Unfair Workload In Small Teams: Strategies to Respond Assertively

In this episode, Simon Goode explores a workplace conflict scenario where a colleague repeatedly leaves unfinished work for others at the last minute, discussing various options for addressing the situation. Simon Goode breaks down the conflict using a five-type framework—data, relationship, structure, interest, and values—offering practical strategies for each. He emphasizes that there isn't a single right approach, and encourages listeners to consider their own boundaries and needs before deciding how to respond.

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How to Respond When a Colleague Dumps Last-Minute Work On Your Plate

Have you ever found yourself picking up unfinished tasks from a colleague who leaves early, only to feel burned out and underappreciated? In my latest Conflict Skills Podcast episode, I dive into a case where one team member is left cleaning up after another—exploring practical strategies to address the pattern without escalating conflict or seeming "difficult".

Here are my 3 key takeaways for handling these tricky situations:

• Understand the Types of Conflict: Not all workplace friction is the same. Consider whether the core issue is about structure (how work is allocated), interests (who wants what), values (subjective expectations around teamwork), data (clarity of job roles), or relationships (interpersonal attitudes).
• Normalize Different Perspectives: When discussing the problem, acknowledge both your own and others’ viewpoints. Phrasing like “I know in other teams, this was common, but I find last-minute requests challenging. Could we talk about ways to improve notice?” keeps the tone neutral and solution-focused.
• Explore Structural Solutions: Sometimes, the best fix lies in changing processes. Suggest regular check-ins about workloads, redesign deadlines, or clarify what constitutes a fair division of labor to prevent future bottlenecks.

Conflict is inevitable, but with the right tools, you can address it constructively and protect your well-being. Want more tips for handling workplace challenges? Listen to the full episode or connect with me for resources!

#ConflictResolution #WorkplaceSkills #Teamwork #ProfessionalDevelopment

Transcript

0:05

Hello and welcome back to the Conflict Skills Podcast. I'm your host, professional mediator Simon GoodE. I set up this podcast to provide free resources and tools for dealing with conflict. So if that sounds like the kind of thing that's useful for you, please consider pressing subscribe in the episode Today I'm going to be talking about a conflict case study. This is a situation where a colleague is constantly dumping work upon the person that's in question and I'm going to talk about some options that they could use if they decide to talk this through with the offending colleague. Now, as always, my background is that I'm a professional mediator, so I spend a lot of time resolving workplace conflict like these every day. But I don't know your situation, I don't know you, I don't know your context. So although I'm talking about some of the things that stand out to me, I don't want this to come across as some sort of an implication that this is the only way to do it or this is the correct way. In fact, I think often, as long as our intention is good, we will be able to find a way to move things forward as long as we can stick to that and avoid being escalated or frustrated or whatever else might be going on. So I'm going to read the case study first and then I'm going to be talking about some of the initial thoughts that I have as well as a couple of the more comprehensive strategies that we should consider. We could consider. So this is the case study. I work in a four person admin and client support team at a local service company. For the past two months, my colleague Lisa has been leaving early two or three days a week. She always sends last minute messages with vague excuses like my family stuff has come up or I have an appointment that I forgot about. She doesn't really ask, she just says something like hey, I've left the monthly client report unfinished on the shared drive completely. Could you get it done before you log off? We're a team, right? And then she logs out. The report is usually only half done, basic data entered, but the analysis recommendations and formatting that clients expect are missing. Our manager has started directly telling me handle Lisa's tasks when she's gone, as if that's a part of my job now. At first I covered for her occasionally, but it it has become an increasingly clear pattern that's burning me out. I'm doing my own workload, plus regularly picking up hers, and my evenings and mental energy are suffering. Last week I finally Pushed back via message and said, I couldn't keep compensating because of my own deadlines. Lisa got defensive and replied, we're supposed to be a team. Now the manager is hinting that I'm not being a team player. This keeps happening and I'm not sure how to respond without escalating or looking difficult. What would you do in this situation? Well, I wonder what jumps out to you. Have you been in a similar situation that the protagonist there finds themselves and what did you do? Did you decide to just keep quiet and kind of go with the flow and take an accommodating kind of approach? Or did you decide to stand your ground and stick to your guns and and effectively establishing more clear boundaries around what's expected and what's not? I don't actually think that there's a right and the wrong way of dealing with this. In fact, when I'm coaching people and they're dealing with conflict with similar situations to this, one of the things that I often ask them first is to say something like, what will happen if you do nothing? Like, what will happen if things continue in the direction that they're going? What would happen? How would that play out? And I'm interested in the what would happen? Like tangibly, what are the steps that would take? How would Lisa respond? What would your boss likely do in that kind of a situation? But it's also important to become aware of the fact that this isn't necessarily an indefinite challenge that I'm facing. Maybe this isn't the right timing to deal with it. Whereas next month we've got a little bit more clear skies in terms of the workload, and there'll be a bit more room for having some of these kind of discussions. So even if you decide just to tolerate the current situation for now, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're endlessly going to accept it. In fact, you've probably already accepted it to some extent and then tried to push back to some extent. So you're already sitting there sometime in the middle ground of being very accommodating or very assertive. And I suppose it really depends on what's at stake as to what's going to be the correct way forward for you. How much disruption is the extra tasks creating for you? When you talk about mental energy becoming drained as a result of the current dynamics, what does that mean? Is that just your level of frustration is rising and you're feeling hard done by? Or is it a sense of exhaustion? Or maybe it's this in the Back of your mind, constant voice around something that might be coming, something that could be jumped on your plate at the last minute. All of those different versions of the mental energy being drained would mean that you need different things to look after yourself in the short term as well as dealing with it with Lisa in a more long term sense as well. So for me, when I'm dealing with this kind of a conflict situation, and it probably does feel quite overwhelming in the moment, it's not just a single interaction that's led to this. There's been a pattern that's developed. One of the things that can be quite helpful is pulling apart which types of conflict are present here, which drivers are you likely dealing with? And that then often helps us to develop options in terms of a potential way to respond. I think here, for me, a lot of this conflict seems to be in the category of what I would call value conflict. I often use a framework with five different types of conflict. We've got data. This is what was agreed to. What does the job description actually say, what was the specifics of the request that was made, who said what, who did what, et cetera. So the person being a little bit perturbed about the fact that this seems to have all of a sudden become part of my job description covering felisa, the data conflict would be clarifying those expectations. When you say that this is something that you're expecting me to do, is that based on a conversation that you've had with me or changing needs within the business job descriptions? Can you fill me in on what's going on here? So we need to tread a little bit carefully when we're dealing with data conflict, especially when the other person's wrong. But here I don't necessarily think that that's going to be the most fruitful area to address initially. So we've got data conflict. We could also deal with it in terms of the relationship. Maybe Lisa is feeling like she's hard done by because of the amount of jobs that are being passed to her from other members of the team, but you're not aware of any of that. Maybe Lisa feels like you're not cooperative, so she's been looking actively at ways of encouraging you to work with other members of the team. It's possible that your boss has misread the cues of what's going on there if they're thinking that you're causing the issue, whereas actually you feel like you've been quite reasonable in the face of constantly being asked to cover for somebody else with work Tasks that aren't specifically your job. So we've got relationship. That's the. I'm so sick of the way that they keep doing this, this is just driving me crazy element. I don't necessarily think that's going to be the most helpful starting point either. So if it's not data, the facts or relationship, the vibe, the attitudes that we have towards one another, what else could we do? Well, we've got the other three types of conflict that we should. We should. We could consider structure, interest and values. So here there could be a number of different structural interventions that could work. For example, maybe you could suggest a weekly meeting where tasks are allocated and you can check who within the team has capacity at the moment and who's feeling a little bit more stretched and struggling to keep their head above water. Maybe we could address the way that these deadlines are dealt with so that Lisa doesn't constantly have a Friday afternoon deadline that she's working towards. Maybe we could change it to Wednesday afternoons. That would mean that she's effectively really doing everything that she can to get it in on time. But you've still got a couple of extra days leeway for her to fix anything that might be needed. Whereas at the moment, with the current structure and everything being left up until the last minute, it means that if she's left work that hasn't been done, there's really no opportunity for her to cover, like, she's relying on you to do it for her effectively. So how communication happens, how the updates are given, how work is delegated or allocated, what kind of, what would you say an agreement is needed between two members of the team if one person is asking the other person to cover for them? These are all elements of structure. And I think in this particular case study, there would actually be quite. It's quite likely that there would be a number of different opportunities to change the structure. And in doing so, we can often mitigate some of the negative effects of conflict that we're dealing with, or at times even prevent the conflict from coming up at all. So structure, I think, is probably a pretty good option as a starting point here. And then we've got the last two types of conflict that I mentioned, interest and values. Interest is basically who wants what, what do I need, what do my colleagues need, what does the company need, what does my boss need? We're all going to have different interests that we're dealing with. It's what I'm prepared to do for you and what I expect from you in return. So regardless of the data, regardless of how the work is being allocated. You could decide just to deal with this conflict predominantly at the interest layer. If we were going to do this, we might threaten them with something like, if this happens again, I'm going to need to make a formal complaint to HR or something similar, or maybe there's something that we could offer them. I'm happy to do that for you if you can help me out with this other area that I'm looking for some support in or. Sure, I'm happy to cover you this Friday that's coming up. Would there be an option then for you to cover me the week after? I'm reasonably flexible in terms of which day works, but that seems to me like something that would be a fair arrangement, but I don't know. How does that sit with you, that word, fair? I'm sorry, can you just explain to me how this is fair, given the fact that I'm constantly being asked to do these extra tasks, but other members of the team don't seem to have that, that same burden of extra responsibilities being added to their to do list. Like I'm kind of saying, what's going on here? And is there something that I can offer you so that I can get what I need in return? You could decide to compromise. Maybe there's some types of work that you're prepared to cover. Maybe there's a certain amount of notice that you're prepared to cover for someone, but being constantly dumped on your lap at the last minute is something that's not tolerable. When we're dealing with this interest conflict. It's all about the negotiation and we effectively need to decide how firm to be and that really comes down to how important it is not to disappoint the other person. If our boss asks us to do something and the job is really important to us, or our boss's opinion really matters, then we should probably just say yes, no worries, I can get that organized. Taking an accommodating approach would make complete sense. But if this is a colleague and it's not very likely that you're going to be working together with them for an extended period of time and there's not a lot to lose. If they're unhappy with you, then it might be worth considering options like sticking to your guns and saying no, that's not a request that I can meet and we don't need necessarily to give a whole lot of in depth understanding of this is ridiculous anyway, it's your job, you should be doing it, etcetera we can just focus on the request. That's not something that I can agree to. That's not something that I'm going to be able to organize given the amount of time that we've got between now and when the report is due. So I think interest is probably a pretty good option and it would depend on what's at stake. How important is it for you not to disappoint your colleague? If that doesn't really matter, then maybe it makes sense to be quite assertive. If the relationship's important or there are a number of different interconnected relationships going on here, then maybe it makes more sense to compromise. Like I can do half of it, but not the whole amount. Or stick to your guns and say no, that's not a request that I'm able to meet. Now, the last type of conflict that I mentioned is what's called value conflict. These are all of the subjective interpretations that we bring to different situations that we're in. What should happen, what's fair, what's professional, what's respectful communication? I'm constantly surprised when I'm doing training workshops in conflict resolution skills, how many people seem to think that there's such a thing as common sense. They seem to think that there's such a thing as respectful communication. And surely we've all got the same idea of what respectful communication looks like, right? Well, no, of course not. I don't know if you've met many grown ups that you're dealing with in your life, but there doesn't seem to be such a thing as common sense. And even adults don't seem to be particularly capable of having adult to adult calm, civil conversations in all situations that they're in. So we don't want to make the mistake of assuming that everybody else thinks the way that we do when we deal with conflict. At the value layer, it's often normalising two different perspectives. I know in other teams that I've worked these kind of tasks and last minute requests were something that was quite commonplace for me. Though I find that challenging for these couple of reasons. When you need my help with something, could you please provide me more notice? So if we deal with it in that kind of a structure, we're not saying you're wrong. Why are you so careless? Why are you being so inconsiderate as to pass all of these tasks on to me? Why am I being asked to compensate for you? We can see how our perspective is subtly introduced even in terms of the actual language that we use when we're dealing with this kind of conflict, the boss has the concerns about you potentially not being a team player. That's another area that we've all got a slightly different interpretation of what being a team player actually looks like. And again, if we decide to talk to our boss about this, the approach that often works is normalizing both perspectives. I'm sorry, for me, I'm not used to having these kind of requests being passed to me without much notice. It sounds like from your perspective, though, that's something that you were hoping that within the team we could be reasonably flexible around. Have I got that right? So I'm saying it seems like you're expecting this from me, but other teams I've been a part of work differently, or it seems like this is what you think would be the normal way of doing things. Actually, I've got a different idea in terms of what my default plan might look like. So it's not that you're wrong, but I'm saying to the manager, look, it seems like there's been some crossed wires or maybe we've been on different pages in a few different conversations that we've had, but given these different backgrounds and different experiences, etc. Now, I'm not necessarily saying that I'm wedded to all of my opinions right now, but could we organize a time to talk it through in terms of what this would actually look like day to day to make sure that we're not treading on each other's toes moving forward? How does that sound? So we don't necessarily have to come up with all of the answers initially, but it's finding a careful and considered way of phrasing it. I guess when we raise it with our boss and. And it might be something like, could we talk about our expectations regarding collaboration within the team? Like it's a neutral and mutual way of phrasing it. Whereas if we say, I want to talk to you about these accusations of me not being a team player, well, that's not really a mutual and neutral way of phrasing it, is it? It's like, I've got this issue that's important to me and I demand to talk about it with you right now. So that value conflict often is about normalizing the difference and then setting up a future focused kind of conversation. We don't want to mistake values for facts. That's not respectful, that's not professional. They shouldn't have done that. That's not good enough. Well, again, we should start from the perspective that these are subjective terms. These are subjective Values that we're all developing through our experiences. So it's likely that we're all going to end up with slightly different expectations in terms of what we want from one another. You could use a cost benefit analysis almost, if you've gone through and thought, well, what should I do here? Maybe just being accommodating and zipping my lip and just being a quiet is the first option. What would be the costs of that and what are the benefits of that if I decide to talk about it with my boss? What would be the costs of that and what are the drawbacks of that? What are the benefits of that if I decide to raise it with my colleague directly, what are the costs, what are the potential problems that that might cause and what are the potential benefits that could bring there? And we can also think about this at a number of different layers, like what do I want? What's important to me? I want consistency, I want to know what to expect, I want certainty, et cetera, I want structure, whatever. But then within the team, what do we need right now? Well, maybe we're short staffed or we're under the pump or we're stretched because we're introducing a particular stage of a project or something that can be helpful as well, of thinking about what we need and what our team needs in terms of this time moving forward. We don't necessarily need to have everything right now, or maybe there's some elements that we can tolerate in the short term, even if longer term we would want to change it and put in place an arrangement that's going to work better for our needs after that. But how does that sound to you, me going through and explaining the conflict in terms of those five categories of value, interest, data structure and relationship. Where would you start? Do you think about this conflict as more of a pure negotiation? And maybe it's about interests. I'm not going to do this for you unless you do this for me. And it's give and take. Or maybe it's about values like clarifying what do we mean by being a team player. And maybe we can flesh out and add some detail to some of these expectations that people obviously have from one another. Maybe it's the data, maybe there has been a bit of scope creep, or there's a bit of ambiguity and some of the tasks that you're working with within the team. And it would be helpful to organize a time to get on the same page about what to expect. Maybe it's structure. Looking at the different ways that meetings are done, the way that work is allocated and delegated, or even looking at the way that work is reviewed as deadlines are approaching. Or maybe it's the relationship layer, taking them out for a coffee, giving them a chance for vents, and maybe doing a little bit of rapport building. Again, I don't think there's necessarily a right and wrong here. And the good news is that if you feel like you've been butting your head against a brick wall and you're not making much progress in the approach that you're taking, hopefully hearing me talk about some of those other options would have set your mind spinning and started some creative brainstorming that hopefully would help you to develop an alternative plan that might lead to a little bit more progress than you've been seeing so far. But what do you think? I'd love to hear from you. If you'd like to get in touch, the best way is usually by email. It's podcastimongood.com if you would like more resources, tools, webinars, seminars, etc. In terms of this topic of difficult conversations and conflict, please consider pressing subscribe and I've also got an e newsletter that you can sign up to on my website, but otherwise, thank you very much for listening. If it's been helpful, I'd be incredibly grateful if you would consider leaving a positive review, and I'll hopefully see you again in a future episode of the Conflict Skills Podcast. Bye. And for now.