SOC run on urgency, pressure, and constant alertness—but people rarely acknowledge the cost of living in that state day after day. Burnout in SOC teams doesn’t crash in all at once, it kinda creeps in slowly, showing up first as rushed decisions, then declining quality, and eventually as a real operational risk.
That’s why I’m launching my series of articles on combating SOC burnout. This won’t be another collection of generic “take breaks” advice. Instead, I’ll be breaking down the cultural habits, operational pitfalls, and systemic issues that push SOC analysts toward exhaustion—and sharing practical, realistic ways to counter them.
If you lead a SOC, work in one, or rely on one, i’m here to give you the perspective and tools to protect your most important asset: your people.
Obsession with SLA
It’s widely accepted—almost taken for granted—that SOCs are laser-focused on maintaining SLA compliance. That pressure only grows when analysts are flooded with more alerts and heavier workloads. So it might seem surprising that, during these crunch periods, SLA numbers sometimes improve.
But that’s not the real story. The real issue is that quality starts slipping long before your SLA metrics show any sign of trouble.
And honestly, that’s expected. When analysts are overloaded, investigations gradually turns into surface-level triage. Their instinct becomes: find the quickest sign the alert is a false positive, close it, and move on. Keep this pattern going long enough and it stops being a shortcut—it becomes muscle memory.
So when the workload finally goes back to normal, analysts often have to “re-learn” how to run proper investigations. By then, your SOC is already sliding in the wrong direction.
How to start addressing this:
Introduce QA
Yes, I’ve heard all the usual pushback: “We don’t have time for that,” “It’ll take us out of rotation,” and so on. But the payoff is worth it. QA brings far more long-term value than obsessing over SLA numbers that may not even reflect reality.