Details
1-day course
CPD Credit: 6 hours; Competence/s: 3
Course Delivery Options
Open Course: Available on scheduled dates. Contact cpdtraining@engineersireland.ie or call 01 665 1305, or check our CPD Calendar here.
In-company Training: Click here for further information on in-company courses or email incompanycpd@engineersireland.ie for a customised quote.
Course Overview
Burnout, disengagement, psychological distress, loss of meaning: team and project managers are facing an ever-accelerating work overload. In the construction and civil engineering sector, this is not a background issue. According to the Chartered Institute of Building's 2025 report on mental health in the built environment, 94% of workers report experiencing stress, 83% anxiety, and the main drivers are consistently the same: too much work, unrealistic deadlines, and a culture where asking for help still feels like a risk.
This pressure is not simply a matter of the volume of tasks. It is systemic. It encompasses relationships, interactions, peer pressure, the pressure we put on ourselves, and the life stakes that extend beyond work.
Faced with this reality, traditional productivity-driven approaches only make the problem worse. This is not a time management problem. It is a problem of clarity and agency.
This training invites participants to step back, see what is really happening, identify what is within their power, and find a meaningful path forward to take control back over their workload.
Course Objectives
- Understand what workload truly means in all its complexity
- Identify your zone of control, zone of influence, and what lies beyond your reach
- Shift from a passive stance (things happen to me) to that of being in the driver’s seat, and take concrete actions on what is within your power
- Open up conversations and give your team the same tools
- Break out of managerial isolation by naming things openly with peers
Programme
Module 1 - Understanding
- Key data on burnout, disengagement and workplace distress
- Redefining workload: tasks, relational pressure, mental load, life context
- Understanding the systemic nature of the problem: moving beyond the productivity mindset
- Tool: the Control / Influence / Acceptance circle
- Activity: mapping your own workload — naming what really weighs on you and identifying where you have room to act
Module 2 - Acting
Tools: Stop/Start/Continue, Eisenhower matrix
- Identifying your resistances: what is stopping me from letting go?
- Individual work: my action plan — what I let go of, what I focus on
- Paired sharing: anchoring the shift from “I endure” to “I move forward with meaning and energy”
Module 3 - Passing it on
- Making collective workload visible: naming the pressures within the team; diagnosing what is holding the team back to move forward together
- Tools: active listening protocol, team meeting protocol on workload
- Practical case: using collective intelligence to help resolve real challenges — the group works together
- Closing: one commitment, one conversation to have, one thing to change
Approach
The day itself is a model of what we want to create within teams: spaces for exchange, collective reflection, and authentic conversation. Each module alternates between conceptual input, personal reflection, and peer sharing. The goal is to step out of managerial isolation, name things for what they are, and practice together the kinds of conversations that can then be carried back to your teams.
Who Should Attend
The course is suitable for team or project managers of all engineering sectors wishing to regain a sense of agency over their workload.
Trainer Profile
Carine O’Flaherty, talent developer, coach, facilitator. for 20 years, carine built learning and talent development strategies across international organisations in tech, industry and outsourced services, including skillsoft, amadeus, rio tinto and niit, in france and ireland. from needs analysis to global programme deployment, leading digital transformation projects and cross-functional teams, carine knows what it looks like when talented people are stretched too thin, when complexity becomes noise, and when teams lose the thread of why they do what they do.Since 2021, she has worked independently as a consultant, facilitator and icf-accredited coach, partnering with multinationals and smes to develop leaders and teams. her work creates space for authentic conversation and reflection, helping people move from feeling overwhelmed to finding clarity, agency and meaning in how they work together. because when people learn the art of strategic conversation, they stop enduring complexity and start drawing strength from it.
the managing workload course has been designed in collaboration with jacqui syndercombe from syndercombe consulting. it started from collaborating to address challenges in one organisation. what started as a solution for one organisation has since resonated across many others facing the same reality.
Please contact the CPD training team for further information on scheduled course dates and in-company options.