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 or to ease up on someone who is struggling, but you also need to be fair. How do you make sure that work is evenly distributed?
Delegating can be complicated. You’re “juggling multiple interests” in the pursuit of optimal team performance, says Liane Davey, author of “You First: Inspire Your Team to Grow Up, Get Along, and Get Stuff Done.” There are real risks involved in not distributing the workload in an equitable way, says Julie Morgenstern, productivity expert and author of “Never Check E-Mail in the Morning.” “If you overwork your high performers, you will lose them because they start to resent the fact that they’re doing more,” she says. Similarly, “if you’re taking away work from people who are slower,” they will lose interest.
Whether you’re dividing up the workload for next year or next week, here are some strategies to help.
— HAVE A PLAN. Morgenstern suggests setting aside one or two hours at the end of each week for “delegation strategy and review.” Think about “What are we trying to achieve? Who are my players? Who does what well? And, who needs development and in what areas?” Those questions will help you figure out the best way to allocate assignments. Without a purposeful plan, Davey says that “managers too often do what’s easy in the short term and ask the most talented person” to do the hard work. The problem is “then nobody else learns how to do [the tasks], and you’re not building the capacity of the team.”
— CLARIFY ROLES. A key element to your delegation strategy is making sure “your team members are crystal clear on their roles,” says Morgenstern. She suggests making a list of all the work that needs to get done and then assigning tasks according to each employee’s specific function, position and strengths. This exercise also helps you discover any talent gaps. You might need to temporarily allocate certain jobs to others. Or you might need to hire someone new. “Be deliberate” about how you assign work, says Davey.
— SET EXPECTATIONS. Continually stating your objectives and emphasizing the level of effort and engagement you expect will help focus the team, says Morgenstern. Let it be known that “people should be pulling their weight” and willing to help each other, she says. One of the difficulties with making sure that a workload is fair is that employees work at different paces. “It’s important to make sure your employees understand you don’t equate hours with productivity,” Davey says. The best way to do this, she says, is to praise strong performance, irrespective
of hours worked.
— COMMUNICATE ONE-ON-ONE. Having individual conversations with team members about their share of the workload is critical to ensuring they stay motivated and engaged. Consider these discussions as an opportunity to talk about your employees’ professional goals, gather insight on team dynamics and resolve problems. Here are some suggestions for what to say.
TO YOUR CAN’T-SAY-NO WORKHORSE: “You need to demonstrate the extent to which you recognize you rely on this person,” Davey says. Before you lean on her for another high-profile or time-sensitive project, acknowledge that she “may have a lot on her plate.” Then say: “For reasons A, B and C, I want to assign this to you. Let’s talk about what else you may have going on,” and which projects can be moved to the back burner.
TO THE PERSON WHO’S STRUGGLING: Be frank in your feedback. “Say, ‘I’ve noticed you’re not getting through your work as quickly as your teammates are. It takes you three days to write this report where it takes your team members one day,’” Davey says. Probe a little. “Ask, ‘What’s the issue here? Do you need more training or more support?’” Perhaps there are interventions you could offer.
TO YOUR STAR: Building your team’s capacity and making sure the workload is even require sharing the wealth of the best projects. “Be transparent,” about your priorities, Davey says. If, for instance, you are offering a particularly attractive assignment to someone other than your star, “say, ‘The reason I am not giving you this assignment is that I need to have multiple people on this team who know how to do X.’” You might ask your star to mentor the colleague you’ve assigned.
TO THE PERSON WHO’S UNMOTIVATED: People like this may be smart and good at their jobs, but they rarely pitch in when then the team needs help. “You need to be clear to this person about how his level of effort has consequences in terms of his chances of promotion, financial incentives and choice assignments,” Davey says. Be direct about how he is failing to meet your expectations, says Morgenstern.
— BE FLEXIBLE. Try as you might to make sure the workload is even, it might not always happen in the way you’d like. It’s also important to remember that your team’s workload is not static. “You’re going to toggle between different strategies in different situations depending on the circumstances,” she says. Certain team members may need to burn the midnight oil on a project, while others have an easier time. The next quarter may be a different story. The goal is that “over the course of the year, it all balances out.”
