Overworked - Sinking fast - Opinions please

[thatsright]

Work at a great company. Great people. Good salary. I actually like my job, though lately everyone on our team feels like we are drowning. Our managers have piled so many projects on us (we are in healthcare). Then, our manager tells us day to day support for customers is more important. But then we get hammered on for projects not getting done. We have 40 major projects lined up for the year with only 10 people to do them by the end of the year. Insanity man! We are cutting corners all over the place and our dept looks bad in the rest of the company. We are stretched so thin and sinking fast. If we had 3-5 extra staff, then it would all work.

Our manager realizes that the day to day stuff eats into project time. But then he gets hammered from above for projects late. Our group handles 80% of all day-to-day support requests for our who company. So we are not slacking. I know some of you will say quit. Not that easy and not an immediate option. Our team will talk to our manager, but need a few ideas to get the point across.

Suggestions on how to make this better? I know this is VERY open ended question.

 

[Red Squirrel]

healthcare says it all. really stressful industry to work in. At least based on my experience working IT, but I imagine most other positions are similar. And everything has to be done NOW! If not someone dies! And they just keep drilling that into you. Gets stressful.

If the manager is approachable I would try to setup a meeting to explain the situation and ask that something be done, perhaps hire someone extra to do the day to day stuff that eats your time and distracts you from projects. If nothing gets done, I'd consider looking for another job but meanwhile keep at it because you don't want to just settle for any job, you still have a good one so don't jump ship too quick.

I think the biggest thing is trying to find a way to stop the distractions like people walking in with requests all the time and stuff. When I worked IT that was the biggest source of delay, people just walking in with requests without a ticket or anything.

 

[jruchko]

If everyone on your team feels that way, then all of you should threaten to resign unless something changes. With how you described the situation it sounds like the company would be in some serious pain if they lost your whole team.

 

[her209]

Everyone call in "sick" three days in a row.

 

[chipy]

If the company really needs more IT people, ask your manager to hire more. In most cases, it comes down to if the company has the money or not.

In which case, they should reallocate money from another department (say not rehiring an HR position or finance position) and take the money that was previously used for that position and fund an IT position instead.

Or, ask upper management to take a temporary pay cut (say for a year or two) and use the excess to fund more IT positions. Remember, your manager has to be able to sell it to upper management that this is for the greater good of the company. If they take the cut, then you guys can hire temps to get caught up on all these projects. Or, do new projects come up when old ones are finished?

 

[edro]

Just do what you can without killing yourself.
Managers push and push, but they know you can't perform miracles.

 

[SearchMaster]

That sounds VERY familiar. After banging my head against the wall for a couple of years, I finally turned in my notice. Good luck!