The other comments are spot-on. It is your manager's responsibility to help you prioritize projects, so as others have said, go straight to him or her and say, "I have these projects, can you help me prioritize which ones take precedence over the others? And, which ones do we have other engineers available to assist with in order to meet these deadlines?"
I also suggest creating a single document that lists each of your projects and known deadlines/deliverables. This should include not just design deadlines but when shop drawings are expected, meetings are needed to attend, etc. If you have a particularly demanding client/project that eats up hours of your day with "urgent for him/her" (but not urgent for you) requests, this needs to be on that list also. Take that list with you when you have this discussion. Often when a manager sees everything laid out that way, the overwhelming visual makes a point better than you can with words alone.
It is human nature to underestimate what others are doing when we are knee-deep in our own work.One caveat here - This approach works well if you are working in a positive work culture that values you as an employee. It doesn't work at all if you are in a work environment that requires employees to work substantial extra hours for months on end. There are firms or managers out there with a reputation for this, in which case it may be better for you to find a new job.
The third thing (which one has mentioned yet) that can happen is what happened in the last recession, which has had a lasting effect on hiring. Many people were hired, and then laid off when the downturn hit. That experience can make firms (still) reluctant to hire, believing that the excess work is temporary. If you have this conversation with your manager and are told that working extra is "temporary," request a definition of that timeframe. For example, you could say "I am committed to getting done what needs to be done in the immediate future, but I also know that in order to grow the firm we'd need to expand our capacity at some point. If workloads are substantial for many employees, I'm curious at what point would you consider hiring additional staff, and if, for example, you would consider hiring new staff I would supervise for my projects in the next 3 to 6 months? " The response to this question will be very enlightening for you on multiple fronts and may give you substantial clues as to if you should wait out the workload as a temporary situation or seek employment elsewhere.
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Stephanie Slocum P.E., M.ASCE
Founder
Engineers Rising LLC
www.engineersrising.com------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 02-10-2019 09:38
From: Zaid Admani
Subject: Declining a Request While Maintaining Trust
Michelle, I think many times when a manager is assigning you these projects, they might not know you are overloaded.
Every time you get assigned another project, it is important that you ask how to prioritize. Something like: "How would you like for me to prioritize this project compared to my other projects?" That allows you to subtly bring up that you have other projects that need your attention and that something is going to have to take a back seat.
I would also recommend having an honest dialogue with your manager to mention that you are overloaded but are going to push to get things done. I've usually said something like "I hold my myself and my work to a high standard, and I am going to push to get all my projects completed. But with everything on my plate, I am unlikely to meet my high standards in the time that I am given to complete these projects." That way, you are signaling to your manager that you produce great work, but all the projects have consumed your bandwidth and it would be difficult for you to take on more work.
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Zaid Admani P.E., M.ASCE
Sugar Land TX
(832)818-6213
Original Message:
Sent: 02-08-2019 20:38
From: Michelle Haacke
Subject: Declining a Request While Maintaining Trust
I am a project engineer / manager assigned to 10-15 projects annually. I am heavily overloaded at any given time. I am frequently asked to take on other tasks or projects that I simply cannot handle while still managing to complete my original assignments. How do you successfully decline a request from someone you ultimately need to please such as a manager or a current or future stakeholder without them losing confidence in your capabilities?
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Michelle Haacke A.M.ASCE
Project Manager
West Bountiful UT
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