Avoid Overworking Employees With Self Scheduling HR Software

Happy employees are crucial for departmental and organizational success. While it’s critical, it’s easy to forget your employee’s workload as you go about your day-to-day, drive value for the company, and complete your own tasks. 

That’s where overworking your employees can easily creep in, as the push for higher goals and results continues. However, when employees are overworked it’s a productivity killer with far-reaching consequences for both staff and the business. 

This guide will explore how you can identify, take-steps, and prevent overworking employees. As well as how to leverage scheduling tools to make this even easier, and avoid these headaches all together.

Table of Contents

• How to Identify Overworked Employees
• Consequences of Overworking Staff
• How to Avoid Overworking Your Employees
• Final Thoughts

How to Identify Overworked Employees

Recognizing the signs of overwork early is key to preventing burnout and avoiding employee dissatisfaction. Identifying and showing you care about staff is also a major area that many organizations are lacking time for. 

Since 2020, employee perceptions that the business cares about their wellbeing is declining. It’s even more important than ever to check in and identify overworked staff, before it’s too late. 

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Here are some common ways to identify overworked employees…

View Scheduling Reports

First, take a peek into your employee scheduling software to see if there are staff commonly hitting overtime, working long shifts, exceeding regular work weeks, etc. This will help you directly identify who may be nearing or already feeling burnout from overworking. 

However, if the numbers don’t deviate much in terms of lots of overtime, extra shifts, minimum downtime, etc., check out these other employee behaviors.

Behavioral Changes

Another route to take as a manager is to see what employees may be exhibiting behaviors consistent with overworking and burnout.

Look into recent absenteeism or regular late clock-in times. Employees who are overworked are more likely to miss work or show up late. This can be a sign that they are physically or mentally exhausted. Before you repreme them for this behavior, check in to see if they are doing alright and not feeling like they are overworked. Gallup reports that those that aren’t thriving in their role have a 61% higher chance of burnout in their job. 

It can be easy to become irritable or emotionally-drained when being overworked. See if any staff are exhibiting these types of behaviors, especially when confronted with additional workload.

Decrease in Output Quality

Look into any reporting or insights regarding employee productivity output. When people are pushed beyond their limits for a long period of time, both their efficiency and focus can suffer. In turn, this may be seen in product or service quality over time. They may take longer to complete tasks, make more mistakes, or struggle to stay engaged in their work.

Similarly, a lack of engagement or general disconnect from work tasks and co-workers is a major sign that someone is experiencing burnout. They will often appear disconnected from the company’s goals and less engaged in team activities. 

Data from ICMI’s study on customer engagement found engaged workers help create 10% more loyal customers, than the disengaged staff. There is clear incentive to have engaged staff for both their wellbeing and the company. 

Identify Early

By being proactive about burnout symptoms early, managers can intervene and adjust workloads accordingly. Using a scheduling tool like Evolia’s software can provide valuable insight into how hours are being allocated, enabling better management of employee workloads and ensuring no one is overstretched.

Consequences of Overworking Your Employees & How to Avoid It

Overworking employees can have both short-term and long-term consequences on the business. Be aware of these common consequences so you can avoid them all together!

Employee Mental & Physical Health Issues / Safety Concerns

Employee mental health is not just a recent HR trend. It’s an important topic among the workplace that needs to be respected. Similarly, physical health and safety also needs to be adhered to. If your staff’s health deteriorates, the consequences could be dire in some instances.

Overworked employees are much more susceptible to mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, and burnout. They are also more prone to physical health issues like fatigue and illness, which can lead to safety concerns, particularly in industries like healthcare and manufacturing. 

Implementing a scheduling tool that allows for regular, manageable shifts can reduce these risks by balancing workload across the team.

Leave Management & Scheduling Headaches for Everyone

When employees are overworked, they’re more likely to take unplanned time off. With hundreds or thousands of employees across an organization, this can create a scheduling nightmare for managers who are left scrambling to fill shifts. 

Poor Workplace Culture and Team Morale

The last thing you want for your team or company culture is to be seen as the employer that doesn’t care about employee wellbeing. An overworked team can quickly transform workplace culture into a toxic environment. Frustration and resentment build over time and as a result, spread throughout the organization and lead to increases in turnover and lower staff engagement. 

While you won’t see these negative impacts overnight, leave it for months or a year and you’ll have a culture problem on your hands that extends far beyond the overworked employees.

Decreased Productivity and Employee Output

Missed shifts, unnecessary admin work, and inefficient scheduling can directly impact your department’s productivity and goal targets. Staff are often in “reactive” mode as they react to new tasks, situations, and developments, which can ultimately create more stress. 

Whereas a happy employee typically has a “proactive” approach, allowing them to tackle problems before they occur. This in-turn helps employees perform better and handle their own tasks more efficiently. 

Recommended Resource: 6 Benefits of Using a Bottom-Up Management Approach

How to Avoid Overworking Your Staff

Preventing overwork requires a combination of smart scheduling, open communication, and leadership by example. 

Here’s how you can use workforce tools and management techniques to achieve a balanced and engaged team.

1. Implement Self-Scheduling Software

Self-scheduling tools give employees greater control over their work hours, enabling them to choose shifts that align with their personal and professional needs. Employees can offer up shifts to other qualified co-workers who can then bid on those shifts. All while ensuring certain time-off or skill-set criteria is met.

You as a HR or department manager can easily track labor costs and employee hours to avoid scheduling staff for too long of shifts or overtime. Or find windows where other open shifts can be added to help alleviate other staff from their tasks. 

This flexibility ultimately helps reduce the risk of overworking employees, while still ensuring that staffing requirements are met. 

2. Regularly Seek Employee Feedback and Surveys

Another excellent and proactive way to avoid overworking employees is to get regular feedback from staff on how they feel regarding workloads, shift hours, time-off, absenteeism, team resources, etc.

Surveys and regular check-ins allow managers to address issues of overwork before they escalate. Evolia’s team communication tool makes it easy to solicit feedback from staff through surveys, 1-1 messages, or group chats. 

This feedback could help you understand if you need to hire more specialized staff, open up another shift to support current staff, or other creative input directly from employees.

3. Lead by Example

It can be tempting to burn that midnight oil, come into the office early to get stuff done before meetings, and be more productive. But that can come at a cost if other employees feel there is a need to match this productivity. 

Lead by example by exemplifying healthy work habits and set the tone for your team. Taking regular breaks, avoiding excessive overtime, and promoting a balanced approach to work, help to instill a similar ethos within the workforce.

4. Get Support and Training

Make sure you have support and the proper training to help staff tackle these issues head on. This could include support and training from leadership on how to balance workloads, manage team dynamics, and support employees through feedback systems. 

5. Implement Changes and Check in

Once you feel like you have the skills to help your staff succeed, it’s time to implement changes into your schedules and workflows. 

Here are some ideas for changes you could implement that can make a difference for employee work life balance: 

• Add shifts to support overworked staff, 
• increase break times;
• Increase time-off between shifts;
• Offer paid vacation time;
• Chat with staff 1-1 to create custom time-off plans;
• Move assigned tasks to relieve certain employees;
• And more…

Sometimes, the best thing for a person is to discuss with them 1-1 how you can help them recover or prevent burnout. It could be as simple as helping them plan some time off, which is proven to help reduce job stresses.

Check-in

Now that you’ve revisited scheduling, received initial employee feedback, and are leading by example. It’s time to track and check-in with staff. Make sure employees feel valued and are happy with the changes in the support they receive. 

Final Thoughts

Preventing overwork is more than about meeting business goals, it’s about caring for your staff and helping them succeed in their day-to-day.

By implementing smart scheduling tools and fostering an open, supportive culture, you can protect both your employees’ well-being and your company’s bottom line. 

The result? A happier, more productive team that’s set up for long-term success.