How do you cope when the workload is just huge?

[Lurkscroller]

Hi all, feeling very stressed and wondering if others are in the same boat and how you learn not to stress.

I work in a compliance role where responses are governed by tight legal deadlines. I am the only person in my institution working in this role but there is enough work for a whole team of people. I have something like a caseload of 100 active cases, half of which are overdue at any one time. If we don't meet the deadlines, there are often legal consequences.

I simply cannot handle this workload and have received no support when trying to raise the issue with my manager. They don't seem to have a problem with my performance and tell me just to do what I can, but i still feel so overwhelmed.

I know at the end of the day it's a management/resources problem and not me, but it feels hideous to go in everyday and see more and more work piling up.

Does anyone have any tips for handling this sort of stress and learning to just come in, do your hours and not think about it after?

Do you have a good system for laying out what you have to do. I use the planner app on teams and assign a deadline to each action.

Then I just do whatever my daily to do list tells me. I can toggle between the overview and my day - but it stops trying to do everything all at once.

My role is very busy and while there are no deadlines, there are urgent issues that require immediate attention & external requests constantly.

I have to prioritise. Things where people are directly affected first, things my seniors have requested second... Shuffling down to the proactive work that really should be the core of my actual job but as I have zero staff, isn't.

Agree with PP about organisation - I try to timetable stuff in my calendar and use a tracker to stop me losing sight of my tasks but sometimes filling in the tracker becomes another task... I'm going to try teams planner app!

So long as im.doing my best (and I'm doing a darn sight more than others in my org) at the end of the day, I shut my laptop and walk away knowing I did my best and the world continues to turn.

Make sure you've formally raised your concerns with your LM in writing, I'd suggest you tell them what extra resource is required. Keep them informed of anything which you know is going to miss deadline, so they can't act surprised. At your performance review, ensure you are raising that the workload exceeds capacity and this is causing you personal stress and the company regulatory breaches.

Definitely don’t focus on how to get the work done.

Focus on a system to help keep management abreast of what’s failing / missed in advance so they have time to intervene or bring in extra resource.

There are lots of tools - how do you currently track your 100 projects?

Id create a simple tracker either in Excel or Planner or your existing system that colour codes what will
hit deadline, what’s at risk and what definitely won’t. Then share this regularly with mgmt

Everything in writing.

After a couple of years of this and an awful gaslighting manager I am now burnt out and off sick.

Thanks everyone. This is all very helpful. Sadly I can't leave at the moment so learning to manage the situation in a way that doesn't lead me to go insane is the goal!

rank them by risks of how much the fines would be for being overdue ?

Same here- yelled at the managerial brick wall to no avail and now signed off following a complete mental meltdown.

Can you request a meeting with your manager's manager or a director with overall responsibility for your function? Outline the issues in an email and ask them to talk to you?

My organisation has similar issues where the shit has now hit the fan and thankfully it's now being sorted (slowly), but in my case I'm glad I can point back to years worth of emails to various higher ups flagging issues and potential consequences with me advising them they need to work out a way forward (I am in an advisory role with no line management responsibility).

If a regulatory body wants to take legal action, it will be employer and it's senior managers who will be found at fault for failing to adequately manage and resource your function and that action is taken by the organisation.

I work in a similar role OP. An under resourced compliance function is a huge risk for the company. In your shoes I would be escalating the issue as high up as you can. Not least so that if and when something slips they can’t blame you.

does your company have an employee whistleblowing hotline?

I’m also in a compliance role and the only person doing it in my org. It needs a team but that’s not going to happen.
I have had to set expectations and said I have only two hands and finite time. Luckily my manager and hers understand. There is no expectation to work longer hours or flog myself to death.
I just do what I can do.

Also in a compliance role. I am very strict with my time and about what I can reasonably do, essentially I make it clear what my team’s capacity is, and then push back on the organisation to prioritise cases/projects within the resource they’ve made available.

Projects/cases that we do not have capacity to do we escalate to the appropriate SRO so they are aware this work can’t proceed, they can accept it, or find an alternative means to resource it.

Basically turn it into a compliance task! Public sector, if I didn’t do this, I’d be run ragged, and I’m not paid enough for that.

The important thing is to know what you’re not doing, so the SRO has oversight. If they don’t they firstly don’t know where the risk is, but it also means you don’t stand a chance in ever getting resourced appropriately. I find when you turn the problem to them, it’s viewed differently because they are the ones that then have to accept the risk, it makes them uncomfortable to admit that in writing so to speak. It’s not your problem, it’s the organisation’s.

No advice sorry; My previous job ended in burnout despite me trying to cope. I took time off and found a more relax job, albeit a bit boring,

Sadly management know but don't seem to care. I almost wish the organisatiln would get a big fine and be forced to do something...

In your shoes I would whistleblow.

You grade them all by risk, estimate what you can reasonably do in one time period, then flag this to the management as a non compliance and estimate losses of potential fines and in reputation and put a business case to the management to get x no of people in to cover the work. You document the request so that if you end up in court you did all you could.

Make sure that you have complaints (emails) to line managers and higher documented, so that when you have a nervous breakdown and have to go off sick, they cannot say that they knew nothing. Raise the issue at every single 1-1 and keep a record of these. Take time off to rest and then they'll see how much work you have. Take weeks even. You cannot suffer in silence. Look after yourself.

This isn’t that you’re not coping. There are two reasons why people can’t complete their workload:

1. they’re bad at their job
2. the workload it too high for one person

It’s pretty clear which camp you fall into. I’d be tempted to go off sick and watch the shit hit the fan, which it soon will, if you’re a single point of failure (ie there is just you and no back up). Your employer is extremely short-sighted.

Don't let them eke out every last drop from you. You’re paid for doing the job of one person, not ten!

Are you new in the role? Did anyone do this before you? Has the workload always been like this? And (perhaps more importantly), if a deadline got missed, would they try to throw you under the bus?

I think it would be wise to keep a journal, involve a union (if you have one) and definitely start laying down a paper trail with HR.