When I was running my engineering practice one of my biggest problems was keeping the workload balance distributed amongst the staff. What makes this particularly challenging is when employees do not take responsibility for their own workload.
Many workers assume that it is your responsibility to keep them busy rather than their own responsibility to know what needs to be completed and do it.
Load Balancing
I cannot count the times that I had an employee stroll into my office to tell me that they were out of work. And they always managed to do this just as I was leaving the office for a job site visit. This meant that until I returned, they were going to be wasting time and costing me money.
I am not alone. I have seen this happen in architecture and engineering firms around the globe. But there is hope.
Time tracking software is a good start but not the answer.
I discovered a way to minimize this issue, so here is the secret. Each Friday have everyone in your firm forecast which jobs they plan to work on next week and how many hours they plan to spend on each project. This forces them to plan their own workload. Have them fill in a simple spreadsheet with their forecasted values.
You can then use these forecasted hours in your Monday morning planning meeting. You may as well notice that your staff will be looking for work on Friday rather than waiting until they run out of work. So start a new Friday tradition and have each of your employees plan their workload for next week. You will be amazed at how much better your weeks start to look.
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How to Get Your Employees to Manage Their Work Load - Time Tracking Software is Not the Answer
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