This article is written by Denise Grant, Public Servant and Legal Assistant, Ministry of the Attorney General, Canada.

The views of this author are their own and do not represent the views of Ministry of the Attorney General.

  • The problem: Public servants’ heavy workload is on the rise.
  • Why it matters: Creating a collaborative work culture and sharing workloads will boost production levels and lead to a happier, more motivated workforce.
  • The solution: Make time for the work that matters most in your team. Rethink and shift the balance of work to free up time – aim for an average of one full day weekly and focus on more worthwhile tasks with the hours you save.

Imagine if you could free up 20% of your time in the day. Would it increase your productivity and free up time to help colleagues? It certainly did for me. I have discovered that by simply focusing on the responsibilities that mattered most in my team has given me personal satisfaction and allowed me to aid my fellow public servants.

From the outset, my biggest challenge was not a heavy workload, rather it was to convince the team lead, deputy director and director that I had a better way to manage my work. Without their support, I pushed through and with my faith in view, I took risks.

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To achieve my aims, I had to re-engage with my workload. I took full responsibility for my role and became strategic with my goals; I demanded autonomy and provided support to colleagues. On numerous occasions, I helped my colleagues with simple urgent matters that had to get out the door the same day. Assisting a colleague in a way that significantly impacted their workload became my focus.

How I did it

My first step was to ensure I was managing my own work first. If not, I knew that my unmanaged workload might lead to frustration and anxiety. I then spoke to other team members about their workloads.

I surveyed ten team members to gain feedback and identified problems and solutions. With the pain points and remedies in view, I re-evaluated my priorities and identified current process inefficiencies. I was carrying a backlog of over 300 unread emails daily and responsibilities were continually being added and modified. I was operating under the direction of the team lead who provided instructions on what to action, when and how. However, this approach was not working for me at all. With my new insight, I began focusing on what were the most important responsibilities and I prioritised them. I committed to my plan.

A problem shared is a problem halved – and I for one, am happy to take the lead.

After a few weeks, I was able to reduce over 300 unread emails in my inbox to under 80. With the freed-up time, I initiated projects and closed files that had piled up during the Covid-19 pandemic in an adjacent cubicle. I reorganised numerous files in my work area and delegated boxes of files to colleagues which substantially reduced my workload.

With my workload now under control, I went further and aided colleagues. I took on their new incoming files for one week each. The objective was that for one week, each team member would not receive any new files (new files were redirected to me), which allowed them to focus on cleaning up their own backlog.

A sense of satisfaction

Using my new work model, I gained personal satisfaction, cleared the backlog, delegated work, assisted colleagues, improved client satisfaction both internally and externally, operated from a model of efficiency rather than inefficiency and demonstrated to the team lead, deputy director and director that there is a better way to get the job done. To date, however, they have not acknowledged it.

In a Harvard Business Review article, Lieke ten Brummelhuis and Nancy P. Rothbard state: “Managers too can intervene by helping employees find intrinsic motivation; they can re-engage them in their work and provide more support. They can assign employees challenging but feasible tasks, reducing red tape and other barriers, discussing their personal and professional growth and providing them with ample resources to do their work, such as autonomy, feedback and support. Managers can help hard workers develop stronger communication and time-management skills, with tactics such as making a to-do list each week, making a long-term goal list, differentiating between urgent and non-urgent tasks and scheduling non-interrupted time for important tasks.”

The lessons I have learned from this task? Too often leaders would rather protect their self-image, do not admit making poor decisions and don’t take action to correct them. As a result, the opportunity to improve working conditions, elevate team production levels and boost employee engagement and morale are dismissed. I sincerely hope that government leaders will wake up from their slumber and quickly as the health and wellbeing of public servants depend on it and the citizens we serve are counting on us.

There is a way to move forward that will create a better work-life balance, enable autonomy and boost public servants’ morale while doubling productivity and tripling profitability in government.

Let’s pursue it and empower all team members! After all, a problem shared is a problem halved – and I for one, am happy to take the lead.

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