Just How Busy are Your Employees?

Just How Busy are Your Employees?

Everyone says they are “too busy” or “have a lot on their plate” but are there ways to tell when someone is truly busy or when they could handle more?

Determining whether employees are genuinely busy or can handle more work involves a combination of observation, communication, and analysis. Here are some strategies to assess your team’s workload:

1. Direct Communication: Engage in open conversations with your employees about their current workload. Encourage them to share their tasks and the time each task requires. This can help identify if they are overburdened or have the capacity to take on more.
2. Task and Time Analysis: Ask employees to list their key activities and the time spent on them in a typical week. Analyze this data to see if there are tasks that can be eliminated, done differently, or more quickly.
3. Productivity Tracking Tools: Utilize software tools to track productivity and time management. These tools can provide insights into how employees are spending their work hours and if there’s any time being wasted.
4. Workload Distribution: Review the distribution of tasks among your team. Misallocation of resources can lead to some employees being overworked while others have spare capacity.
5. Cultural Assessment: Observe the work culture. If there’s a culture of ‘busy bragging’, it might encourage employees to exaggerate their busyness to avoid additional tasks or to seem more important.
6. Performance Metrics: Set clear performance metrics that can help differentiate between perceived busyness and actual productivity.

These are the quantifiable ways and by combining these approaches, you can get a clearer picture of your team’s true workload and make informed decisions about distributing tasks effectively.

But I am not crazy about any of these solutions.  Don’t get me wrong they are practical solutions and some should probably be implemented.  But I like solutions that, once in place do not have to be monitored often.  It shouldn’t take MORE work on your part to determine who isn’t carrying their share of the load.  I want a solution, and I think you do too, that uses incentives to reward the hard workers and not reward the lazy workers.

What happens in today’s world is that we have been taught by society and the lack of available workers in the workforce that we need to meet all their financial needs, provide copious benefits, and provide a comfortable workplace first and equitably, so that they are motivated to provide us the work that we need accomplished.

Well… That’s not the way motivation works.  We don’t hand out gold medals before each Olympic event and hope that they live up to their potential.  At least not yet.  And so it is with employees, we should offer “opportunity” and see if they live up to the expectation, and then reward accordingly.

We should create a culture where really good employees get the rewards, and the poor performers either learn what it takes to get ahead and rise to the occasion, or decide that this is not the place for them and leave.  Doing otherwise will disincentivize the good employees, and they are the last people we want to demotivate.

No longer should we be rewarding employees collectively or based on longevity, but rather based on merit.  We as employers must make sure that we don’t play favorites, we give everyone the opportunity to shine, and must not set precedents of promoting on anything but merit.

I won’t take long before employees figure out how the game is played and will come to you looking for more responsibility, or show more initiative.

I know these principles might sound archaic in todays woke society.  Some may say that things have changed, and yes, they have.  But what incentivizes humans and human nature has not changed.

Rewards work!  I am not suggesting that you look for people doing things right and then provide a bonus.  Although catching someone doing something right and providing the pat on the back is always a good thing.

I am simply saying that when handing out the raises remember who came in on a Saturday, who took care of those difficult customers, whose production rates have improved, who continuously asks for more responsibility.  Make sure these people see the raises not the “clock punchers” that are simply there for the paycheck.  In fact, exaggerate the distance between the high and low performers whenever possible so that there is no mistaking what it takes to get ahead to everyone.

I know in today’s governmental interference in how we pay our employees, it is not always easy to reward individuals rather than the group, but we must find ways to make the point that good employees will get rewarded and bad employees will stagnate where ever and whenever we can.  That is unless you prefer to be a slave driver and babysitter.