Too many projects, not enough manpower. It’s an equation that agency managers know all too well. When teams are stretched to the limit, burn-out looms, and quality begins to falter, it’s time to pull the emergency brake.
But how do you do this without slowing down the machine? How to reconcile customer requirements tight deadlines and human capital to preserve? It’s not an impossible mission – as long as you structure, prioritize, and above all… humanize.
Overflow: symptom of an organization under stress
According to a study by ADP France, 55% of French employees report high levels of stress at work in agencies. This figure often climbs even higher, boosted by customer round-trips, unpredictable deadlines, and that famous “project mental workload” that nobody budgets for… but that everyone suffers from.
And at home?
- How much invisible overtime accumulates every month?
- When was the last time a project manager went on vacation… without keeping Slack open “just in case”?
Distinguishing between occasional and chronic overloading
Everyone experiences a peak in activity. It’s the lot of any dynamic agency. But when overload becomes the norm, exhaustion follows close behind.
Here are some weak signals to watch out for:
- A drop in the quality delivered (and an increase in emergency patches).
- Briefs go by the wayside or meetings are less and less prepared.
- Turnover is accelerating, even among normally stable profiles.
- Ambient cynicism or a drop in enthusiasm at team meetings.
When overloading is becoming an operating mode, no longer a temporary problem. It’s a management method that needs to be reinvented.
5 concrete levers to reverse the trend
1. Prioritize with benevolent brutality
Not all emergencies are created equal. And no, not everything is a “priority”. Learn to distinguish the important from the urgent… and dare to give up certain battles.
Tip: Adopt a simple arbitration matrix (business impact x energy required) and involve your teams in task evaluation.
2. Make planning visible and realistic
A good schedule doesn’t just display deadlines: it shows who’s doing what, with what room for manoeuvre.
Investing in a staffing or workload management tool (yes, a real tool, not just a spreadsheet lost between two tabs) can make a huge difference.
The result: less overbooking, more anticipation, and employees back in control of their schedules.
3. Offer "decompression locks
No, it’s not “wellness washing”. It’s a necessity. A collective breathing session – a real one – can often prevent real crises.
Examples include one meeting-free day per month, “off” team meetings to share feelings, project closing rituals to reward efforts.
4. Take responsibility without giving up
Autonomy, yes. Letting go, no. Every team member needs to know that they can talk about their workload, ask for help or say no to an unrealistic task.
This presupposes a managerial culture that values transparency over heroism.
5. Set aside time to think (really) about the aftermath
If you spend 100% of your time putting out fires, who’s going to build the fire station? Free up time to review your processes, rethink your offers, or better qualify your leads upstream. Agency work is not condemned to perpetual urgency.
What if the problem wasn't the load... but the organization?
Overload is not an individual problem. It is often the symptom of misaligned management These include sales targets that are out of sync with actual capacities, poorly framed projects, and insufficiently exploited tools.
Good news: these levers are in your hands.
Less work doesn’t mean less results – on the contrary.
Teams that are aligned, committed and respected are more efficient, more loyal and more creative..
And between us, who wants to run an agency that runs on stress and Doliprane?
Gain peace of mind with clear, centralized control
If you’re looking to reduce overload without losing performance, you need a clear, real-time view of who’s doing what, when… and at what cost. That’s exactly what Furious offers: a tool designed for agencies and consultancies that unifies project management, staffing, time, budgets and profitability.
With Furious, you can :
- Instantly visualize overloads (or underloads) by employee or project,
- Anticipate peaks in activity and adjust your staffing accordingly,
- Give your teams visibility of their actual (not assumed) workload,
- Better arbitration of priorities without having to navigate blindly.
And above all, you’ll be stepping out of firefighter mode and into proactive, humane… and profitable management.
Curious to see what it would be like at home?
Book your personalized demo and discover how to preserve your teams while improving your margins. Yes, both are possible.
