How do you prove overwork?
Are your employees facing a work overload? How do you prove overwork? quarksUp, the HRIS solution, takes stock of this complicated issue.
3 key points to remember:
- For the time being, overwork is not regulated by law;
- It must be identified as soon as possible by HR within a company;
- There are ways to lighten the workload of an employee at risk of burn-out.
How do you prove overwork?
An overflowing e-mail inbox, a frantic pace of work, an overbooked diary or long working days: are some of your employees at risk of burnout? As an HR manager, it’s important for you to know how to identify the warning signs of overwork. This notion, which is becoming less and less taboo, is still rather vague to define. How do you prove overwork? How can you set up an effective employee relations follow-up to remedy the situation? quarksUp helps you to see things more clearly and avoid burn-out situations.
What does the law say about "How do you prove overwork?"
There is a legal vacuum surrounding the notion of work overload. The term is not mentioned in the French Labor Code. This notion also remains imprecise in the eyes of the social security system, in the event of an accident at work or occupational disease.
Nevertheless, overwork can be defined as an unreasonable workload. In this way, we can refer to certain factual data, such as working hours, overtime or quantified targets.
Good to know: how does overtime pay work?
Overtime pay is compulsory in excess of the legal working week (35 hours) or the equivalent in certain sectors. All employees are entitled to overtime pay, with the exception of senior executives.
Finally, according to the French Labor Code, it is the company’s responsibility to ensure the safety and “physical and mental health of workers”. As an HR manager, you need to take this notion into account, to prevent any risk of burn-out within your teams.
Before you know how to prove overwork: how do you identify it?
There are warning signs to look out for as soon as possible, to identify a work overload. Have you noticed any unusual behavior on the part of one of your employees? Watch out for the warning signs of burnout:
- Fatigue ;
- Stress, nervousness, irritability;
- Physical pain (backache…) ;
- Extended working hours ;
- Cumulative functions ;
- Lack of interest in work ;
- Devaluation ;
- …
Have you noticed that an employee regularly sends e-mails late at night or at weekends, from home? Are you concerned about a colleague’s surprising reactions? Do you realize that an employee isn’t moving forward? Take these signals seriously. They may be the first signs of burn-out.
Overwork: what are the risks?
Overwork is not good for either the employee or the employer. In fact, it leads straight to burn-out and its harmful consequences.
Beware of workplace accidents, caused by this excessive workload. In the event of an accident due to excessive workload, the employer could be held liable for failure to comply with the safety obligation.
Burnout also leads to poor productivity. The employee, exhausted, gradually loses interest in his work. The tasks at hand are piling up.
Finally, an overworked employee is likely to make more mistakes. Actions will be poorly executed, and customers will be unhappy.
How do you prove overwork?
How do you prove overwork? To do this, it’s important to identify the source of the problem. Is it a problem of personal organization on the part of the employee? Is this overload due to a temporary project? Are tasks correctly allocated?
Rely on concrete figures:
- Time sheets ;
- List of files by collaborator ;
- Objectives set by managers ;
- Number of employees per team ;
- …
As you can see, overwork can be linked to a variety of human resources issues. Precise HR management makes it easier to identify them.
Work overload: what can HR do about it?
As HR, it’s up to you to get to grips with this problem. The aim was to find ways of improving the company’s workload.
1 – Alerting managers
Once a work overload has been identified, it’s vital not to allow the situation to become entrenched over time. HR managers need to alert the managers concerned, so that they take the measure of the situation.
2 – Organize an HR meeting with the employee and manager
Dialogue is the key to resolving this crisis situation. A factual meeting with the employee and the manager will clarify the situation. This will be an opportunity to see how much overtime has been worked, or how heavy the workload is. Managers need to be made aware of these issues.
3 – Propose an action plan
This collective meeting should enable an action plan to emerge, aimed at lightening the employee’s workload. This can be done through various actions, depending on the origin of the work overload:
Carry out an audit to assess the risks associated with the company’s workload (quarksUp can help you set up questionnaires to assess the quality of life at work, for example);
Recruit additional talent;
Reorganize everyone’s workload;
Extending deadlines;
Train employees to prioritize actions (quarksUp tools help you manage the implementation of training programs) ;
…
Good to know! quarksUp is an HRIS solution for managing the entire employee cycle.
Thanks to this HR tool, everything can be done online. As an HR manager, you’ll be in charge of all our employees’ digital activities. With its modular offer, quarksUp intervenes from recruitment to employee off-boarding.
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