How to Get Your Employees to Manage Their Work Load - Time Tracking Software is Not the Answer

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

Five Ways To Help Your Employees Create A Healthy Work/Life Balance

Encourage flexible schedules. Perhaps your employees want to work longer days Monday through Thursday, with Friday off. If they need to pull an all-nighter once in a while, they'll be okay with that as long as they know they're free to take a "mental health day" afterward. Provide flexibility in their schedules when possible. Employees must get their work done, but they're adults. Self-motivated people don't need to put in face time, and their leaders don't need to
install a metaphorical time clock in the break room.

Don't let people become workaholics. When you see individuals working too many nights and weekends, encourage them to take a break. Identify coworkers who might be able to share the load. They'll appreciate your concern, as well as the fact that you noticed their extraordinary efforts. Yes, asking an employee not to work so hard is counterintuitive. But you're not being totally altruistic. Overworked people make mistakes and display poor judgment. Eventually, they
burn out. Clearly, that is not good for your company.

Load Balancing

Set a good example. As a leader, you set the tone for everyone else. When employees see you staying in the office until 8 p.m. every night and working through lunch, they feel a not-so-subtle pressure to do it, too. But more important than that, you're burning yourself out when you do that. You can't be a vibrant entrepreneurial leader if you're running on empty. Everyone will suffer for it.

Get creative with benefits. Unusual perks that help employees balance their own lives are relatively inexpensive and are worth their weight in gold. If you can't establish an onsite daycare center, maybe you can help several employees with small children to pool their resources and hire an in-home nanny. If there's enough employee interest in fitness, you could buy a corporate gym membership or get an aerobics instructor to come to your workplace several days a week. Some companies offer shopping services, adoption reimbursement, and even pet care and pet insurance for employees. The point is to get involved in their personal lives in helpful, loyalty-cementing ways.

Bring joy into the workplace. It blurs the boundaries between "professional" and"personal." Many employees view "work" as a place of drudgery and duty and "life" as the arena for fun, friendship, and family. Lighten up the workplace and people will quit seeing work as a sentence that must be endured until the fun kicks in. "Schedule an occasional lunch at a nearby restaurant," suggests Sujansky. "When the files and office space need to be cleaned and organized, hold a purge party, complete with pizza and drinks. Hold a 'Bring Your Kids to Work Morning' that segues into a day at the zoo. Laugh loudly and often. You'll find that as morale skyrockets, so does productivity."

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Five Ways To Help Your Employees Create A Healthy Work/Life Balance