Managing your Employees Workload is Critical to Success – Here is Why

Cathie Leimbach • November 11, 2021

Your employees’ engagement and productivity are significantly impacted by how reasonable their workload is. More than ever, while we’re dealing with continued uncertainty due to the pandemic and a tight labor market, managing workload expectations is critical to ongoing performance and productivity. 

 

The research is compelling. Multiple studies have uncovered a strong connection between workload imbalance and stress, burnout, and lowered productivity:

  • The American Institute of Stress reported that 46% of workers cite unmanageable workloads as significant stress.
  • 26% of employees are often or very often burned out, and 22% are juggling to balance work and their personal life. 
  • Unreasonable heavy workloads cause stress and anxiety, leading to accidents, health issues, conflicts, and poor overall performance.
  • In a 2017 survey by Bizfluent, 60% of workers said that work-related pressure has increased over the past 5 years.
  • Not surprisingly, a recent study by KPMG reports that Covid 19 has increased work-related stress, with 94% of workers reporting stress and anxiety.

 

Employees who are stressed are more likely to experience anxiety, depression, and health-related issues. Working longer hours leads to hypertension, fatigue, changes in mood and behavior, problems with focus, decreased motivation, and concentration issues. Covid 19 has exacerbated these symptoms, reduced productivity and employee engagement, and impacted many companies’ profitability. 

 

As the impact of the pandemic lingers, your team is still struggling with balancing family and work responsibilities and often doing more than their job as open positions become harder to fill.


As a manager, one of your critical roles is to advocate for what your team can and can’t reasonably accomplish and identify resources to support their efforts. The first step is to understand how each employee evaluates their workload and the support they need to succeed.

  • Prepare for one-on-one discussions by identifying what mental and physical demands your team members face to perform their responsibilities efficiently. 
  • Have one-on-one conversations with each direct report to evaluate their current workload:
  • Ask, “How are you doing with your overall workload?” “Are there additional resources you need?”
  • For each project, routinely check in by asking, “How is that project going?” “What can I do to support you?”
  • Work with each of your direct reports to uncover meaningless and time-consuming tasks. These typically drain energy, decrease productivity, and lead to a lack of motivation.
  • Identify ways to automate repetitive tasks if possible or find lower-cost resources to complete them.  Maximize your team’s focus and energy on doing the work that matters.
  • Manage deadlines – don’t let your lack of planning be your teams’ emergency. 
  • Plan ahead and create a reasonable project timeline, including a margin for the unexpected – because it always occurs.

 

Today, more than ever, managing each of your team members’ workload is critical. Doing more with less staff, reacting to ongoing uncertainty, and managing employees in different locations make communication and planning around workload and deadlines the key to success. Ensure that your team has what they need to succeed and reduce the scramble due to unreasonable deadlines and poor planning. Productivity, engagement, and employee motivation will increase, leading to higher retention and a better quality of work. 

The Self Discipline of a Growth Mindset

By Cathie Leimbach • April 15, 2025
A growth mindset means believing you can get smarter and develop new skills through hard work and practice. People with a growth mindset see challenges as opportunities to grow. On the other hand, a fixed mindset means thinking your talents and abilities cannot change much, no matter how hard you try. People with a growth mindset are more likely to exercise self-discipline to learn new behaviors. This helps us adapt to new opportunities. When we push ourselves to try different approaches, we open doors that would otherwise remain closed. This takes courage and commitment, especially at first when new ways of doing things feel uncomfortable or difficult. Our brains have amazing potential to change throughout our lives. When we repeatedly practice new skills or ways of thinking, our brain creates new pathways that make these actions easier over time. What once felt impossible can gradually become second nature. The hard part is sticking with new behaviors long enough for them to become normal. This is where self-discipline comes in . By consistently practicing different approaches, what once required enormous effort eventually feels natural. This ability to adapt keeps us growing, helps us keep up with our changing world, and unlocks possibilities we might never have imagined.

Why Master Open-Ended Questions

By Cathie Leimbach • April 8, 2025
In today's busy workplace, asking good questions can make you better at your job. Open-ended questions—ones that need more than just "yes" or "no" answers—help you learn more and have better conversations with others. Research shows these questions really work. Gallup found that managers who use open-ended questions have 27% less employee turnover and 18% better productivity. These questions make team members feel safe to share their ideas. Harvard Business Review says that when bosses ask at least four open-ended questions in meetings, teams come up with 42% more creative solutions. By asking instead of telling, leaders get more ideas from everyone. McKinsey discovered that managers who are good at asking open-ended questions find 34% more opportunities for process improvement. These questions help spot problems and challenge old ways of thinking. These benefits go beyond just team conversations. The Journal of Applied Psychology found that salespeople who use open-ended questions with customers make 23% more sales. By better understanding what customers need, they can offer better solutions.  Learning to ask open-ended questions isn't just about talking better—it's a skill that helps you succeed in all parts of work. Click here for more information.
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