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An important part of your job as a manager is making sure everyone on your team has the right amount of work. It’s tempting to give the workhorse more projects than others (especially if she’ll get them done the fastest) or to ease up on someone who is struggling, but you also need to be fair. How do you make sure that work on your team is evenly distributed? What do you do about the person who’s great at saying no and the one who can’t say no? What the Experts Say Have a plan Clarify roles Set expectations Communicate one-on-one
Be flexible Principles to Remember Do
Don’t
Case Study #1: Create a culture where team members help each other and collaborate “Workload will vary at any given time across any given role,” she says. “The art is to monitor it regularly and create an environment where the team members assist each other during peak [times].” A few years ago, Michelle oversaw the implementation of a global HR technology platform—named “Genesis”—designed to improve workforce planning and analytics for Ford’s 150,000 employees across 42 countries. The Genesis team included 12 HR professionals located in the US, Mexico, China, and Germany as well as other employees from IT, finance, the office of the general counsel, and purchasing. Genesis was challenging for a number of reasons, according to Michelle. “The work itself was highly complex and highly interdependent,” she says. “The workload was also hard to predict and varied on a daily basis.” First, Michelle devised a plan for distributing the workload. The plan involved matching her team members’ “roles and responsibilities,” with the various tasks associated with Genesis and figuring out “how [each] role fit into the bigger picture.” Next, she set clear expectations with her team members and reminded them—both in one-on-one conversations and in team meetings—that their jobs were to support the overall team objectives and that they may need to adjust their role from time to time. Her goal was for the Genesis team to “feel a strong sense of purpose.” Third, she used project management tools—including work plans and milestone charts—to make sure Genesis was on track and to address workload issues on an ongoing basis. Michelle wanted to make sure that everyone was pulling his weight and that no task fell through the cracks. To make sure this happened she held regular forums for issue and risk management. “If only a few issues were being raised, I asked the team, ‘What are we missing? What is keeping you up at night? What help do you need?’” she says. From time to time, Michelle says, the workload was uneven, but she made it a point to help her team members remain flexible. “They accepted that on occasion certain team members felt the burden of the task at hand and helped if they could,” she says. “They also knew their time would come.” Over a four-year period, Genesis had over a dozen successful launches within Ford. “The team was proud of its accomplishments and enjoyed the journey with each other,” says Michelle. Case Study #2: Talk to your employees one-on-one about their share of the collective workload Earlier in his career when Kyle headed up a team at Reuters, he managed a star performer named Janice. He remembers one time in particular, a high profile and interesting assignment arose, and Kyle’s impulse was to ask Janice to work on it. “I knew her work ethic,” he says. “She never missed a deadline. And she was reliable.” But before making the request, Kyle had a candid one-on-one with Janice. “I talked to her about what was currently on her plate. I also encouraged her to talk to her clients and team members to determine if this additional work would fit into her schedule,” he says. Janice was able to take on the assignment, but Kyle helped her be strategic about other tasks that came her way. “Sometimes, she would purposefully put herself on the bench to wait for a better opportunity around the corner,” he says. “She was very self-regulated, so I helped her assess opportunities.” Today Janice runs corporate communications for a large consultancy in Europe. For another employee, Christina, things were quite different. “Christina was a good writer, but she didn’t want to talk to clients; she didn’t work well with her teammates, and she didn’t seem interested in taking on any more responsibility.” Kyle’s first order of business was to figure out why Christina was underperforming. Was it a lack of confidence? A lack of aptitude? Or a lack of interest? During a one-on-one conversation, he got his answer. “It turns out her long-term goal was never to work in communications, so together we tried to figure out where she wanted to be professionally in five years,” he says. He and Christina worked jointly to come up with specific tasks within her role that she could accomplish to make sure she was pulling her weight. “My goal as a manager is to give my employees every opportunity to succeed, but if they don’t seize that opportunity, then it’s time to move on,” he says. Christina now works as a broadcast anchor. |