Issue with Work/Life Balance - small business

[HRthelink]

Hi HR Buzz,

I work in a small company of less than 40 staff with offices across most states. There is a team leader for each office however they are working overtime every day, running around like crazy. I have had two of them break down to me on the phone because their workload is too high and because there is no one who can act in their role if they take time off. One of the team leader's is so behind in her quarterly reviews for staff that she has been skipping them and just doing the annual reviews - not actually fulfilling her role as a team leader.

Being a small business, we do not have the budget to hire more people. What suggestions can you offer to help me ease this problem? We have flexible working arrangements in place such as TOIL (and soft "rules" in place where they cannot accumulate more than a certain amount of TOIL to encourage them to take it for work/life balance) and working from home however some of them are so busy that they can't even afford TOIL and working from home is "not an option" because they need to be out on site to deliver seminars to clients.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

[Cottoneyes]

Even before you consider hiring more headcount, I would be getting an independent review of the workload. Things this would bring up would be areas of inefficiency, finding tasks that can be delegated to other team members with less of a workload, find better processes to get the work done in a quicker time and overall set some priorities for the team leader. There might be some education required for the team leaders as well.

You might not have the budget to hire more people, however best to manage the situation now or you will need to find the budget for recruitment and termination payments. If they have already broken down, chances are they are already registered on Seek.

[HRthelink]

Thank you for your suggestion Cottoneyes.
How do you suggest we go about doing a review of the workload? Would we ask them to keep a work diary relating to the tasks being carried out etc? How can we ensure that these will be accurate? If they already dont have enough time, will they have enough time to complete this diary?

Thanks in advance.

[Cottoneyes]

A Diary would be a good starting point, but yes, would expect some bias as the employee either tried to make their job more important, or left out little things to cover for friends.

There are places that can do this, they charge a fee but claim that you will recover the fee in X number of years as the efficiencies pay for themselves with less overtime, employee turnover etc. I believe one group that I've seen do this was called the Reveal Group, however I'm sure there would be others that would offer similar things.

If the staff are paid hourly, perhaps consider a clocking in and out system such as a Time and Attendance system as well to get a better idea on when the staff are actually working.

[Moz]

If your staff are so overworked they are having emotional breakdowns but you can't afford to hire any more staff then it would appear your business model is failing. i.e you're not making enough money from the product or services you provide, and/or you are paying your staff too much, and/or you are putting far too much emphasis on non core business activities which do not produce revenue.

If you don't do something to fix this fast you risk having people go off on long term sick leave due to stress. Alternatively, as Cottoneyes suggested, you will lose staff, which will only exacerbate the situation, or both!

So some suggestions;

• Remove or minimise expectations of non core business activities
• Increase the cost of your products or services and employ more people (immediately)
• Eliminate any obvious inefficiencies is your work processes.

Just one other thing, profit - are you trying to make too much profit? is that why there is no budget for additional staff?

[HRthelink]

Hi Moz,
You raise very valid points. All of the points you raised will become clear once we do a workload evaluation as suggested by Cottoneyes. I am sure our MD would be willing to hear me out as she would not want to risk losing her leaders.

In terms of profit, no I do not believe we are trying to make too much profit. I believe that this is caused due to our products/services not drawing in enough money (some are beyond our control due to government initiatives) and also because in some states it has been hard to get busines running.
e.g QLD with the floods.

I have only been at this company for about 2 months and I am not sure how business has been running until now (there are so many gaps!) but I am hoping to help fix this!

[Moz]

Originally Posted by HRthelink

I have only been at this company for about 2 months and I am not sure how business has been running until now (there are so many gaps!) but I am hoping to help fix this!

Good luck It would be interesting to hear how you get on.

Just one other thing that came to mind, not everyone is cut out for leadership roles and people respond to stress differently. Some take it in their stride and find ways to do their job more efficiently (to reduce the stress), but it can cause other people to become more inefficient, and more stressed!

[HRthelink]

Very true.

Fingers crossed all goes well! Its been a challenge but an amazing learning curve for me.

Thanks again for your help.