Workload balance is critical to improving productivity and bringing the best out of your employees and team members. And this holds true for field service businesses too.
Plus, you must balance workload to ensure your employees stay with your organization for a long period. Or, you would keep losing money on hiring, training, and wages without making a significant return on investment (ROI).
According to a Forbes report, 32% of employee burnout is caused by unreasonable workload. And 32% is due to too much overtime.
However, workload balancing is easier said than done. It can be challenging to determine how much work to assign and to which field service rep or drivers.
So, to make your job easier, we will share some tips on managing your team’s workload below. But before that, let’s find out what the workload balance definition is. And understand in detail how workload distribution plays a vital role in the success of your business.
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Definition of Workload Balance
Workload balance refers to an even distribution of work among a set of employees of a company. This ensures less work stress and minimizes burnout of energy and efficiency, thereby leading to more productive work.
While the company reaps the benefits of the higher workforce productivity, a reduced stress level automatically increases the enthusiasm and happiness quotient of the employees, making them enjoy a better work-life balance.
A balanced workload is necessary for organizations seeking high-quality service delivery and customer satisfaction, as well as highly effective teams who can meet customer needs efficiently.
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What Happens If You Do Not Balance Workload
If you do not balance your workload, you will find yourself in a few different situations:
Increase Employee Stress
The ability to handle more work than your employees have time for can lead to anxiety, which is a stressor in itself.
When employees feel anxious about their workloads, they’re more likely to make poor decisions or take shortcuts that increase their workloads even further.
This cycle can lead directly to burnout and turnover—two things you don’t want!
Reduce Productivity
Employees who feel stressed out or overwhelmed by their responsibilities will work less efficiently.
Plus, your employees will be less engaged. If you do not balance your workload, it can be tempting to ignore the issue and hope it works out.
But ignoring the problem can backfire dramatically in the long run because employees who are stressed out and overworked tend to disengage from their work tasks, negatively impacting productivity and customer satisfaction.
In addition, some people may take advantage of other opportunities (such as taking breaks) when faced with too much work instead of focusing on what needs doing right now—which defeats the purpose entirely!
You want everyone focused on completing tasks effectively, so everyone gets paid regularly without having any extra expenses associated with payroll costs because…well…that costs money.
Increase Employee Attrition
When employees feel overwhelmed and stressed out because they have too much work, this can cause various problems:
- It makes them less productive.
- It leads them down a path of burnout and depression.
- It decreases their overall job satisfaction.
All this can lead to attrition, and you may lose your best performers too.
According to a survey by McKinsey & Company, 35% of the respondents have left their current job without a new opportunity lined up because of unsustainable work pressure.
Lose Customers
If your customers are unhappy, what do you think that means for them?
That’s right—they’ll probably stop coming back to your business!
A satisfied employee is more likely to perform at their best, which translates into increased profits and positive reviews about your company.
Increase Healthcare Expenses
Uneven workload means your employees will be less healthy because they are being forced to work long hours without adequate breaks and not getting enough sleep.
This can lead to serious health problems like heart disease, high blood pressure, or even panic attacks!
According to a study by the American Psychological Association (APA), overworked employees are 63% more likely to apply for sick leave. And 23% more likely to visit the emergency room.
Your organization’s healthcare costs will also go up. According to a report by BioMed Central, health expenses in high-pressure firms are 50% greater than in other organizations.
3 Tips to Balance Your Team’s Workload
Below are the best practices to balance workload.
Automate Workload Balancing
The manual workload balancing process is time-consuming and inefficient. Your job doesn’t end with a task assignment. You must also track, assess, and fix any issues to avoid repetition.
An advanced tool like Route4Me route planner automates workload balancing and takes all the hassles out of the equation.
Route4Me comes with a route balancing feature that helps you split the workload efficiently. You just need to upload the addresses into the software, define the number of routes you want to plan, and select how you want to distribute the workload. That’s it!
Route4Me will then generate a specified number of well-optimized routes with an equally distributed number of route stops, route distance, or route duration.
You can quickly and seamlessly dispatch the routes to your field service reps or drivers on their mobile devices, which they can receive using Route4Me’s Android or iOS route planner app.
You can also customize the routes easily. Just click-and-drag stops from one route to another using Route4Me’s interactive timeline. And the updated routes will reflect across all the connected devices immediately.
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Assign the Right Task to the Right Person
You should identify the skillset of each of your team members and understand the individual areas of efficiency. If you delegate workload based on employees’ efficiency, it would improve productivity, save time, and minimize the risk of overburdening an employee with a misfitted task.
For example, if one of your technicians has a first-time fix rate of 75% and another has 56% FTFR, delegating the job to the first person will improve productivity.
Communicate with Your Employees
You should regularly communicate and collaborate with your team to monitor and improve their performance.This would help you identify your employees’ pain points and improvement areas and eliminate the unnecessary burden.
For example, you can gather feedback on tasks that are much more time-consuming than others, identify which assignments they can handle instead, and immediately determine any employee on the verge of burnout.
You can set up a bi-weekly or monthly one-on-one meeting with your employees. If you find one of your employees is overburdened, you can delegate the job to another team member.
Final Thoughts about Workload Balance
In closing, we hope you’ve seen that balancing your workload is not as difficult as it seems. With the right techniques and tools like Route4Me, you can manage your team to work at their best.
We also hope that this article has given you some insight into why workload balance is critically important in your business. If there are any questions or if something needs further explanation, please contact us today for more information.
Want To See For Yourself How Route4Me Can Automate Workload Balancing?
