What is it?

A technique to map a “Day In the Life Of” a role or group of roles.

Why is it useful?

• It helps you analyse work-life balance and role effectiveness. Job satisfaction is essential for workforce happiness and employee retention.
• Time management and work-life balance are key to job satisfaction, so if staff are unhappy this activity will quickly show where improvements are needed.

Objectives

• To document the entire set of activities for a member of staff/role holder.
• To provide a high-touch way of showing the extent of someone’s role.
• To highlight the major areas of work and where the greatest volumes of work are created.

Questions a DILO answers

• Are staff spending their days on the right things?
• How is their work-life balance?
• How does the start/end of their day affect focus and attention?
• Are they doing the right tasks at the right time?
• How are their delegation skills?
• Are workloads aligned with expectations?
• What is the balance between spontaneous and planned work?
• Can tasks be redistributed to better qualified resources?

When would you use it?

• When running a time management programme.
• When analysing work-life balance.
• Any time you want to build a shared view of workload, work-life balance and the underlying issues.
• For a single role or group of staff in the same role (results can be synthesised).
• As a visioning activity to show future roles or groups of roles.

Resources Required

• Copies of the Workload Analysis Template for each participant.
• Spreadsheet software (Excel or Google Sheets) to create outputs.
• DILO Template.

Rules

• Be honest – the template must be completed truthfully.
• Respect others’ perceptions of their working day.

Pre-work

• Decide who should be invited.
• Be clear on the issue to be explored.
• Decide on session structure:
  – One topic area or subsets?
  – Whole group on everything or break into smaller groups?
  – One session or multiple?
  – Length of session?
  – Does this form part of another activity?
• Suggestions:
  • Stay focused.
  • Keep a tight brief.
  • Stick to time.

Process (1-to-1 Activity)

1. Decide timeframe

Choose whether to run a Day-in-the-Life (DILO) or Week-in-the-Life (WILO).

2. Explain the process

• Purpose is to help them achieve greater job satisfaction.
• Results are 100% confidential and won’t be used in reviews.
• Honesty is important.
• This is the start of an ongoing process, not a one-off.

3. Complete template

Give participant the Workload Analysis Template to fill in.

4. Follow-up meeting

Review their template together and transform into output format.

5. Brainstorm findings

Discuss observations, opportunities and issues.

6. Action plan

Create actions to address issues and capitalise on opportunities.

Process (Team Activity)

1. Explain process to group

Spend extra time building comfort and safety that results won’t be used against them.

2. Decide timeframe

Choose between DILO or WILO.

3. Emphasise confidentiality and purpose

Ensure participants understand this is to support job satisfaction and will be repeated periodically.

4. Complete templates

Hand out the Workload Analysis Templates and have participants fill them in.

5. Follow-up session

Bring the group back to convert templates into output format.

6. Brainstorm findings

Capture shared observations, opportunities and issues.

7. Identify themes and action plan

Highlight recurring themes across participants and agree an action plan.

Secret Sauce

• Can be used for a day, week, month or year in the life of a role.
• Can reflect a single role, multiple roles or groups.
• Honesty is critical – participants must feel safe that responses won’t be used against them.