Ask Andi: Our workload imbalance is costing us profits. Senior employees do too much work. Carry too much of the workload. It’s costing us profits. Junior employees need to step up. How do we straighten this out?
Thoughts of the day: Is a workload imbalance affecting your team? Talk with managers about their goals and responsibilities. Check to see who needs management training. Check on employee motivation. Look at your service delivery model. Make sure managers have their goals in front of them all the time. Ask them to check their list of completed tasks against their goal list – is there a match, or are they spending time on things that don’t lead to goal accomplishment?
An imbalanced workload can cost you profits
Make sure KPIs are in place for each department. Align everyone around the outcomes. When it comes to meeting or beating KPIs make sure people know their roles, and are ready to deliver at or above standard. Check on how well managers delegate work. Do they need help training and coaching people under them? If managers keep trying to do the work instead of delegating, they become barriers to progress.
Analyze department performance. Ask to see how tasks are organized. Look for suggestions on how re-organizing might lead to increases in productivity. Model systems are based on the most productive employees.
Check on workload vs. skill balancing. Do you have enough of the right kinds of skills for the work on hand? Sometimes the mix of work shifts and employees who used to be essential are now redundant. Find out if redundant employees are willing to re-train for more essential tasks, otherwise show them the door. Make it clear that people have to constantly learn and grow.
Understand the cause
Look into what drives employee behavior. Some people come to the table self-driven. Others require outside motivators. Some people could self-motivate, but they first need to understand how their actions fit into the company’s bigger picture.
Work through motivation issues by asking each person what is their reason for doing something. Get people to think about how personal and business goals are aligned.
Focus on quality and making work as routine as possible will help to reduce do-overs, which can be real budget killers. When errors do happen, use them as teaching opportunities. Show people who were involved what went wrong and brainstorm, then document, the best solution to use in similar situations in the future. Budget time for general training in order to ensure employees at each level in the organization are prepared to handle their work assignments.
A workload rebalance to max productivity
Be on the lookout for ways to streamline workload imbalance. Fewer steps may translate into fewer errors. Ask: is our service delivery model efficient, profitable, and well documented so that everyone can follow along? Check on the hours worked by each level of staff. Are some people working harder than others? Is there a process for moving simpler parts of a job down to a less skilled, lower level? Rather than assigning a job start-to-finish to one person, break it into essential elements. Assign primary do-ers or supplemental assistance to move work along at the fastest rate and lowest possible cost.
Look for early warning signs of trouble. Calls from customers can prevent problems down the road if only people will listen carefully. Someone behind on their work is likely to make mistakes as they try to cover too much ground too quickly. A seemingly minor issue can become magnified as a job progresses.
Make it everyone’s job to find better ways to get work done more profitably. Explain to people that in order for the company to be profitable, each employee needs to help generate revenue worth 3 – 4 times their cost. If they don’t know how to do that, help them figure it out.
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