hi,
please try rio package - https://www.rdocumentation.org/packages/rio/versions/0.5.16 - it helps a lot with all type of data. if you need to import several worksheets, you can use:
library(rio)
import_list("your_excel_file.xlsx")
rio uses data.table::fread(), so if needed please see fread doc for separate char, factor on strings, and other variables..
Not knowing an example what you trying to import - its impossible to solve your problem, I can just advise whats the best way to do import of xlsx data.