Indeed. And this is a well understood concept. To the point that Tom DeMarco wrote an entire book about the importance of "slack" - over 20 years ago.[1]

From the description:

<DeMarco> reveals a counterintuitive principle that explains why efficiency efforts can slow a company down. That principle is the value of slack, the degree of freedom in a company that allows it to change. Implementing slack could be as simple as adding an assistant to a department and letting high-priced talent spend less time at the photocopier and more time making key decisions, or it could mean designing workloads that allow people room to think, innovate, and reinvent themselves.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Slack-Getting-Burnout-Busywork-Effici...