Effectively manage team workload: 5 balancing methods

As a leader, one of your biggest responsibilities is keeping your team focused, productive, and on track, and that starts with how you distribute work. When workloads are unbalanced, your best performers risk burning out while others remain underutilized. You need to make sure that your team's workload is divided fairly and sustainably. Organizing and productivity expert, Julie Morgenstern, put it best: "If you overwork your high performers, you will lose them because they start to resent the fact that they're doing more."

This guide covers what workload management means, common challenges teams face, a five-step process for sharing work effectively, and practical tips to help your team stay productive and balanced.

What is workload management?

Workload management is the process of distributing and managing work across your team so that no one is overburdened and every task is accounted for. When done well, it maximizes employee performance, reduces stress, and helps your team deliver higher-quality work faster. Instead of feeling overwhelmed, team members feel confident about their work volume and stay focused on what matters most.

Why is workload management important?

Recent research shows that 80% of global knowledge workers report feeling overworked and close to burnout, and 82% say they feel less engaged at work when they're stressed. Workload management enables you to distribute work more effectively, which not only reduces burnout but also prevents your team from feeling overworked in the first place. Workload management tools provide real-time insight into what your team has on their plate, so you can promote balance, not burnout.

When you manage workloads well, your team and organization see clear benefits:

• Reduces burnout and stress: Fair distribution of work prevents your top performers from shouldering too much while others have too little.

• Improves team morale and retention: When people feel their workload is manageable and equitable, they're more engaged and less likely to look elsewhere.

• Increases productivity and work quality: Teams that aren't stretched too thin produce better work, faster.

• Provides better project visibility: Understanding what everyone is working on helps you spot bottlenecks early and keep projects on schedule.

Common team workload management challenges

Effective team workload management is fundamental to project planning, and the first step toward improvement is identifying the issues that affect your team's performance. Here are four common workload challenges to watch for:

• Unrealistic expectations: Deadlines that don't match actual team capacity.

• Uneven workload distribution: Some team members are overloaded while others are underutilized.

• Under-resourcing: A gap between the work that needs to be done and the people, tools, or time available.

• Over-demanding work culture: An environment that prioritizes long hours and constant multitasking over quality.

Unrealistic expectations

Unrealistic expectations often stem from a disconnect between project schedules and actual team capacity. For instance, setting aggressive deadlines for complex tasks without considering the team's current workload or external dependencies can lead to stress and burnout. This misalignment is common in environments where milestones are prioritized over realistic deadlines.

Introducing workload management software can help in setting more realistic deadlines by providing visibility into team capacity and dependencies.

Uneven workload distribution

Uneven workload occurs when some team members have too much to do while others have too little, which can cause resentment and lower team morale. For instance, if a few team members consistently handle the majority of essential tasks, it might indicate a need for better workload balancing. Tools like Gantt charts and task management software can aid in identifying and correcting these imbalances.

Under-resourcing

Under-resourcing happens when there aren't enough people, tools, or time to handle the work that needs to be done. For example, asking a small team to take on a lot of project tasks without the right tools or enough time can lead to missed deadlines and lower-quality work.

This calls for effective resource management and capacity planning to ensure that teams have what they need to manage their workload efficiently. Consider using a staffing plan template to better identify gaps and allocate capacity more efficiently.

Over-demanding work culture

An over-demanding work culture often prioritizes quantity over quality, expecting team members to multitask extensively. This can be seen in environments where back-to-back team meetings, constant multitasking, and long hours are the norm. This often leads to decreased team productivity and a negative impact on overall team morale. However, emphasizing well-being and incorporating time tracking can help create a more balanced environment.

The 5-step guide to workload management

If you haven't given much thought to workload management, you're not alone; the International Institute of Directors and Managers reports that few people are actually trained in this much-needed skill. The good news is that the right tools and project management skills can help. Here are the five steps:

1. Figure out your team's workload and capacity

2. Allocate resources and break down individual workloads

3. Check in with your team members and adjust workloads as needed

4. Improve team efficiency when workloads are heavy

5. Onboard a work management tool

1. Figure out your team's workload and capacity

With your team's work scattered among multiple different project briefs, plans, and tools, it's hard to understand just how much total work you all need to tackle. Having that knowledge is key to figuring out how much each team member is doing or what they can take on. You can get past that and figure out what your team's workload actually is by getting your plans in order:

1. Put together a full list of projects and processes your team is responsible for. These can be projects your team is driving, or cross-functional work they'll be contributing to.

2. Determine the scope and timing of work for each. Are these big, complex projects with multiple deliverables, or are they smaller in scope? How much of each project or process is your team responsible for?

3. Break down projects into smaller tasks and workstreams. Once you have a big picture understanding of your team's work, use a work breakdown structure to break it into smaller chunks so you can know what their weekly or daily loads look like.

4. Prioritize work based on importance and urgency. This way, you'll also know what your team needs to tackle first through a needs assessment and can better schedule when you'll be working on each project.

Knowing how much work needs to be done is just one part. You also need to understand your team's capacity and how they spend their time. After considering meetings, vacations, and regular tasks, see how much time is left for new projects.

Workload measuring example:

Suppose your analytics team needs to produce nine reports in Q2. Some are new and will take longer, while others are repeatable and already have systems in place. Before assigning these to team members, figure out when each report is due, how important it is, and how much time it should take.

After this review, you know how much extra work your analytics team has. If it's too much for your small team, you can choose to delay less important reports and focus on the ones that matter most.

2. Allocate resources and break down individual workloads

Now that you know what your team needs to do, you can decide who will work on each task and when. Assigning work may seem simple, but as Harvard Business Review points out, workload management can be more complex than it looks.

Resource allocation can help you effectively identify and assign available resources to an initiative. This process is particularly beneficial for complex projects like new site openings and clinical trial research, where work management solutions can help reduce costs and minimize delays.

If you're new to resource allocation, here are five tips to help keep workloads balanced and manageable:

• Assign the highest-priority work first. Order your team's to-do lists and projects by priority, and staff the top priorities first.

• Balance start and due dates. Now that you know who will be doing what, start scheduling each task or project. You can also implement time management strategies, like time blocking, to help team members be more intentional about their work.

• Make sure you're matching the right people to each task or project. Take into account their availability, as well as their skill sets and experience.

• Include your team in the conversation by asking them what extra bandwidth they believe they have. Not only will they know their own workloads and capacities the best, but they'll also feel more empowered when you involve them in planning.

• Always explain why you're assigning a task to someone. This helps increase engagement and sets clear expectations from the start.

Resource allocation example:

You need two people to work on ad designs for an upcoming campaign, and you have five people on your team. You could assign the work randomly, but you'll get better results if you look at team members'backgrounds (e.g., have they worked on previous campaigns before?), check for any team members who may already be overloaded, then ask your top picks if they feel they have the capacity to take on this new project.

3. Check in with your team members and adjust workloads as needed

Even with careful planning, projects can run into problems. Be ready to make changes quickly so you don't miss deadlines. To keep track of each team member's tasks, make regular one-on-one check-ins part of your workload management. If someone feels overloaded, ask another team member to take on some tasks.

When you reassign tasks or projects, be sure to communicate the changes to your team so they understand why they're now being pulled in a different direction. This can be done via a change control process. Alternatively, consider coaching opportunities to help them become more efficient and organized, and always recognize your team members'hard work.

Check-ins example:

If you notice two account managers working late every night and another emailing early in the morning, they may be overloaded. Set up check-ins with each person to see how they're doing, offer to shift or delay tasks if needed, and plan regular check-ins to catch these issues early.

Pro tip: Don't forget about team culture

In addition to 1-1 check-ins, make time for team-wide moments of connection and celebration. Whether your team is in the office, distributed, or remote, it's important to have face time and connect. Depending on your team's size, consider planning a weekly stand-up meeting, a biweekly happy hour, or a larger monthly gathering.

4. Improve team efficiency when workloads are heavy

While you focus on the big picture, encourage your team to create their own ways to manage their workload. When there's a lot to do, it's important they work on the right tasks efficiently.

• Suggest time management strategies that fit their individual styles, like timeboxing or time blocking.

• Minimize the amount of meetings the team is required to attend. Find new ways to communicate that take less time.

Help your team understand what project management is and how an organized plan saves time. For projects that depend on consistent rules and repeatable processes, you can streamline that work with a policy and procedure plan template. It will provide your team with a single source of truth for compliance and daily operations.

Team efficiency example

If one of your team members always finishes work early and has found new ways to work efficiently, encourage them to share their tips with the team. You could also set up a shared space where everyone can post time-saving ideas.

5. Onboard a work management tool

Imagine being able to see everything that's happening across every project and team member in a single location. Talk about saving time. Using a work or project management tool does just that. When you use a work management tool, everyone can see how their work fits into bigger team and company goals. Communication happens within tasks, so it's easy to find what you need quickly. Timelines help keep everyone on track, whether you're looking at one project or many.

Work management tool example:

If you put all your production tasks and steps into a workload management tool, work can move more smoothly. Since everyone can see the status and their role, you can avoid conflicts and save time.

Pro tip: Establish team conventions

The best work management tool is one that your entire team is using, so it's important to set team conventions and best practices from the start. This reduces the barrier to entry because your team won't worry about using the tool "incorrectly." Use your tool's how-to guide and videos to onboard together and establish shared conventions.

Effective workload management tips

Spotting workload issues is just the beginning. Here are some practical tips to help you build a more balanced and productive workplace.

• Prioritize and set realistic deadlines: Use workload management software to categorize your team's tasks and subtasks by urgency and importance. This ensures alignment with team capacity and project milestones.

• Introduce agile methodologies: Adopting agile practices like scrum or Kanban can improve any team's workload management process. These methodologies help team leaders regularly reassess workloads and ensure tasks are distributed in line with goals and available resources.

• Use effective resource management: Ensure all necessary resources are available to complete tasks efficiently and avoid bottlenecks in project planning.

• Foster open communication: Encourage regular team meetings and open dialogues to discuss workload distribution, dependencies, and over-demanding tasks. Effective communication helps maintain a healthy work-life balance and ensures that everyone is on the same page.

• Add automation and project management tools: Streamline workflow with automation and use project management software to optimize team productivity. To-do lists and automated reminders can be effective in keeping the team focused and organized.

• Monitor and adjust workloads regularly: Use time-tracking and workload management software to measure and adjust the team's workload, ensuring tasks align with project goals and schedules.

• Encourage a culture of well-being: Promote a work culture that values team members' well-being, sets boundaries for work hours, and prioritizes tasks without compromising personal time.

Set your team up for success

Effective workload management comes down to assigning work fairly, tracking progress, and adjusting as priorities shift. The steps and tips in this guide, combined with a work management tool like Asana, can help you sort through conflicting deadlines and keep your team's workload balanced. Get started today and bring more clarity to how your team works.

Frequently asked questions about workload management