The Workload Breaking Point
In this episode, we hear from Bail. He was once a reliable and valued member of his team but now feels overwhelmed by his workload. The increasing pressure, interpersonal conflicts in the team, and sacrifices made for work, have taken a toll on his well-being, leading to burnout and a loss of motivation.
I’ve always been one of the go-to people on my team. I loved that! But a while ago, everything changed, and now I’m drowning. I’m very organized but there is just too much on my plate. I’m constantly wrapping up my work really late or starting very early in the morning to get everything done.
A few months ago, I was given a very important new project. I struggled to make space for the additional work. And there were just too many hiccups from the get-go. One of my team members, Cass, just kept pushing internal deadlines. The quality of her work wasn’t always so great either.
I’m not sure what was going on with her, but we had to revise our deadlines so many times that it didn’t seem we would meet our target completion date. Things became so inconsistent that Jay, my supervisor, asked me to take on her work and speed things along.
Ok, so I usually don’t mind extra work and am always up for a challenge. But piling on all these responsibilities, on top of everything else that was already in my work plan, was really too much. It felt like I was running the whole thing by myself. And that I was endlessly playing catch up with all the other things I also have to complete on time. I was just constantly putting out fires, but not achieving enough. It was overwhelming.
To top it all off, Cass’s passive-aggressive behavior wasn’t helping either. There was no open resentment. But my emails would not be answered for days. Or any project-related information I asked for would somehow take ages to be found. I can understand that I had taken over all the work she was responsible for—but I didn’t take it from her in a literal sense. I didn’t snatch it away! I was also assigned to do all this with no fair warning. So, why couldn’t things just be easier?! We can all just get along, you know—it’s not about any of us, it’s about the larger goals we have at work!
I really didn’t need any of this. All this pressure was affecting me in ways I didn’t even expect. Things were getting stressful at home because of it—I was working so late in the evening for weeks, that I barely saw my kids at the end of the day. I had also started working most weekends. And, you know what, it didn’t even matter if I didn’t work on the weekend—I was just too tired from the stresses of the week. I had no energy to do things with the family.
I was irritable and short-tempered. All the time. They didn’t deserve that! But I wasn’t sleeping well and was just always preoccupied with what was happening at work. I was just so tired, and I couldn’t help being this way. So, I had a talk with Jay about all this. And what followed probably wasn’t the best thing that could have happened. He decided to reassign some of my work to other team members, just so I could focus completely on the project. He thought he was doing me a favor. No one saw that coming. So that did not go down so well.
Everyone’s juggling a lot of different things—you know—there’s a lot going on. And they felt they now got dumped with all my work. It’s caused a lot of confusion and tension between us. And it’s just made everything worse. Our team used to work so well together, now everyone is just on edge with each other. This situation has really added to my stress at work.
To be honest, I feel completely burnt out. I dread turning on my laptop in the morning. Once I start working, I really need to push myself to make it through the day. I used to love my job, but now I’m just going through the motions. I’m extremely demotivated and counting the seconds till I can finish work and switch off. I’m not sure what to do next. I just want to get back to feeling like my old self again.
The Office of the Ombudsperson has heard concerns about workload for a while now. These issues are varied, ranging from perceptions about unfairly assigned work, to being assigned tasks that are outside the concerned employee’s workplan. More recently, the office has seen a surge in workload-related concerns where staff members have expressed physical and emotional exhaustion and have questioned the sustainability of their workload.
In our observation, the most pressing concern is that organizational cultures, in general, may not always prioritize wellness. People glorify the ‘hustle’ and associate ambition and success with end-goals, while ignoring the negative effects on health and wellbeing. The ADB community is no exception to this trend.
So, what can supervisors and managers do to tackle this issue? One approach could be for supervisors and managers to reimagine workload management.
They must consider a holistic approach that prioritizes both the wellbeing and productivity of their teams, because work stresses can have negative impacts on both employee wellbeing as well as on organizations. Supervisors and managers need to remain mindful that our post-pandemic new ways of working are different and will continue to require adjustments and support.
With the help of productivity tools and other resources, managers can take a thoughtful approach to workload management. Consideration should be given to equitable and reasonable allocation of work, considering everyone’s existing responsibilities and matching employee skill sets to tasks.
This will also facilitate in communicating clarity of roles, and other expectations, because when tasks are reassigned from one person to another without careful thought, accountability is deferred and becomes unclear. Redistribution of tasks without careful consideration of everyone’s existing workload may also contribute to tensions and conflicts between team members, reflecting poor management.
Work-related conflicts may also arise due to poor communication regarding tasks and reassignments. Providing reasons, rationales, in these instances, can minimize misunderstandings and conflicts.
Teams grappling with workload concerns often face interpersonal conflicts which can lower morale, decrease motivation, and in the end, reduce productivity. Additionally, the ombuds office has identified a correlation between workload concerns and mental health and well-being issues: being overworked is a contributing factor to burnout.
Organizations must acknowledge that burnout is “an occupational phenomenon resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed”. It can have significant physiological and psychological consequences that may require a combination of medication and professional counseling. Recovery from burnout is a lengthy process that often requires therapy and medication. This is contrary to the popular belief that taking a few days off will cure it.
In conclusion, reimagining our perception of workload and its concerns, adopting a holistic approach to addressing them, and engaging staff and management in more conversations around employee wellness could result in a cultural shift in ADB’s work practices. This shift would make the transition to the New Operating Model less stressful and more seamless.
