Busy Isn’t Always the Problem: The Real Story Behind Workload Management

Elizabeth Eldridge
16 hours ago
11 min read

There’s a particular kind of workplace problem that can be surprisingly difficult to spot. Everyone is getting the work done. Deadlines are being met, customers are being served, projects are moving forward and the team is delivering what it needs to deliver.

The problem is what it’s taking to make that happen. People are starting early and staying late. Lunch is eaten at desks, if it’s eaten at all. Vacation gets postponed because there’s never a good time to take it. The same dependable employees keep picking up the slack. Managers are juggling their own responsibilities while covering vacancies and supporting overwhelmed teams.

From the outside, the organization might look incredibly productive. On the inside, people may be working at a pace that simply isn’t sustainable. That’s why a conversation about workload management needs to go much further than asking whether employees are busy.

Being busy isn’t inherently unhealthy. There will naturally be periods when work becomes more demanding, whether that’s a major project deadline, a busy tourism season, year-end reporting or a surge in customer demand. The question is whether those periods are temporary and manageable, or whether operating at maximum capacity has quietly become the normal way of working.

That brings us to the next instalment of my How to Eat an Elephant series. Psychological health and safety can feel like an enormous undertaking, which is why I created this series to break down the 13 psychosocial factors identified in Canada’s National Standard for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace. Rather than trying to tackle everything at once, we’re taking it one factor, one conversation and one improvement at a time. This week, we’re taking our next bite of the elephant with Psychosocial Factor #9: Workload Management.

At its core, workload management is about whether employees can reasonably accomplish what is expected of them within the time and resources available. That word reasonably is important because workload involves much more than the number of tasks on someone’s to-do list. It includes the time, staffing, tools, training, support and recovery available to meet the demands of the job.

A Little Stress Can Actually Be a Good Thing

One reason we need a more nuanced conversation about workload is that not all stress is harmful. Eustress is the term used to describe positive or beneficial stress, the kind we might experience when taking on an exciting challenge, learning something new or working toward an important deadline. In the right amount, this kind of pressure can increase motivation, focus and energy and give us a real sense of accomplishment.

Think about a construction crew working hard to hit an important project milestone, an event team spending several hectic weeks preparing for a major conference or a restaurant team making it through an absolutely wild Saturday night. People may finish tired but also energized by what they accomplished together. High demand does not automatically equal unhealthy demand.

The key is that eustress is manageable and temporary. There’s a big difference between feeling energized by a demanding week and operating at your absolute limit for six months. The goal of workload management isn’t to eliminate challenge. It’s to create conditions where people can stretch without being stretched beyond what is sustainable.

Workload Is About More Than Quantity

Imagine two employees who each have ten things to accomplish today. The first knows exactly which tasks are most important, has been properly trained, has functioning technology and has enough uninterrupted time to complete the work. The second also has ten tasks, but three different leaders have told them their request is urgent. They have six meetings scheduled, their software keeps crashing and they’re covering part of a vacant position.

On paper, both employees have ten tasks. In reality, their workloads are completely different. That’s why organizations need to consider not only how much work exists, but what it actually takes for people to get that work done.

One of the most useful questions an organization can ask is, “What is making this job harder than it needs to be?” A healthcare worker may have to document the same information in multiple places. A tradesperson may repeatedly stop working because materials haven’t arrived. An office employee may have seven hours of meetings in an eight-hour day and still be expected to complete a full day’s worth of individual work.

Unclear processes, duplicated responsibilities, unnecessary approvals, outdated technology and constant interruptions all consume capacity. Sometimes the answer isn’t to give people less work. It’s to remove the friction that makes the work unnecessarily difficult to accomplish.

Not All Workload Is Visible

We tend to recognize physical workload fairly easily. If someone has been lifting, walking, driving, building or moving for ten hours, we understand why they’re tired. Cognitive and emotional workloads can be much less obvious.

An employee working in child protection may spend the day hearing traumatic stories. A 911 dispatcher may move from one crisis to another. A veterinarian may help a family say goodbye to a beloved pet and then immediately walk into the next appointment. A human resources professional may spend hours conducting a difficult workplace investigation, while a customer service employee may absorb frustration and hostility throughout the day.

Cognitive workload matters too. A healthcare provider, equipment operator or financial professional may need to maintain intense concentration and make consequential decisions where a small mistake could have serious implications. Someone can spend most of the day sitting in a chair and still finish work completely depleted.

Workload management therefore needs to consider physical, cognitive and emotional demands (for more on that, check out this past blog on psychological demands). Counting tasks, appointments or files will never tell the whole story.

If Everything Is a Priority, Then Nothing Is a Priority

One workload problem appears in organizations of virtually every size and industry: everything is urgent. The report is urgent, the client request is urgent, the project is urgent and the thing somebody forgot about until this morning is suddenly extremely urgent. Eventually, employees aren’t prioritizing anymore. They’re guessing.

Imagine an employee saying, “I have the quarterly report due Friday, the client proposal due Thursday and you’ve just asked me to complete this presentation for Wednesday. I don’t think I can do all three well. What should I prioritize?” A helpful leader might respond, “The client proposal comes first. I’ll move the presentation to Friday and we’ll push the internal report to Monday.”

The leader hasn’t made the work disappear, but they have clarified expectations and decided what can wait. Compare that with, “They’re all important. Just do your best.” In that scenario, the employee is left with three competing priorities and responsibility for deciding which ball they’re allowed to drop.

Leaders may not always be able to remove work, but they can provide something incredibly valuable: clarity about what matters most and what can wait.

Watch Your High Performers

Some of the people most vulnerable to workload problems are the very people who excel. When something important needs to get done quickly, we ask the reliable person. When someone goes on leave, we give more to the capable person. When a high-profile project comes along, we turn to the person we know will deliver.

Because that person keeps delivering, the arrangement appears to work. Over time, however, their workload can quietly become unsustainable precisely because they are so good at what they do.

Some employees also won't tell you when they've reached their limit. They may take pride in being dependable, worry that saying no will make them appear incapable or believe advancement depends on always being willing to take on more. That’s why workload management can’t rely exclusively on employees raising their hands when they’re overwhelmed. Leaders need to pay attention to how work is distributed, particularly among the people who rarely complain.

Underload Matters Too

Healthy workload management isn’t simply about reducing demands. Too little meaningful work can affect well-being too. Someone may be hired because of their expertise and rarely have an opportunity to use it, or spend eight hours a day performing repetitive tasks that require very little thought, variety or challenge.

Imagine regularly finishing your work by lunchtime and then trying to look busy for the rest of the afternoon, or watching colleagues receive interesting projects while you’re repeatedly assigned work that doesn’t use your skills. Over time, underload can contribute to boredom, disengagement and a loss of purpose.

The goal is an appropriate and sustainable level of demand. People need enough challenge to remain engaged without being chronically overwhelmed.

When “Manage Your Time Better” Isn’t the Answer

Time management matters, and better organization or work habits can sometimes help employees manage their responsibilities more effectively. The problem arises when every workload issue is treated as an individual productivity problem.

If someone has 55 hours of work to complete in a 40-hour week, a better calendar isn’t going to create another 15 hours. If a nurse is responsible for more patients than can reasonably be cared for during a shift, a new planner isn’t the answer. If a supervisor’s team has doubled but none of their previous responsibilities have been removed, colour-coding their inbox probably won’t solve the problem.

The same applies to resilience. Resilience, stress management skills and personal boundaries are valuable, but individual strategies cannot make inherently unreasonable demands reasonable. Sometimes we need to help people cope with the demands of work. Other times, we need to change the demands themselves.

Sometimes the Math Simply Doesn’t Work

Not every workload problem can be solved by cancelling a meeting or improving a process. Sometimes there really is too much work. A position remains vacant for months, business grows faster than staffing can keep up, several employees go on leave at once or an unexpected project arrives with a non-negotiable deadline.

These are real organizational realities. Psychological health and safety doesn’t require leaders to magically produce more employees, money or hours in the day. It does, however, require us to acknowledge when the math simply doesn’t work.

If there are five people’s worth of responsibilities and four people available to do them, the organization can reduce the work, increase the resources or accept that some work will not get done within the original timeframe. There isn’t a fourth option where four people operate at 125% capacity indefinitely without consequences.

When excessive workload becomes chronic, those consequences eventually show up somewhere. Breaks disappear, vacations get postponed, mistakes increase and people become exhausted. Absenteeism may increase, engagement may fall and employees may eventually leave, placing even more pressure on those who remain.

Recovery Is Part of the Equation

People can often manage periods of very high demand when those periods have an end. Tax professionals may have an intense tax season, retail employees may experience a surge leading up to Christmas and hospitality workers may have a demanding tourism season. What happens afterward matters. Sprinting for six weeks and then returning to a manageable pace is very different from finishing one sprint and immediately beginning another.

Recovery includes being able to take breaks, having days off where people can genuinely disconnect and using vacation without returning to such an enormous backlog that taking time off hardly seems worthwhile. It also includes expectations around technology and availability.

A manager who prefers catching up on email at 10 PM doesn’t necessarily need to stop, but they may need to tell employees, “If you receive an email from me in the evening, I don’t expect you to read or respond until your regular working hours.” That small clarification can prevent an unintended expectation of constant availability.

Workload Management Looks Different Across Industries

Workload is highly contextual, so organizations need to examine the actual work their people perform rather than relying on a generic definition of “busy.”

In health care, workload management might involve patient ratios, documentation requirements, emotional demands, shift scheduling, overtime and whether employees can realistically take breaks. The number of patients alone doesn’t tell the story because their acuity and complexity matter too.

In construction and the skilled trades, workload can be influenced by project timelines, staffing, travel, equipment availability, weather delays and overtime. Pressure to make up lost time can also create safety concerns if employees feel pushed to work faster than is reasonable.

In manufacturing, organizations might examine production targets, repetitive tasks, machine downtime, staffing levels, mandatory overtime and recovery between shifts. A target that is reasonable when every position is filled and every machine is functioning may become unrealistic when two employees are absent and a critical piece of equipment goes down.

In education, workload extends well beyond time spent with students. Preparation, marking, administrative responsibilities, parent communication, student needs and work taken home all contribute to the demands of the job.

In professional and office environments, workload may be shaped by competing deadlines, meeting load, email volume, interruptions and an unspoken expectation of constant availability. An eight-hour calendar can conceal the fact that six hours are spent in meetings and the employee completes their actual work afterward.

In customer-facing roles, volume is only part of the equation. Forty pleasant interactions and forty hostile ones do not create the same demand. Emotional intensity needs to be considered alongside the number of customers served.

And we shouldn’t forget leaders themselves. Managers may simultaneously be responsible for operations, budgets, performance management, recruitment, employee support, reporting, strategic initiatives and their own technical work. We can’t expect leaders to create psychologically healthy teams while ignoring whether they themselves are chronically operating beyond capacity.

What Can Organizations Actually Do?

There is no single solution to workload management, but there are many practical places to start. Organizations can:

Regularly review workload and staffing against actual demand
Clarify priorities and explicitly identify what can wait
Set realistic timelines that don’t routinely depend on overtime
Monitor how work is distributed, particularly among high performers
Shorten or eliminate meetings that don’t add enough value
Simplify unnecessary processes and approval steps
Automate repetitive work where appropriate
Ensure employees have functioning tools, technology and adequate training
Cross-train employees so critical responsibilities don’t depend on one person
Build realistic coverage for vacation, illness and leave
Consider emotional and cognitive demands as well as task volume
Establish clear expectations around after-hours communication
Protect opportunities for breaks, vacation and recovery

Perhaps most importantly, organizations can get better at subtracting. Workplaces are often excellent at adding new initiatives, reporting requirements, committees, procedures, technology, projects and goals. We aren’t always as intentional about deciding what will stop.

When something new is added to an already-full plate, it’s worth asking, “What are we going to stop, postpone or do differently to make room for this?” Simply expecting people to find more capacity isn’t a sustainable workload strategy.

Asking Better Questions

Leaders don’t need to wait for a formal assessment to start useful conversations about workload. Instead of asking, “How are things going?”, try questions that help identify where the pressure is actually coming from:

What is taking up most of your time right now?
Which of your current priorities feels least realistic?
What keeps getting pushed to the bottom of your list?
Where are you experiencing bottlenecks?
What are you doing that feels unnecessarily repetitive or complicated?
Is there anything we’re still doing simply because we’ve always done it?
If you could take one thing off your plate, what would make the biggest difference?
What could I change or clarify that would make your workload more manageable?

The answers might point to a staffing problem, but they could just as easily reveal a two-hour meeting that could be 30 minutes, an unnecessary approval step, duplicated work or responsibilities that could be redistributed more fairly. Employees often know exactly where the friction is because they experience it every day.

Sustainable Doesn’t Mean Easy

A psychologically healthy and safe workplace isn’t one where nobody ever works hard. Work can be demanding, and accomplishing something difficult can be incredibly satisfying. The goal of workload management is not to make work easy. It is to make it sustainable, with demands that are reasonably matched by the time, staffing, tools, training, support and recovery available to meet them.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with asking people to stretch from time to time. The problem is when ‘stretch’ becomes the permanent position.

As you take this week’s bite of the elephant, don’t just ask, “Do our employees have too much work?” Ask, “Can our people reasonably accomplish what we’re asking of them with the resources, time and support we’ve given them?”

That small shift in the question can lead to a very different conversation about workload, and a much clearer picture of what might need to change.

Next time, we’ll take another bite of the elephant with Psychosocial Factor #10: Engagement, looking at what it actually means to have an engaged workforce, why engagement is about much more than whether employees are “happy” at work and what organizations can do to create the conditions where people genuinely want to contribute.

Elizabeth Eldridge is a Psychological Health & Safety Consultant based in southern New Brunswick, Canada. In addition to keynote speaking, event emceeing, consulting services and corporate training on mental health in the workplace, she supports organizations across the country on the adoption of Canada’s best practice guidelines on psychological health and safety management. She is also the Founder & President of Arpeggio Health Services which provides standardized education programs like Mental Health First Aid, The Working Mind, QPR Suicide Prevention and more.