Sample Email To Boss About Workload

You feeling overworked and want to write an email to your Boss. However, you don’t want to sound whiny, so you need to carefully craft the content of your email to convey your grievance without presenting a negative image of yourself.

Simply taking on more load than you can handle does not benefit yourself or the company. It’s better to speak up about the situation so your superior can identify the reason for the problem and the right approach to address it.

If you’re worried about how you’re going to appropriately structure the email, we have you covered. This article will provide tips to help you as well as templates you can modify to suit your needs

Why Write An Email To Your Boss

While there’re various reasons why you may send an email to your boss, we’ll be listing a few of the most common below.

Requesting time off
Posing a query about the workplace
Task completion confirmation
Deadline extension
Showing appreciation
Sharing crucial details about a task or project

How To Email Your Boss

While tools like Slack and Teams are leveraged for easier communication across organizations worldwide, emails continue to be used in these organizations, especially when communicating with a supervisor over formal correspondence.

Decide On Your Reason For Writing The Email

Workplaces are professional settings and Bosses expect any emails to be professional. This means the email should not deviate from the original purpose. Any relevant information that would present your case should be included in the email.

If you’re requesting time off from work, you should include the exact duration, the date range from which you’d be absent, and your reasons for the request.

Clear Subject Line

While you would not be able to include all relevant information in the subject line of the email, it should present the general purpose of the email within a few words.

This helps your boss or supervisor locate the email, understand the possible content even before reading the full message and finally ascertain the importance and urgency of the email.

After all, your boss would most likely have a busy schedule. A clear subject line would help them identify the urgency of the email especially when they have a boatload of work to get done.
Examples of subject lines:
{{Project name}} completed on {{Date completed}}
Question on {{Topic}}
Request for time off from {{Date}} to {{Date}}
Extension request for {{Project name}}
Thank you for {{Reason for thanks}}

Use Proper Name

Coming down to the body of the email, you should identify the name your boss wishes for you or the general employee body to call them.

If they prefer to be addressed by their first names, you should address them as such. On the other hand, if you aren’t sure how they want to be addressed, you can either ask your colleagues or simply use your boss’ surname.

Keep in mind your workplace culture at this point. Some workplaces encourage informal communication between all members of the organization.
For informal workplaces, you start with:
Good {{morning/afternoon/evening}}, {{Boss’ firstname}}
In the case of a very formal workplace where you aren’t sure of the best way to address your boss, you can simply start with:
Dear {{Mr. /Mrs /Ms. Surname}}
Hello {{Mr. /Mrs /Ms. Surname}}

State Your Reason

Following the salutation, your email’s opening paragraph should explain its purpose. Opening the email by explaining your reasoning keeps the email concise and clear.

You can with something like this:
I wanted to reach out and let you know that I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed with my workload.
I would like to request time off from {{Date}} to {{Date}}
I am emailing to say thank you for {{Reason for thanks}}
My team and I would like to request an extension on {{Project name}} from {{Initial/current deadline}} to {{New deadline you’re requesting}}

Provide An Explanation

Now that your first sentence has presented your reason for the email, you need to provide details. Refrain from including any unnecessary content which does not help clarify your email. Only include relevant content.

Advice Actions To Be Taken

If you need your boss to take some form of action, you should include information on the necessary actions. For example, if you’d like your boss to approve a deadline change, you should include information on any task that your boss needs to complete upon receiving and reviewing the email.

End Formally

At this point, you can thank your boss for taking the time to review your request and then reiterate any relevant information before signing off.

Examples of closing lines include:
Thank you for your time in reviewing this email
Please let me know if you have any questions
You can reach out to me with further questions or for more information

Signature

Official emails to your boss should be signed off with your official signature which includes your full name, job title, department if applicable, and contact details when available.

This can be easy if you’ve already created your signature template for your company email. The system would automatically include your signature in every email.

If you haven’t created a signature template for your email, you should manually include this in your email to your boss.

It can be something like this:
Sincerely,
{{Fullname}}
{{Department if applicable}}
{{Job role/title}}
{{Contact details (optional)}}

Tips For Writing An Email To Your Boss

Writing a professional email to your boss isn’t rocket science. Just keep in mind that they’re in a position of authority and you’re emailing them in a professional capacity. Let’s look at some general things to keep in mind when writing such emails.

Use Work Email

Refrain from contacting your boss through your personal email. Most organizations implement some form of spam filter that may flag personal emails as spam.

The last thing anyone wants is to send an urgent message to their boss only to find out days later that they never got the email. Emails that come through the company emails are whitelisted ensuring that your boss receives them inside their inbox.

This is why most organizations provide their employees with company emails for communication within the company as well as correspondence with external companies.

Keep It Concise

Your boss probably receives loads of emails daily. The last thing they want to do is to spend precious time reading through a long email to determine its content.

No matter how important your email may be, your boss is not likely to spend 30 minutes trying to understand its content. It’s advisable to use short and clear wording to easily convey the content of your message.

Proofread

No one likes reading terrible grammar, especially in a professional setting. It’s advisable to proofread your email to identify any grammatical errors before sending it to your boss.

Tools like Grammarly are readily available to help identify errors in your writing. Keep in mind that these tools aren’t perfect. So manually proofreading your email can further enhance your message.

Easy To Understand

Your boss most likely receives tens of emails daily, especially in the case of larger organizations. Ensure that your email is easy to under within the shortest amount of time.

To determine this, you can ask a colleague to skim through the email to test whether it’s easy to understand and adequately presents the necessary information.