{"id":58832,"date":"2025-05-05T00:02:58","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T05:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trainingmag.com\/?p=58832"},"modified":"2025-05-01T22:52:38","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T03:52:38","slug":"can-you-always-do-more-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trainingmag.com\/can-you-always-do-more-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Can You Always Do More Work?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201cWe can always do more work,\u201d I once heard a manager say. We had been asked to submit a tallying of our day-to-day tasks. The goal was to determine what artificial intelligence <\/span>(AI) <\/span>potentially could help with.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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My primary concern in this scenario was to make sure it was clear that I could NOT do more work. My colleague, on the other hand, had the opposite concern. She wanted to make it clear that she was eager to do even more. I found her attitude admirable, but not a perspective I would want to see popularized in our organization.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Feeling compelled to show that you can always take on more work leads to personal burnout and <\/span>can <\/span>lead to unethical and possibly illegal behavior<\/span> on the part of management<\/span>.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Even salaried employees are paid on a particular basis, typically a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday schedule. If an employee accepted a salary with that rough schedule as part of the deal, they are providing unpaid labor if they regularly work at night or on the weekends (or both).<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I felt like saying during this meeting, \u201cSpeak for yourself\u2014I definitely CAN\u2019T always do more work!\u201d<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Are Your Managers Creating a Culture of Pressure?<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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In an article <\/span><\/span>on the Observer <\/span>Website, workplace wellness expert Zoe Sinclair explains what it takes to avoid a culture of pressure<\/span><\/span><\/a>.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cAcross all sectors and job roles, employers need to recognize the unique stress their industry can bring to their staff and offer targeted support that positively benefits mental health in the workplace, keeping in mind that one size doesn\u2019t fit all. The nature of stress differs between industries<\/span>,<\/span> and employers need to be aware of this in the nuanced support they offer to staff,\u201d Sinclair writes.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In the publishing world, understanding the unique needs of employees might mean providing an affordable part-time entry-level employee, who can take care of the grunt work of placing material on a publication\u2019s <\/span>W<\/span>ebsite, doing the search engine optimization, proofreading and copy-editing, and creating e-blasts and social media posts. The full-time, higher-level editors then can concentrate on readying articles for publication and planning new material.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Understanding What\u2019s Out of Your Employees\u2019 Control<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
\n

I have noticed a phenomenon in the work world where goals for improvement are set without the manager understanding what is and isn\u2019t within their employees\u2019 control.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For a publication, that would mean asking employees to increase visitors and page views of a <\/span>W<\/span>ebsite without understanding and acknowledging the role technology and marketing play.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The <\/span>W<\/span>ebsite may not have been redesigned in 15 years and the publication may not have any events or other vehicles to promote it. In that case, the editors and writers can only do so much on their end before those elements outside their control negatively impact their efforts.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When managers don\u2019t separate what is and isn\u2019t within employees\u2019 control and then take responsibility for the parts that are not within their control, unhealthy pressure is placed on employees. And most importantly, from a business standpoint, the goals are not realized.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Who Gets<\/span> the Bulk of <\/span>Available <\/span>Resources?<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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Being overloaded with work can result when a manager doesn\u2019t know how to differentiate between the loudest voices and the greatest needs in their department.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

I have experienced seeing business projects, or units, that had the potential for much greater profit than other business units getting short shrift on human resources, technology, and marketing. The employee with the loudest, most aggressive voice in the department was able to push themselves forward more ably, thereby nabbing an undue portion of the resources for their business unit.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Meanwhile, the business entity with far greater potential for profitability was left in the lurch, with the manager of that entity overwhelmed with work. That high volume of work was to no avail anyway because, as noted, without the necessary resources, they were being set up for failure.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Managers must be trained to do a needs assessment of the business units they oversee to determine where the investment in resources will get the greatest return. They also must understand the impact on employees of giving short shrift to one business unit over another.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Does your organization train managers to enforce only manageable workloads on employees, and how does it define a \u201cmanageable\u201d workload?<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Feeling compelled to show that you can always take on more work leads to personal burnout and can lead to unethical and possibly illegal behavior on the part of management. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-58832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-blog"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCan You Always Do More Work?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Feeling compelled to show that you can always take on more work leads to personal burnout and can lead to unethical and possibly illegal behavior on the part of management.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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