Many employees are stretched too thin.

• Position: Your Life - Brief Article

Workers today may have too much to do and too little time to do it, a survey by OfficeTeam, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based staffing service specializing in highly skilled administrative professionals, suggests. Seventy percent of executives polled said the average employee is at least somewhat overburdened, while 10% admitted that the workload is significantly too heavy.

Liz Hughes, executive director of OfficeTeam, argues that "Many people are more productive when they're juggling multiple tasks, but the amount of work should be within reason. Project loads that are consistently unmanageable can lead to burnout and the associated problems of reduced morale, high turnover, and increased hiring and training costs for businesses." She says the best managers do more than acknowledge their employees are stretched too thin--they offer solutions, such as the following:

* Talk to staff. How do employees view their responsibilities? Are unrealistic deadlines impacting the quality of their work or level of job satisfaction? Their perceptions may be very different than...