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To reduce unnecessary work without increasing burnout, identify and remove avoidable demands at their source—not simply ask employees to cope with more. Start by mapping work with employees, then change tasks, priorities, roles, schedules, communication, or staffing as the cause warrants. Check that the work has not merely shifted to another person or team, and reassess workload and well-being after the change.
Why cutting work can help—and why coping advice alone may not
Burnout risk can grow when work demands remain high over time while the resources available to meet them are insufficient. Resources include more than headcount: clear priorities, decision-making authority, reliable information, supportive supervision, and workable schedules also affect whether people can do their jobs.
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That is why a well-being course or individual coping advice may be useful but insufficient when the underlying problem is excessive, conflicting, or poorly organized work. The World Health Organization identifies heavy workload, time pressure, continual deadlines, and understaffing as psychosocial risks, and names achievable targets and safe staffing among possible organizational responses in its policy brief on mental health at work.
How to find work that can be removed or redesigned
Ask workers what the workload actually contains
Talk with employees and managers who do, assign, and depend on the work. Ask which tasks are duplicated, unclear, unnecessarily manual, low-value, or produced by conflicting expectations. Also ask about work that rarely appears in plans or job descriptions: coordination, interruptions, emotional labor, and follow-up can consume substantial time.
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Do not assume that a task is unnecessary just because it is invisible or unpopular. Find out what purpose it serves, who uses its output, and what would happen if it stopped. The NIOSH guide for public health supervisors recommends assessing work-unit demands and resources and involving workers in identifying needs and possible changes.
Trace the cause to the level that can change it
Use the NIOSH IGLOO lens to locate where a problem originates: individual, group, leader, organization, or overarching context. For example, a manager may be able to clarify priorities or adjust delegation. A staffing shortage, policy, technology decision, or contractual constraint may require action from senior leadership or another authority.
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Authority matters: asking a team to solve a problem it cannot control can add frustration without reducing the demand. NIOSH notes that public health supervisors may face civil-service and collective-bargaining constraints, so some changes need higher-level approval.
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There is no single workload fix that fits every workplace. Match the intervention to the cause, involve the people affected, and consider the resources and coordination the change will require.
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| Workload problem | Possible work-design response | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| People are unsure which work takes priority | Set clear priorities, achievable deadlines, and role expectations. | Whether urgent requests still regularly override agreed priorities. |
| Tasks or responsibilities overlap or conflict | Clarify roles, delegation, and responsibility for handoffs. | Whether an unresolved task is now falling between roles. |
| Steps are duplicated or unnecessarily manual | Redesign the task or process with input from the people doing it. | Whether the change removes effort without disrupting a necessary output or dependency. |
| Workers lack influence over how they complete their work | Increase appropriate worker participation or control over work methods and decisions. | Whether the added control is real and compatible with safety and coordination needs. |
| Schedules or deadlines create sustained pressure | Review schedules, set achievable targets, or consider flexibility where the work allows it. | Effects on coverage, coworkers, handoffs, and workers’ preferences. |
| Work exceeds available capacity | Address staffing or other resource constraints where possible. | Whether the demand is actually reduced rather than deferred or transferred. |
These options are consistent with CDC/NIOSH and WHO guidance on redesigning tasks, clarifying responsibilities, improving communication, involving workers, adjusting schedules, setting achievable deadlines, and seeking adequate staffing. Job rotation or flexibility may help in some settings, but they should be assessed against physical demands, worker preference, scheduling, and coordination requirements.
Check that the work has not landed somewhere else
Before removing a task, identify who will absorb it, which teams depend on it, and what purpose it serves. A task may disappear from one person’s list while becoming extra follow-up, overtime, backlog, or role conflict for someone else. Some work is necessary even if its current process is inefficient.
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After the change, ask affected workers and partner teams whether the intended work actually stopped and whether new demands appeared elsewhere. NIOSH advises considering intended and unintended consequences and aligning interventions with leader behavior, team norms, and organizational practice.
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Breaks, flexibility, training, well-being resources, and employee assistance programs can support people. Use them alongside organizational changes when the cause is excessive or poorly structured work. If employees are offered coping resources while the same avoidable demands remain, the response may miss the cause of strain.
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Reassess whether the change worked
Choose a few measures that reflect the specific problem rather than treating one metric as a universal test. For example, check whether the target task disappeared, whether work hours or backlog changed, whether employees report clearer priorities, and whether another team inherited the demand. Review the results with workers and adjust the change if it created new problems.
A published CDC-hosted study offers an example of a multi-part, work-focused intervention, not a general estimate of how much workload cuts reduce burnout. The trial involved municipal construction workers in 2012–2013: 11 intervention teams with 154 participants and nine control teams with 117 participants. The program combined supervisor training, supervisor goal-setting and behavior tracking, facilitated team-effectiveness sessions, and follow-up. The record reports reduced diastolic blood pressure at six and twelve months in the treatment group, as well as selected improvements in team effectiveness and perceived work-life support among participants who initially had weaker supervisor relationships. Its population, program, and measured outcomes limit how far those findings can be generalized. See the NIOSH/CDC-hosted publication record.
NIOSH Director Linda Rosenstock, M.D., M.P.H., put the organizational focus plainly in a historical announcement: “Research and experience tell us that certain factors such as heavy workload, conflicting or uncertain job responsibilities and job insecurity are stressors across organizations and that the risk for job stress can be reduced through smart, strategic action.” The archived NIOSH announcement is the source of that statement.
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