Mat leave secondment

[Musteatcake]

Seconded to cover mat leave but on a day a week less than substantive post holder, no visible reduction in workload and have had a really difficult few weeks of trying to clear a back log of tasks, get to grip with the role and deal with the day to day stuff which is taking its toll. How can I be better organised?

Well firstly I’d be asking why it’s a day less, is that your choice or employers ?

Why would you work for 1/5 less pay?
You need to get rid of 1/5 of the workload
If not you are setting yourself and the Mat leave up to fail.

Why was there no handover its not as if the mat leave was a suprise?
Did you replace the first choice or is the business/manager so disorganised that there is a backlog and no handover?
Why was there a backlog to begin with?

Get a meeting with your line manager organised and get a ranked list of tasks for the day to day to the recurring projects.
You will only be able to do 4/5 of the weekly tasks to you need to allocate time to the tasks and then add in extra time as you are learning on the job.
Knock off the 1/5 +(+ learning time) and ask the manager organise someone else to manage the tasks.

Dont try to be a hero and manage it yourself.

Thanks both for your replies, there was mention of the possibility to have an additional 3.5 hrs, which at the time I thought was not really vital, as I wasn’t aware that the post holder had an extra full day,