Monday Quickie – 4 Signs Tedious Work Is Holding Your Employees Back

​It’s inescapable.  Inevitably many of us have or are at present spending time on work or projects which can be classified as busy work.  We don’t like it, but we’ve convinced ourselves, or better yet someone tried convincing us, that the work or task needs to be done and done by us.  Much to our chagrin.   
 
Welcome to the trap of a nasty little productivity killer called non-value add work.  Also known as mundane, tedious and even boring work.
 
Non-value add work takes on many forms and shapes depending on the business you’re in and your respective your role within the company.
 
If you’re an engineer tedious, non-value add work could include drafting, documentation and report writing.  Your passion is designing next generation products but you’re inundated with a slew of tasks which are anything but new and exciting.  Perhaps you’re in a leadership role and as such find yourself scheduling meetings, setting up company events, or ordering lunch for your team, etc. 
 
While none of these tasks are of absolutely zero value, when you take into consideration the person doing them they all of a sudden fall into the category of non-value add work.  An executive spending time ordering lunch for their team is a poor use of their skills, compensation and time.  That doesn’t mean it’s below the person to do so, it means it’s a terrible measure from a productivity standpoint. 
 
For example, if you’re a senior engineer making $125k annual salary and you find yourself doing documentation work periodically throughout the week in essence your company is now paying someone 2 or 2.5 times more to do the work than the person who should really be facilitating it.  This of course only looks at the financial side of the equation, it’s also important to take into consideration how the employee feels doing work that is tedious or of non-value in comparison to their skill level.
 
The biggest fallout of employees being inundated with non-value add work is it takes times away from them focusing on core mission critical work that directly impacts the company’s bottom line and or has the biggest return on investment.

​Most employees have an instinctive ability to know when they’re in situations of doing work that isn’t aligned with their skill set, it’s their managers that have a hard time recognizing it and therefore taking corrective actions to improve work flows and employees performance.
 
For all you managers who struggle with identifying when your employees are stuck with non-value add work, this one’s for you.  Symptoms include:
1.Work or tasks they’re doing can be done by someone else at a significantly reduced cost
2.Your employee spends 80% of their time on 20% of their work responsibilities (Pareto Principle)
3.They become increasingly negative and withdrawn, displaying a cynical attitude and uncooperative team mentality
4.Your employee ‘mails it in’, meaning they do just enough to get by but their heart isn’t in it and as a result the quality of the output suffers
 
When your employees are happy they in turn will do their best work; much can be said for when they are unhappy or burdened with work they deem a poor use of their skills or time the output will often be poor.  This doesn’t mean you have a bad employee or one that is incapable, it may just mean you have someone who’s heart isn’t in the work they’re doing.  As a manager it’s ultimately your responsibility to identify this and do something about out.
 
So what’s the bottom line here?
 
Non-value add work leads to poor performance and unhappy employees.  These two items lead to employee attrition which is a huge cost towards the company.
 
As managers, how do we go about combating situations where employees are burdened with work that isn’t in alignment with their skills and or isn’t a value add to the organization?
 
The two best answers to solve this problem are remarkably simple:
1.Shift the work to another employee who’s skill set is better aligned with the task at hand (ie – have a Drafter or junior engineer do drawing revisions, not a senior engineer)
2.Consider outsourcing work such as drafting, design, technical writing and document control to a reliable supplier
 
Both of these solutions can help you get to the promise land where your boring, tedious, non-value add work is done well and your employees can go back to being the happy go lucky people they’ve always been.  When your employees are able to focus their efforts on the mission critical work you hired them for the company as a whole benefits.
 
Key Take Away:
Recognizing your employees are being burdened with non-value add work before it becomes a problem is key to keep your employees happy, working diligently and employed within your organization.  No one likes to do work that isn’t of interest to them, at least for significant periods of time.
 
Action Item:
Read up on the Pareto Principle.  Begin aligning your employees with the tasks that represent the highest and most valuable output to the company and in line with their skill set.  Following the Pareto Principle, these tasks often represent 20% of the employees work responsibilities, yet attribute to 80% of their successful work performance and therefore company performance.  When you identify tasks which are distractions for your employees and remove them from their workload you will see in short time your teams effectiveness soars in parallel with your employees general demeanor and happiness at work.
 
Are your employees burdened with tedious, non-value add work?  Contact Square-1 Engineering at www.square1engineering.com to learn how we can help solve your biggest engineering and technical business challenges.