These
days it seems like most people have too much on their plate. Everyone
complains about feeling overworked. So how do you tell
your boss you simply have too much to do? No one wants to come across as lazy,
uncommitted, or not a team player. How can you protect your image as a hard
worker while saying uncle?
No matter how busy you are, it can feel exceedingly
difficult to talk to your boss about your heavy workload. The reason is
twofold, according to Julie Morgenstern, productivity expert and author of Never Check E-Mail in the Morning. First, you
may worry that by saying something you’re going to lose your job. “In the
bottom of your belly is this feeling that if you can’t handle the work, there’s
someone else who can; you feel dispensable,” she says. Second, “the natural
tendency is to think, ‘I am not working hard enough, smart enough, or
efficiently enough. I should be able to handle this.’ So you suffer in
silence.” But doing so is dangerous for your career, says Liane Davey,
cofounder of 3COze Inc. and author of You First: Inspire Your Team to Grow Up, Get Along, and Get Stuff Done.
“You overcommit because you are ambitious or you want to impress your boss, but
then when you fail to deliver — or deliver work that is rushed or of poor
quality — it sends a message that you are not reliable.” So when you feel
snowed under, you really should let your manager know. Here are a few ways to
make the conversation go more smoothly.
Cut yourself some slack
Feeling overwhelmed and overworked
does not signify that you’re a subpar employee. “Don’t judge yourself so
harshly,” says Morgenstern. “At most organizations, companies are trying to
make do with less, so there is more work to do than there is time to do it.” If
you’re a good performer who on occasion turns down a request or asks for a
reprieve, “you’re not being lazy, and it does not reflect badly on
you.” In fact, she adds, saying no from time to time increases your
credibility. “Bosses want their employees to speak up if there is anything
that’s keeping them from performing at peak levels.” Even though it feels
uncomfortable to admit you can’t handle everything that’s been assigned to you,
Davey says it’s the “responsible thing to do” for the organization. “If you’re
underwater and you can’t meet your commitments, you leave your team in the
lurch.”
Seek counsel and support
When you feel too busy, it can be
helpful to get an outsider’s perspective on your workload, says Morgenstern. “A
third party can help you get grounded.” She recommends outlining your projects
and obligations to a trusted friend or colleague. “Ask her to look at the
amount of work you have” and give you an honest opinion “about whether it is
too much for one person.” You might also ask your boss for advice and “coaching
on strategies for dealing with overwork,” says Davey. Requesting guidance helps
you both clarify expectations and
work more efficiently. “Say, ‘It is taking me about five hours a month to
prepare this report for the finance department. Is this in line with what you
would expect? Do you have any suggestions on how to streamline the process?’”
After all, “it’s not as though your boss hasn’t ever felt the exact same way.”
Provide solutions
Having a candid conversation with
your manager about your workload requires the right mindset, says Morgenstern.
“You are partnering with your boss to fulfill the company’s goals.” She
suggests beginning the conversation by “stating the organization’s shared
objectives” to ensure that you’re both on the same page. “Then state what’s
getting in the way” of you accomplishing the goals. Be as specific as possible.
You might say, for instance, “This assignment requires a lot of research, which
is time-consuming,” or, “Now that I am managing a team, I am spending more time
planning, and I have less time for day-to-day work.” The next part of the
conversation is essential: Offer three ideas for addressing the issue. “Never go to your boss with a
problem unless you have a solution,” Morgenstern says. You
might, for instance, suggest that certain tasks be done quarterly instead of
monthly, that colleagues step in to assist you on a particular project, or that
the organization hire a temp to lighten the load. Your goal is to identify
“projects that can be delayed, delegated, deleted, or diminished.”
Set priorities
It’s excruciating to have your boss
give you yet another assignment when you’re already stretched thin. “Oftentimes
they assign work with no idea how long it takes to do each individual task,”
says Davey. You should respond by explaining what’s on your plate and then
asking, “Which of these is most critical? And how would you prioritize the
rest?” Morgenstern recommends asking your boss “to define the level of effort”
he expects on certain assignments and “what a maximum, minimum, and moderate
effort looks like.” Whatever happens, don’t agree on the spot to anything new
if you are unsure whether you can deliver, says Morgenstern. “Say, ‘Tell me
what is expected on this and let me figure out if I can do it based on the
other projects I am working on. Can I get back to you tomorrow?’ Buy yourself
time.”
Offer to help
Even when you have too much to do, it’s both considerate and professionally
smart to provide help where you can. The message to your boss, says Davey,
should be something like, “I don’t feel that I can take on [this project]
without doing a disservice to the other work I’ve committed to, but I can carve
out time in my schedule to provide direction to the person who is going to do
it.” You could, for instance, offer to attend brainstorming sessions, read
first drafts, or serve as a sounding board. “And then make yourself available,”
she says. Offering a small lifeline — even when your bandwidth is constrained —
is a way to cement “your identity as the responsible worker committed to the
success of the organization,” says Morgenstern.
Be honest
There are times in everyone’s life
when tumultuous personal events take precedence over all else. If you’re
experiencing one of those periods — your mother has been diagnosed with a
serious illness, or your son is having a hard time in school — it’s best to be
upfront about it, says Morgenstern. You might tell your boss, “If I ignore
this, it will create enormous stress in my family and affect my job
performance,” she says. Your tone should be straightforward, and your demeanor
should be “grounded and as centered as possible.” Davey agrees: “Make it
situational and make it time-bound.” “Say, ‘This doesn’t happen very often, but
the next two weeks are a bit of a tsunami for me. I need help.’” A good,
reasonable boss will understand and appreciate your honesty. “Trying to be the
hero to the point where you burn yourself out is
not the best answer.”
Keep your colleagues close
Telling your boss that you’re
overworked doesn’t always have the desired effect. When the boss
is unwilling to make changes, Davey recommends giving your teammates “a
heads-up” that you’re feeling swamped. “If your boss won’t cut you some slack,
they might,” she says. Perhaps they can take something off your plate or work
around a delay on your part. “And even if they can’t help, they’ve at least
been given a warning” that you’re overextended and therefore unable to give it
your all, and you’ve “headed off anything that would erode their trust.” If your boss is
continually insensitive to how busy you are, consider it a sign that you may
need to move on to a new job, says Morgenstern. Overwork “is not sustainable”
in the long run, she says.
Principles to Remember
Do:
- Seek
advice from your manager or a coworker on ways to decrease the amount
of time you spend on certain assignments.
- Be
upfront about asking if priorities can be shifted or trade-offs can be made.
- Show
a willingness to pitch in by inquiring if there are small ways you can be
helpful to colleagues and projects.
Don’t:
- Be
hard on yourself. Turning down a request on occasion or asking for a reprieve
doesn’t mean you’re lazy.
- Say
yes to more work on the spot. Buy yourself time by telling your boss you will
evaluate your workload and get back to him.
- Keep
your colleagues in the dark when your boss won’t listen. Give them a heads-up
when you’re underwater so you don’t erode trust.
Case Study #1: Offer solutions and be open to advice
A year into her job as vice president
of product strategy at Ceridian, Lisa Sterling was promoted to chief people
officer of the Minneapolis-based provider of human resources software. At the
time, the plan was for her to do both jobs at once.
But
after a few months Lisa was overwhelmed by the workload. She knew she needed to
talk to her boss, David Ossip, Ceridian’s CEO, but she was nervous. “I’d never
gone to a manager before and said, ‘Help me,’” she explains. “We worked well
together, but I had this fear that [he] would second-guess his decision [to
promote me] and feel that I wasn’t up to the job.”
Lisa
began the conversation by stating what she “understood to be the priorities” of
the organization. She wanted to make sure she was clear about where David
wanted her to focus. Next, she presented him with a “thorough list” of the
different projects she was involved in on both the product side and the HR
side. “Then I shared where I thought I was making good progress and where I
thought was struggling,” she says.
Finally,
Lisa offered some possible solutions. “This is the advice I give to my team:
‘If you’re going to come to me with a problem, make sure you’ve thought about
how you would solve it if you were sitting in my chair.’”
In
this case, Lisa suggested specific organizational initiatives that could go on
the back burner and certain product releases that could be temporarily delayed.
Another idea was to hire a director of product strategy that would take over a
portion of her responsibilities.
Her
boss liked both recommendations. He also gave her some good coaching and advice
about leadership. “He told me that as I progress in my career, my job is less
about day-to-day management and more about developing my team,” she says. “I
realized that I was involved in too many things. I needed to improve my
delegation capabilities and get out of the way so my team members could do
their jobs.”
Lisa
is glad she spoke up. “It was eye-opening for me,” she says. “If I hadn’t asked
for help, I never would have gotten this executive-level coaching.”
Case Study #2: Be honest and up-front — and willing to move on when
your boss is unreasonable
Several years ago, Janine Truitt
worked as an HR associate in a large hospital system. The organization, which
was based in New York’s Long Island was rapidly expanding its number of
employees each year, and the HR department could barely keep up.
“I
was handling everything from entry-level positions to executive management
positions across 10 facilities,” Janine recalls. “My boss also had me
working on special projects and workforce planning for hospital expansions.”
After
working in health care for nearly a decade, she was at a breaking point. But
before going to her boss, she talked to her closest colleagues about her
workload. “Speaking to them was more for moral support than to get concurrence
on whether it was too much,” she says. “Each of my colleagues was carrying much
less than I was and felt sorry for me.”
She
asked her director for a meeting to discuss the matter and was upfront and
frank when they spoke. “I told her I didn’t feel the current workload was
sustainable,” she says. “I was never concerned about the ramifications of
speaking up, but I was concerned about letting down my colleagues and
ultimately the patients.”
Janine
suggested several possible ways to improve the situation. For instance, she
suggested that a junior employee could handle entry-level hires, freeing her up
to focus on more-strategic positions. She also asked to be brought into
expansion project conversations earlier in the process. “That way I would have
a heads-up on the needs and be better able to staff them in the future.”
Unfortunately,
the boss wasn’t open to any of her ideas. Janine was frustrated and
again confided in colleagues: “One thing we did do was to buddy up when
there were similar positions to be filled in the same facility. That helped to
relieve some of the burden.”
Still,
Janine says her plate “remained overflowing” until the day she tendered her
resignation. Today she is the chief innovations officer at Talent Think
Innovations, the business strategy and management consulting firm.
She
doesn’t look back on her old job fondly, but she did learn a valuable lesson.
“Workforce planning is the one of the most important considerations in running
an efficient business,” she says. “If you want to keep your customer and
employee retention high and your turnover low, you need to make sure your
employees aren’t consistently stretched beyond what is reasonable.”
Rebecca
Knight
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