Managing Workload in Times of Constraint
For many, 2023 has increasingly been a year of major economic change. Both in the home and in the workplace, pressures from rising inflation, cost of living, and budgetary constraint are shaping the way we experience life. While news in the public domain has predominantly focussed on the impact of these economic changes in the home, it is equally important for organisations and leaders to be proactively managing budgetary changes – and their downstream implications – in the workplace.
In our last blog post, we discussed the global rise of burnout post-COVID, and the increased need for organisations to manage factors contributing to burnout under new psychosocial risk management legislation. In an interesting confluence of events, as these legislative changes have been coming into effect across Australia, economic pressures are seeing organisations cut back on headcount whilst being expected to produce the same output. Individuals in these workplaces are arguably being put under more stress and exposed to further psychosocial hazard. This is particularly prevalent in the public sector: for Victorian public servants 4,000 - 5,000 VPS roles are expected to be cut to rebalance the state budget.
Organisations have a legal requirement to manage job demands, including workload, and early data examining psychosocial hazards in the workplace is indicating this is one of the most prevalent hazards across workplaces in Australia. But with this information, the question arises: How do you manage workload struggles when hiring more staff is not an option?
This is something Vicissitude can help you with. Our team is well-versed in interventions that manage psychosocial hazards with a systems- and people-centred view of the workplace. As with many issues we assist organisations to manage, we examine organisation-, team-, and individual-level changes that take a systems view of managing stressors.
Getting on top of this challenge before burnout appears in your team is crucial. Many managers will know how easy it is to fall into the spiral of high demands creating more burnout, individuals subsequently leaving the workplace due to burnout, and this creating higher demands on those left behind.
To prevent this vicious cycle, you may want to consider setting your team up with the necessary skills to navigate the current turbulent economic environment. Our newly developed offering, Managing Workload in Times of Constraint, focuses on:
a systems-level review of your strategic priorities;
evaluating your team’s delivery expectations;
analysing your stakeholders’ needs;
identifying time thieves and removing squeaky wheels;
up-skilling individuals in the art of delegation;
and sharing tools to work smarter, not harder.
If you’re interested in learning more about this offering, reach out to one of our consultants or contact us online.
Written by Madeleine Crawford and Poppy Orr
