To assess the workload of your team, there is no need for tracking all the work performed to the minute. The good news is that you can develop a high level view quickly. Follow these steps:
- Meet with each employee to identify the main duties and their associated volume.
- Track activities for a couple of weeks.
- Incorporate seasonality and non-standard work.
- Summarize the data and prepare a graph on time distribution (see below).
- Perform sensitivity analysis. Explore alternative work scenarios which are applicable.
The above chart shows the distribution of workload for the year. A few things to note:
- The busiest time is in June/July.
- For the remaining months, there is slack.
- As the estimates are crude, the graph shows that there is sufficient buffer for this group to take on more work outside June/July timeframe even if the actual workload is 25% higher.
- During the months of June and July, additional resources are needed to manage the crunch.
This simple approach provides a high level view for management to gauge whether the staff are overworked, determine how best to allocate resources and redistribute work.
© Connie Siu 2012. All rights reserved.