Working capacity

Working capacity is not the same as effort or hours worked. It refers to how much a person can reasonably take on right now, given their recovery, sleep, workload and recent pattern. Capacity naturally rises and falls through a week, a month and a year, for reasons that have nothing to do with commitment or ability.

Because capacity is personal, it is most useful when measured against someone's own normal rather than a company-wide average. A meeting-heavy day that is unremarkable for one person might represent a real change in pattern for another, depending on what their last two to four weeks have looked like.

Sloane's core method is to track working capacity against a rolling personal baseline, built from wearable, calendar and team-tool metadata, and to flag genuine departures from that baseline rather than absolute thresholds. This is why the same calendar can produce a suggestion for one person and nothing at all for another.

Framing this around capacity rather than burnout matters. The aim is to help someone perform well over time, in the way a good coach would, not to wait until a person is at risk before intervening. Lower burnout risk tends to follow from managing capacity well, rather than being the primary goal.