2023-11-15 08:00:01
A vague notion for some, relating only to health or purely legal for others, and too often equated with overload or burn-out, workload does not receive all the attention it deserves from companies. However, its regulation is a real performance issue. It’s nothing less than matching the company’s objectives and the means it gives its employees and managers to achieve them.
The resources in question range from the number of employees assigned to a project to completion times, including the tools, methods, necessary equipment, etc. Poorly configured software, and it is user frustration that slows down the processing of files; training in a new, botched or poorly designed work organization, and disengagement sets in; a production line designed without requiring those who will work on it, and the number of breakdowns or errors increases…
The concept of workload appeared in the labor code at the beginning of the 2000s. In 2001, the Aubry law required companies to evaluate it regularly for employees on a daily rate. Over the years, the principle of workload and its regulation has gone somewhat under the radar in favor of more targeted subjects such as psychosocial risks, the right to disconnect or quality of life at work. It returned to the forefront in 2020 with the Covid-19 pandemic and the massive use of remote working, which highlighted issues of productivity and work-life balance to avoid burnout. out.
A precise definition
Specifically, workload refers to the physical, mental and cognitive resources required to accomplish a task. Although we sometimes speak of a reasonable, perceived or felt load, it is too often treated solely from a quantitative angle as when we speak of “over” or “underload”.
To observe it and be able to monitor its regulation in companies, the National Agency for the Improvement of Working Conditions (Anact) has developed a model which distinguishes three components: the prescribed load, the actual load and the experienced load.
The first designates what the prescriber asks the employee to carry out, the work to be done; the second corresponds to the conditions, the tools made available and the way of doing this work; the third, more subjective, is the employee’s perception of this work and its completion.
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