We’re at the tail end of 2020 and things are hopeful for 2021. People are looking at the way IT has pulled together to enable working from anywhere and moving resources to the cloud and enabling users to get their jobs done. It’s a testament to the resilience of a group of sanitation workers behind the scenes whose job it is to clean up after management and sales and do the jobs no one else wants to do.

The cynic in me is worried about what the future is going to hold now that we’ve managed to transform the way we work. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until I was checking out this Reddit thread from last week. The top rant had an interesting perspective on the way that 2021 is going to go for workers and I couldn’t agree more. My dread has a name, and it’s Overwork.

Harder, Not Smarter

If anything, 2020 proved that we can do amazing things with the right motivation. The superhero mentality of IT paid off handsomely as we stood up remote access servers and found ways to get access to resources for people that couldn’t come into the office and needed to get things done. We proved invaluable to the company in terms of support and project execution.

However, that superhuman effort also makes us valuable because we can do the impossible. Which means individual workers are great at tasks that are a stretch to get done. Doesn’t sound too bad, right? Now, think back on the number of times over your career that you’ve jumped on something that you’ve seen as hard or challenging and gotten it done. Is that number more than one or two? It probably is.

Now, look at it from the perspective of management and the people that make the hiring decisions. You’ve never failed, or at least you’ve failed so infrequently as to be unimportant. You always get the job done no matter what. If we only had a team of you sitting around we could get so much done! Sound familiar?

Let’s look at it from the finance part of the equation. Revenue is down. Expenses are down too, but we could still trim a bit and save money. Where should we cut? Can’t get rid of sales or marketing because they’re working to bring in money. Can’t get rid of executives (for some reason) because they serve some purpose. IT? Support staff? They’ve never failed us before. If we give them a little extra work and don’t fill that open position or cut someone that’s underperforming they’ll come through for us, right?

It’s a tale that’s as old as any in business. Why pay someone to do the work in a role when we can split it up and pass it out to the rest of the team. An extra job won’t hurt anyone, right? Funny how that never happens to the CFO or the CMO. But the networking/storage/security/wireless/server/cloud teams? They’re rockstars!

Know When to Fold Em

In 2021, you are going to need to set boundaries and stand up for yourself when it comes to work. Every role not filled with a person drawing a salary is directly impacting the bottom line of the company. Which means either you should be getting paid more for doing more work or the executives and stockholders are going to get paid more because the company made higher profits. Who deserves that extra money more? The people doing the work? Or the people parking assets in your company until they recover their position and jump to greener pastures?

You need to draw the line and advocate for yourself. Don’t just blindly accept new responsibilities without some sort of future resolution. Are they going to hire someone to fill that role eventually? If not, what are they going to do with the salary? If you and someone else on your team are doing that role permanently you should both be compensated for it. If the executive team gives you pushback, just remind them that they can forgo their next raise or set of stock options to cover things. You’d never see them doing any more without some form of compensation, right?

Drawing boundaries is going to cause friction because superheroes have never had them before. Superman and Spider Man don’t negotiate about saving people on a train. However, you aren’t a radioactive Kryptonian vigilante either. You’re doing a job that you get paid to do. Adding more to your plate is either worthy of additional money or it’s something that needs to be pushed back. If this was AWS and they wanted to upgrade their server instances to a faster CPU, do you think they could persuade Amazon to give it to them for free? Not on your life.

Take the time in 2021 to set yourself up for success. You may be worried that people are going to fire you because they think you want too much money or because you need to be happy to have a job right now. You also need to realize that no one can do your job better than you right now and they know that too. Have a frank and honest discussion about why you feel it’s unfair to pile more work on you without treating you fairly. Make sure they know you’ll help where you can but if they aren’t going to fill the role you need to get the resources they would dedicate to the person doing it. Chances are they’ll realize they do need to hire someone to take the work or they’ll find a way to do without those responsibilities.

Tom’s Take

You are a valuable resource. But you are not infinite. If you burn yourself out then you are spent. The business will likely look for someone to replace you and get them up to speed on your job. You? You’re going to be a shell of the person you were. 2020 has been a roller coaster that has pushed us all hard. We need to find a balance. And if you don’t let people know that you need to find balance in your work and your compensation you may find yourself with no boundaries, no balance, and knee deep in the swamp.