How to Communicate to Your Boss if You Have Excess Workload

01 March 2024

Every employee certainly has the capacity related to the workload that can be completed. Getting additional work will certainly cause the quality of work to decline, as will the employee's health. If you are experiencing this, definitely tell your boss that you are experiencing excess workload.

Unfortunately, this situation is sometimes less favorable for many employees. Many superiors often judge that those who have excess work are just lazy employees and complainers. For this reason, you need a strategy in communicating with your superiors to get the best results.

How to Tell Your Boss You're Overworked

The thing that needs to be paid attention to is to avoid the impression of complaining or just looking for pleasure. Here are a number of steps you can take to tell your boss that you are overloaded with work.

1. Plan a meeting

Considering this is a work matter, you still have to do it in a professional manner. Find the right time to invite your boss to discuss this issue one-on-one. With a scheduled meeting, you will make this chat important for all parties.

It's better not to hold sudden meetings. That way, you can note down everything that needs to be discussed at the meeting.

It would be even better if you provide a brief discussion of the meeting agenda. This will also give your boss the opportunity to think about solutions to all possibilities regarding the results of the meeting.

2. Provide solutions without complaining

A way of expressing dissatisfaction and disappointment with a situation is definitely a complaint. If you do this, you will be labeled a lazy employee.

The way to avoid complaints from coming out of your mouth is to provide solutions related to the workload. Convey that this is a team problem and not an individual problem. If the work is too much, the solution that needs to be done is to increase the number of personnel to complete it or create a priority scale.

Maybe the solution to adding employees could be a new problem for all companies. However, making a priority scale should be done by anyone. Your boss must know which work needs to be done first and which can be put aside or even eliminated.

3. Tell the truth based on experience

You also need to be honest about your experience in completing the work. Describe all the work at hand and the factors that need to be considered when doing it. These factors will of course influence the processing time and level of difficulty of a job.

Then, make an assumption that one or two jobs can be delegated or done together with other people. It is possible that the time needed could be much shorter. Also convey that this short time will also be of added value to the company's finances.

4. Provide views on delegating work

There is always good and bad in taking a step. However, your boss needs to know about the views of job delegation in a business and employees. Of course everyone will get the impact of this work.

Taking work away from you and giving work to someone else will probably make them resent you. It could be that this will cause new conflicts within the team. Of course, this risk will not be taken by your boss.

On the other hand, there are good things to be gained from delegating this work. First, your workload will certainly be reduced so you can maintain the quality of your work. This will definitely be liked by all superiors.

Second, people who are given additional burdens from you will also gain new experiences. This will of course be good for the employee because they will gain additional experience and skills. Of course this will also be an added value for the company.

5. Invite colleagues to help

Expecting your boss to understand everything you say is also sometimes unwise. It could be that your boss will not make changes related to your workload. If that's the case, try to give a signal to your coworkers.

You can hope that someone can take on some of the work to lighten your load. If they don't, at least you've given your coworkers a warning. If all conditions do not change, it means it's time for you to look for a new job.

That's a way to signal to your boss that you are overloaded with work. Communicating this allows the entire team to continue working comfortably in business development.

Every employee certainly has the capacity related to the workload that can be completed. Getting additional work will certainly cause the quality of work to decline, as will the employee's health. If you are experiencing this, definitely tell your boss that you are experiencing excess workload.

Unfortunately, this situation is sometimes less favorable for many employees. Many superiors often judge that those who have excess work are just lazy employees and complainers. For this reason, you need a strategy in communicating with your superiors to get the best results.

How to Tell Your Boss You're Overworked

The thing that needs to be paid attention to is to avoid the impression of complaining or just looking for pleasure. Here are a number of steps you can take to tell your boss that you are overloaded with work.

1. Plan a meeting

Considering this is a work matter, you still have to do it in a professional manner. Find the right time to invite your boss to discuss this issue one-on-one. With a scheduled meeting, you will make this chat important for all parties.

It's better not to hold sudden meetings. That way, you can note down everything that needs to be discussed at the meeting.

It would be even better if you provide a brief discussion of the meeting agenda. This will also give your boss the opportunity to think about solutions to all possibilities regarding the results of the meeting.

2. Provide solutions without complaining

A way of expressing dissatisfaction and disappointment with a situation is definitely a complaint. If you do this, you will be labeled a lazy employee.

The way to avoid complaints from coming out of your mouth is to provide solutions related to the workload. Convey that this is a team problem and not an individual problem. If the work is too much, the solution that needs to be done is to increase the number of personnel to complete it or create a priority scale.

Maybe the solution to adding employees could be a new problem for all companies. However, making a priority scale should be done by anyone. Your boss must know which work needs to be done first and which can be put aside or even eliminated.

3. Tell the truth based on experience

You also need to be honest about your experience in completing the work. Describe all the work at hand and the factors that need to be considered when doing it. These factors will of course influence the processing time and level of difficulty of a job.

Then, make an assumption that one or two jobs can be delegated or done together with other people. It is possible that the time needed could be much shorter. Also convey that this short time will also be of added value to the company's finances.

4. Provide views on delegating work

There is always good and bad in taking a step. However, your boss needs to know about the views of job delegation in a business and employees. Of course everyone will get the impact of this work.

Taking work away from you and giving work to someone else will probably make them resent you. It could be that this will cause new conflicts within the team. Of course, this risk will not be taken by your boss.

On the other hand, there are good things to be gained from delegating this work. First, your workload will certainly be reduced so you can maintain the quality of your work. This will definitely be liked by all superiors.

Second, people who are given additional burdens from you will also gain new experiences. This will of course be good for the employee because they will gain additional experience and skills. Of course this will also be an added value for the company.

5. Invite colleagues to help

Expecting your boss to understand everything you say is also sometimes unwise. It could be that your boss will not make changes related to your workload. If that's the case, try to give a signal to your coworkers.

You can hope that someone can take on some of the work to lighten your load. If they don't, at least you've given your coworkers a warning. If all conditions do not change, it means it's time for you to look for a new job.

That's a way to signal to your boss that you are overloaded with work. Communicating this allows the entire team to continue working comfortably in business development.

Prasetiya Mulya Executive Learning Institute
Prasetiya Mulya Cilandak Campus, Building 2, #2203
Jl. R.A Kartini (TB. Simatupang), Cilandak Barat, Jakarta 12430
Indonesia
Prasetiya Mulya Executive Learning Institute
Prasetiya Mulya Cilandak Campus, Building 2, #2203
Jl. R.A Kartini (TB. Simatupang), Cilandak Barat,
Jakarta 12430
Indonesia