📈 boost engagement and morale

How do I communicate to my manager that I’m being underutilized and I’m utterly bored at work after 8 months and already previously asking for more work?

Context: HR department of 2, me and her. The only work she gives me is filing or admin tasks that aren’t even HR based. I’m an HR Generalist II coming from an HR admin position where I did more HR work as an admin and more admin now as an HRG.

📣 Cassandra Babilya, Creator of Make Work Suck Less:

Being bored sucks. IMO, feeling underutilized and watching the clock tick down, falls just behind toxic boss and zero work-life balance as the third worst employee experience.

Here’s how to tell your boss you’re bored (and how to prepare for that conversation):

Say: “I’m interested in taking on more responsibility and challenges in my role. Are there any big projects that I can support that will stretch my capabilities? How can I help you and take some things off your plate?”

Prepare:

• Reflect on the kind of challenges or projects that interest you most.
• Look for gaps in your team’s workflow that you could potentially fill.
• A list of skills or experience that you want to develop.
• Examples of work that you have done in the past that demonstrate your potential for growth.
• Bring suggestions for specific projects or tasks that you are interested in taking on.

For example, you could say, “I’ve noticed we get so many questions about open enrollment this time of year. I managed benefits in my last role and could dedicate 10 hours this month to enhancing our Open Season FAQs based on what we’re hearing from employees and host a few info sessions so everyone has what they need to make their decision before deadline (so you don’t need to chase them down).”

Other questions to ask:

• What specific areas of my work would you like to see me develop further?
• How can I better align my skills and interests with the needs of the team?

I’ve thought ✨a lot✨ about having tough conversations with managers. Dig into How to tell your boss anything to prep for and have those sticky conversations to support your personal and professional goals.

📣 Cheyenne Hunter, Firm Administrator @ Bush Rudnicki Shelton:

So many managers struggle with delegation, even when they have more than enough work to pass off! In fact, I’ve been in your manager’s shoes and had a direct report come to me asking for more responsibility, so I’ll share how we handled it and what worked for us.

Definitely start with a transparent conversation about your current workload and desire to contribute more. It may be a good idea to have a list prepared of the things you are currently handling on a regular basis.

What we did from this point was schedule weekly sit-downs (locked in, on the calendar, at least 30-minutes that we both committed to) to review the week’s tasks and deadlines and identify areas that she could either already help with or that we could set aside training time for to eventually transition the task(s) over to her.

I think this is a situation where being a smaller team can have some benefits. It definitely takes more intentionality and thought on the manager’s part, but in the long run will help you both feel more like a unified team and work more cohesively together.

Good Luck!

We recently had some layoffs at our nonprofit org, and it’s impacted morale quite a bit, for obvs reasons. We did cancel the holiday party once the layoffs occurred. Do you have any ideas on how to keep that holiday joy alive for our team without the awkwardness of a post-layoff party?

Context: We are a nonprofit organization whose staff positions generally are dependent on grant funding – with which we have had some serious changes this year. That is why we had to let some valuable staff go.

📣 MariaElena Martinez, Employee Engagement Coordinator @ ImpactLife:

I think this is a great opportunity for leaders within your org to be vulnerable and have a human moment with your people, if they haven’t done so already. 

Clearly, the elephant in the room is apparent but potentially tying it into the holiday by acknowledging it en masse (and thanking those laid off for their contributions) while redirecting your people back to your mission along with your hopes/direction for the upcoming year can foster a sense of optimism!