with metrics dropping into the red, check out [handling defensiveness around red scorecard metrics](/qa/handling-defensiveness-around-red-scorecard-metrics).