How do I handle extra work after a team restructure?

[Travel11]

Work was restructured from other teams, and two senior staff now push their responsibilities onto others, with my manager passing much of it to our team. My workload has increased significantly. I raised concerns, but after a meeting my manager added even more tasks and showed little understanding of what I actually do. Although he initially mentioned delegating elsewhere, that didn’t happen. The manager said see how I get on and if needed work can be moved elsewhere.

I agreed to try it to avoid seeming uncooperative, but I’m disappointed my concerns were overlooked, especially since he’s usually supportive. I also shared anonymous feedback in a staff survey, which seems to have been ignored. A senior manager said she wanted to reduce my workload, but my manager refused, suggesting miscommunication or inconsistency.

The situation is affecting my wellbeing, and I’m considering looking for another job. I’m also in a union if I need to escalate things. The situation is getting me down.

I sympathise

no solutions here but keep tracking your hours/output, raise your concerns etc

if there is less resource how can you do more?

Can you just not do the excess work? Document it, fully disclose to your manager, ask them to agree that you are working on the key priorities.

Then at the end of the day or week, highlight what hasn't been done because the workload is excessive and you have done a full person's reasonable workload.

Depends on how your JD is worded and if you are really working at capacity then you need to be pushing back. Measure time taken to do tasks, log it, present to manager. Perhaps you could find efficiencies. Are you getting good quality information? What’s slows the process down? If you can demonstrate where your time is spent and why you are running out of time that would help.

As part of this ask about holiday cover. In these situations there is usually NO space for holiday cover as whole team is too busy and problems arise.

Are you expected to do additional hours to complete this additional work?

If not then work your way through it until home time and if things don't get done then they don't get done.

The manager said see how I get on and if needed work can be moved elsewhere.
Take him at his word! Get him to define priorities (what / when) and work your way down the list in your contracted hours. If it doesn't get done then it can be "moved elsewhere".
Document everything and keep him informed as you go along so there are no nasty surprises when the CEO is blowing his top and everybody is shifting the blame at a stressful time.

Is the workload manageable? Just because it's extra doesn't mean it's not OK.

If you're not able to get it done in your hours, tell them that and ask them to confirm what should be prioritosed and what should be left.

Agree with PP above - do what you reasonably can (ie not everything), but document how you are prioritising your workload and share this with managers on a regular basis, so that they can see what is being left undone and why. Ask what they would advise on said prioritisation.

This is what I used to do when I had an impossible casework load and needed to demonstrate clearly what other resources were needed to deal with it, and the consequences of leaving work undone.