Balancing the load: Strategies for an understaffed team
Working through breaks. No time for social conversations. Training and other development opportunities being squeezed out. Hidden overtime. Increased stress levels. A decline in well-being.
These are all hallmark signs of an understaffed team.
If your team is experiencing these challenges, it's crucial to implement a plan to address them before burnout sets in. Work-related stress can lead to increased absenteeism and turnover, creating a harmful cycle. Today, I want to discuss practical steps you can take daily to manage workloads and minimise unnecessary stress. Here are some strategies you can use, listed in no particular order.
Getting clear about the problem
First, be honest with your team about staffing issues, starting with yourself. Your manager and colleagues may not realise it if you’re working through lunch, evenings, and weekends without recognition. The same goes for your team members.
In my surveys, people often mention working more than 40 hours a week while meeting their commitments. This usually means work gets done at the expense of well-being and work-life balance.
If your team is understaffed, others are likely working hidden overtime. Conduct an audit in which everyone lists their work outside standard hours and discusses it as a group. Review deadlines, work-life balance, holidays, breaks, and training. This will help gauge the problem's size and allow for action.
It’s crucial for a struggling team to feel seen and heard. Sometimes, just sharing the burden helps. Follow the advice from "The Gap and The Gain" by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy: allow the team to discuss problems and then shift focus to achievements and strengths, planning small steps for improvement.
Have this conversation every couple of weeks to monitor unplanned overtime, provide a space for venting, and find new ways to support each other and manage the workload.
Prioritising breaks and rest
Next, prioritise breaks and rest during the workweek. If your team is working beyond their normal capacity, rest is essential. You must take your breaks.
Let’s repeat that: You MUST take your breaks!
This includes your main lunch break and morning and afternoon coffee breaks. Being regimented about these breaks helps combat fatigue, prevent burnout, and sustain interest in the job.
Consider going old school with a shared lunch break where everyone takes their break at the same time to ensure it's taken. Additionally, ensure everyone on the team takes their annual leave to disconnect from work fully. The workload won’t stop coming, so there will never be a perfect time for time off—take it anyway.
Lastly, set agreed-upon times for “no work no matter what,” such as after 9 p.m., before 7 a.m., or on Sundays. This is crucial for many teams facing heavy workloads. Agree on upper boundaries for working hours and respect them. Support each other during the workday to get the job done without feeling like anyone is logged on 24/7.
Using RACI for task management
This might sound blatantly obvious, but prioritise the work to reduce unnecessary overtime. This sounds simple, but it’s often challenging because everything can seem urgent. Get all the work out on the table using the RACI tool, which is quite common in project management. List all tasks in one column and team members across the top, marking who's responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed for each task.
Include everything, from tasks and meetings to administrative duties and relationship management. This comprehensive list will help identify duplication of effort or unnecessary time expenditures.
To prioritise, use factors like impact, alignment with company goals, revenue generation, and risk versus reward. As a manager, ensure your team focuses on the most valuable work. Support other teams without compromising your team's well-being.
Instead of reshuffling tasks in strict order, start by identifying what can be deleted or postponed. There is a lovely phrase that is perfect for the midpoint of the year. And that phrase (from Brendon Burchard’s podcast) is “not this year.” Look at everything that’s going on and decide what is not this year. You are not taking it off the table forever, but you will definitely not do it in the next six months.
Delegation and decision-making
Start delegating tasks effectively. This might involve external support or redistributing work among your team, ensuring everyone’s skills are utilised optimally.
Equally important is delegating decision-making authority. Depending on the decision, empower your team to make necessary calls independently. This avoids bottlenecks and keeps progress smooth.
By pairing task delegation with decision-making power, your team can advance projects efficiently and reduce delays.
Seeking help from other teams
Consider asking if colleagues in other areas have the capacity to help. You'd be surprised how often people in workshops mention having occasional quiet days or weeks. When asked if they'd help someone out if they were stuck, the answer is almost always yes—if they aren’t busy.
However, we don’t ask for help enough. Other teams won’t proactively update you on their availability, so you must create a culture of offering help.
Here are a few simple steps towards building this culture:
- Inform other teams that you are understaffed. Don’t assume they already know.
- Clearly communicate the type of help you need.
- Reach out to anyone who previously worked on your team or those interested in learning about your area who can help with research or basic tasks.
If this sounds overly optimistic, remember it’s about building a supportive company culture. Many teams and companies successfully implement this approach.
Training and process improvement
While it might seem counterintuitive when everyone is overwhelmed, now is the perfect time to ensure your team can do their jobs efficiently.
This could involve leveraging automation and AI for tasks that technology can handle. Upskilling the team to confidently use these tools can significantly boost productivity.
It’s also about improving the way you work. It’s tempting to put your head down and keep going when busy. However, taking time to improve work processes individually and as a team can lead to smoother operations. This could mean eliminating wasteful steps, enhancing communication and collaboration, or better utilising existing systems.
These changes can’t be made in the 15 minutes between meetings. If your team is understaffed, consider taking a whole day to step out of the workspace. Discuss current struggles, learn new ways to manage the workload, and decide how to support each other as a group.
It can be beneficial to repeat this once a quarter until things improve. Without stepping back to identify and implement improvements, you'll always be playing catch-up.
Conclusion
In conclusion, be kind to yourself and your team. Being understaffed affects motivation and morale, and stress is inevitable. Acknowledging the challenges is important, but looking after each other makes it more manageable.
Make time for social conversations and fun. Remember, the work will always be there, but it's better when you tackle it together.
