Intrenion

Pattern: Survivor load

The remaining staff absorbs additional work after departures without adjustment.

In this condition, when employees leave the organization, their tasks are redistributed among the remaining staff without formal restructuring.
In this condition, performance expectations and deadlines remain unchanged despite a reduction in headcount.
In this condition, vacant positions remain unfilled for extended periods while operational work continues.
In this condition, remaining employees take on additional responsibilities beyond their original role descriptions.
In this condition, task redistribution occurs through informal agreements rather than updated documentation or contracts.
In this condition, working hours and multitasking levels increase among the remaining staff.
In this condition, the formal organizational structure continues to reflect prior staffing levels while actual workflows differ.

This occurs because headcount approval authority is centralized and more constrained than managerial authority to redistribute tasks internally.
This occurs because immediate budget savings from not replacing departing staff are visible, while the costs on remaining staff are diffuse and delayed.
This occurs because operational continuity is prioritized over structural workload recalibration when a role becomes vacant.
This occurs because individual employees lack formal authority to refuse additional tasks without reputational or performance risk.
This occurs because performance metrics are tied to output targets rather than staffing ratios or capacity indicators.
This occurs because temporary coverage arrangements face fewer approval barriers than initiating recruitment processes.
This occurs because accountability for results remains at the team or individual level rather than being structurally linked to headcount decisions.

Without a decision to recalibrate workload or staffing, additional departures become more likely as accumulated responsibilities increase strain on remaining employees.
Without a decision to formalize redistributed tasks, role ambiguity and accountability gaps become unavoidable.
Without a decision to adjust performance expectations, quality instability and missed deadlines become increasingly probable.
Without a decision to align authority with responsibility, execution capacity remains constrained while accountability pressures persist.
Without a decision to restore structural redundancy, operational resilience becomes increasingly fragile in the face of additional shocks.

We decide to cap our weekly work hours at our contractual limit and stop performing tasks beyond that threshold because this gives us a hard capacity constraint that forces explicit prioritization instead of informally absorbing all inherited responsibilities, and accept that some deadlines will be missed or reassigned.
We decide to require that every new task assigned to us be matched by the explicit removal of an existing task from our workload because this gives us a visible one-in-one-out rule that prevents silent scope expansion instead of continuing to accumulate responsibilities through informal agreement, and accept that we will be perceived as less flexible.
We decide to document our current responsibilities in writing and refuse tasks that are not listed until priorities are formally updated because this gives us a fixed reference point for role scope instead of relying on shifting verbal expectations in meetings, and accept that this may create friction with our manager.

I will stop working beyond my contractual hours and will leave unfinished tasks visible rather than absorbing them silently.
I will not take on any new task unless one current task is explicitly removed from my workload.
I will decline tasks that are not listed in my documented responsibilities until priorities are formally revised.