Your Employees Aren't Really Doing Their Jobs -- How to Help

Employees are spending more and more time at work but less time doing the actual tasks they were hired to do TheU.S. State Of Enterprise Work Report, aWorkfrontsurveyreleased in July, found that,of the 606 employees participating, the average work weekwas45.1 hours.

Describing their typical work day, respondents said that they spent only39 percent of iton primary duties.

When tasks outside employees' normal workloads take up a majority of theirwork day, tensions canrise. And, althoughcollaboration is certainly a huge part of the modern workplace, employers should step in, to ensure that employees aren’t wasting valuable time, or feeling overworked:

1. Simplify the work process.

Employees can waste a lot of time cutting through red tape. performing redundant steps in order to conform to someone else’s process can be exhausting and frustrating. Companies should allow their team membersa bit of freedom to follow through in a way that’s most productive to them.

It’s also crucial to check in and make sure employees are not making extra work for themselves. Recognize and suggest to employees the shortest amount of steps possible for each task.Some staffers may take each step literally;others may add a few extra steps to help their own inpidual process.

However, if it seems like people are taking too much time to wrap things up, check in to see if they’re creating unnecessary complicated steps.

2.58003

Even managers are spending time on tasks they shouldn’t be doing, according to the State Of Worksurvey of 1,000 managers by ServiceNow. Managers in the survey said they spent at least 15 hours a week -- almost two days' worth -- on administrative duties. This imbalance creates an issue within the structure of the system and prevents leaders from completing strategic work.

Sit down with employees to see what duties they’re completing every day. Look at what is actually part of their job description and what is being unnecessarily passed on to them due to a poorly structured work system. Create a newly-defined list of functions for each person based off these responses.

Many managers, however, don’t have time to sit down to p out what every employee is, should beand needs to be doing. If that’s the case, try a habit-coaching tool, like Coach.me, to keep employees accountable for tasks that matter, and incentivize them to keep on track.

3. Assess unrealistic goals.

Unrealistic goals may stress out employees, makingthem feel negativeabout their job. Workers want to do well and hit their goals, so any feelings they may have that they’ll never reach them or don't havethe tools to do so can create a negative work environment.

58003

Look at how well employees are hitting their goals. If it seems that they’re being met but only after employees stayat work for 46 hours each week, those goals need reassessment. Have an open-door policy where each team member can feelcomfortable discussing his or her concerns aboutgoals.

Discuss management’s expectations, but also encourageemployees to express what they themselves believecan be done to help hit their goals without spending extra time at work.

Ignoring unrealistic goals can cost organizations some of their best employees.

4. Be realistic about talent needs.

Spending extra time at work because managers don’t want to hire or are unaware of hiring needs is discouraging for current employees. performing their own tasks on top of what another person should be doing can prove unnerving and tiring.

Look into how many extra hours are being logged at your company. How much extra time are employees spending at work? Is this happening only during busy weeks or is it aregular occurrence? If the normal work day structure is eight hours, and employees are staying 11 hours almost every day for weeks, the time totake another look at hiring is now