3 Signs Your Web Team Is Taking on Too Much

Learn how to spot the three most common signs that your web team is taking on too much, along with how to avoid these mistakes for a burnout-proof web team that fires on all cylinders. 

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Businesses face new challenges every single day. But recent developments — a pandemic mixed with social unrest and economic uncertainty — are adding new and unexpected projects, responsibilities, and considerations to everyone’s plate. And that’s making it hard for teams to know what to do next.

In this rapidly evolving environment, determining which initiatives need to take precedent can be confusing. During a time when distance is paramount, your website and the team overseeing it are essential parts of your operation.

And how those teams function is only as good as the amount of mental bandwidth your developers have to bring innovative, engaging solutions to the table. Yes, creativity is innate, but it’s also nurtured. It’s up to the people managing web teams to build an environment that encourages everyone to iterate and think creatively without taxing them too much mentally. 

Your web team and its resources need to be managed reasonably; WebOps can help by automating tedious tasks and freeing everyone to think creatively and keep the site’s big picture in mind. Still, WebOps is a process meant to complement a manager’s natural leadership. Make sure your web department’s workload is monitored in a way that nobody feels too overwhelmed to handle day-to-day website needs.

Picking Up on Signs of Overload

You don’t want your web team to be unable to weigh the importance of one calendar item over another. Therefore, you need to watch for baseline indicators that your team members are struggling to rank individual and team-based activities and outcomes.

Here are some red flags that your web team might be taking on too much:

1. Noticeable Burnout

Everyone gets stressed now and then, but true burnout is a completely different beast. Burnout leaves you unable to function at your full capacity and may lead to health and wellness issues, such as lowered immunity. According to Deloitte, more than three-quarters of workers have experienced genuine burnout and half have struggled with burnout more than once.

When members of my team appear to be withdrawn from conversations or start acting out of character, I intervene. I ask if they have the bandwidth to take on the responsibilities in their queue comfortably. They’re empowered to say no, in which case we can shift their workload and reduce the likelihood of a disastrous burnout event. Subsequently, this workload reduction can spark their creative juices once again, seeing they’re not overwhelmed. 

2. Decreased Quality of Work

Overlooked details. Missed deadlines. Painfully slow responses. These signals should tell you that something’s wrong. According to Deloitte, 9 out of 10 workers cite high stress as a reason for low-quality output. And stress goes hand-in-hand with too many balls in the air.

Make sure your team meets regularly to keep quality and creativity a priority. For instance, our team’s Monday standups are used to review any outstanding tasks and select new items to include in an upcoming sprint. These gatherings present an opportunity to detect lagging work quality, streamline extraneous processes, and ensure everyone has a healthier, more sustainable workflow.

3. Bug-Riddled Projects

Being agile involves iterating continuously. Part of the value of fast interactions is being able to conduct code reviews after each deployment. But if projects and campaigns keep failing those reviews or just barely pass them, the core issue could be due to personnel overload.

Use incoming data points to point out possible process snags. Maybe items are being finished too quickly because team members are eager to clear them from their plates. Or perhaps employees are missing key steps because they’re working too many hours. Have honest discussions with your team to repair flaws in the machine before they sabotage your work.

WebOps can spot these errors and work to create more efficient and effective fixes. This approach brings a team together to acknowledge the gaps, identify the source of any issues, and solve those problems to help shepherd the project along. These fresh, focused, and potentially more creative solutions can help save a project and individual productivity before each regresses too much.

With everything on your web team’s plate right now, members might be tempted to take on more than they can handle. Leaders need to spot these problems proactively, step in, and give team members the support they need to keep quality and innovation high without burning them out.

Are you looking to build a balanced, burnout-proof team for your upcoming website revamp? Download our recent whitepaper, How to Kill the Website Relaunch, to bring your team’s capacity into focus.

Hero image by Marvin Meyer via Unsplash.