Mini Guide on Workload Management Using Work Scheduling App

Are you finding it difficult to delegate tasks to your team? You are not alone. As a leader, you have a huge responsibility to keep your team members focused, productive and on track. You also need to ensure that your team’s workload is shared fairly. In this article, we will understand how we can manage our team’s workload effectively by leveraging work scheduling app.

Workload management is the process of efficiently distributing and managing work across teams. Successful workload management maximizes employee performance, eliminates confusion, and leaves you and your team feeling satisfied and not overwhelmed at the end of each day. Team members have confidence in their work output and can deliver higher quality work at a faster pace. A smart work scheduling app enables project managers to manage workload across organisations more effectively.

Importance of workload management:

Workload management not only reduces burnout for stressed employees, it also helps distribute work more effectively across teams by preventing them from feeling overworked in the first place. Workload management tools provide real-time insight into what your team needs to accomplish, so you can effectively manage your team’s workload and promote balance instead of burnout.

eRS for effective workload management:

If you haven’t given much thought to workload management, you’re not alone. Fortunately, there are work scheduling apps to help move everyone and everything forward at the same time. But to have a resource scheduling software that really helps manage your team members’ workload, you need to make sure that some of your other project management skills are at their best. Let’s look at how eRS can assist project managers with effective work load management:

Determine team workload and capacity: The team’s work is spread across several different project outlines, plans, and tools, making it difficult to see how much work must be accomplished as a whole. This knowledge is key to knowing how much work each team member is doing or what they can take on. Organizing your plan will help you get past that and know what your team’s real workload is.

Create a complete list of projects and processes your team is responsible for. These could be projects that your team is driving, or cross-functional work that your team contributes to.
Determine the scope and timing of each person’s work. Is it a large, complex project with multiple deliverables, or with multiple deliverables, or is its scope narrow?
Divide your project into smaller tasks and workflows. Once you fully understand your team’s work, break it down into smaller chunks using a work breakdown structure to get an idea of what your weekly or daily workload looks like.
Prioritize work based on importance and urgency. This also helps the team know what needs to be addressed first through a needs analysis and helps them plan when to work on each project.

However, knowing how much work you have to do is only half the equation. You also need to know how much bandwidth your team and each individual have. Taking into account meetings, vacations, and recurring tasks, how much time is left for each team member to devote to these projects? Work scheduling app like eRS helps you find out answers to these questions.

Allocate resources and break down individual workloads: Now that you have an overview of all the work your team needs to do, you know who will work on what, when. Resource allocation helps you effectively identify available resources and assign them to initiatives using the work scheduling app.
Prioritize your team’s list of tasks and projects, and work to fill in the top priorities first.
Now that you know who will do what, start planning each task or project. You can also implement time management strategies such as time blocks to help team members pay more attention to their work.
Make sure you assign the right people to each task or project. Consider their availability, not just their skills and experience.
Ask your team how much extra bandwidth they think they have and invite them into the conversation. Not only do they know their workload and capacity best, but they will feel empowered if you involve them in your planning.
Always explain why you assigned a specific task to someone.This is a great way to increase engagement and set expectations from the start.
Check with the team and adjust the workload as needed. Even the best plans and project schedules hit roadblocks, so you need to be prepared to make real-time adjustments before deadlines are missed. To keep track of how each team member is handling the current workload, schedule regular one-on-one check-ins with team members to stay up-to-date in advance. If these check-ins reveal that a team member is overwhelmed with responsibilities, look for someone who might be able to take on other things. If you reassign a task or project, communicate the change with your team so they understand why you’re being pulled in a different direction. This can be done through the change management process. Alternatively, you might consider coaching opportunities to help your team members become more efficient, organized, and aware of their efforts.
Improve team efficiency under heavy workloads: Your main focus is on the big picture, but encourage teams to build their own systems to manage their workloads. When there is so much to do, it is important to do the right thing efficiently.
Suggest time management strategies that fit your style, such as time-boxing and time-blocking.
Minimize the number of meetings your team has to attend. Find new ways to communicate in less time.
Help your team understand what project management is and how organized planning saves time
Integrate work management tools: Imagine being able to see the progress of all your projects and all your team members in one place. Talk about saving time. A work scheduling app or resource management software lets you do just that. The work scheduling app allows each team member to see how their work translates into larger team and company initiatives. Communication happens within tasks, so it takes 5 seconds instead of 5 minutes to find the information you need. Projects can be viewed individually or together, so the timeline keeps track of everyone. The best work scheduling apps are those used by the whole team. However, it’s important to establish team rules and best practices for using the tool. Not only does this make it easier for teams to adopt new tools, it also lowers the barrier to entry as teams don’t have to worry about using the tool “wrongly.”.

Do you feel empowered to improve your time and workload management skills? Workload management is all about efficiently allocating work, managing those tasks, and keeping project stakeholders up to date. Combining the above tips with a work scheduling app like eRS can help you organize conflicting deadlines and priorities to handle your team’s heavy workload. Sign up today for a personalize demo of eRS.