4 Red Flags That Administrative Work is Sucking the Life From Your Team
When everything requires three signatures, you have to rethink your process.
By Jonathan Segal •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Entrepreneurs live to create, develop and refine products and services. They love using creativity to make a difference. The smart ones know they need the support of those who are comfortable with administrative stuff. Somebody has to make the trains run on time!
Administrative work needs to be valued but, over and over, I hear entrepreneurs complain they spend too much on administrative work of questionable value. "Administration" can become a behemoth that crushes creativity and steals time. Here are four red flags that administration may be interfering with your mission.
1. To get an answer you have to talk with many people.
If you regularly need to speak with five people to get one answer, you have a problem. Time is not only money but also energy. When no one knows the whole picture, then those with power will have more power but at the expense of profitability and the sanity of the employees.
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2. Regularly hearing "not my job."
Most employees sincerely want to do a good job. More often than not, employees welcome the opportunity to expand their skill. Of course, there is the occasional employee who will say "not my job." But, what if that is something you routinely hear from different people in different words or ways?
The pattern may speak volumes. As insane as it sounds, the employees may have been instructed not to help. Use your people skills to ask directly and respectfully why the resistance. Listen not only to what is said but also what is not said. You may find the employee is uncomfortable with not helping as you are in getting the help you need. But, the employee is simply following orders.
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3. Rigid rules instead of value-based rules.
We need values-based rules, such as not tolerating harassing conduct, and to enforce such values-based rules aggressively. This is different from rigid rules relating to operations that have no relationship to values or the evolving nature of business.
Every organization must have structure. But, some rules are implemented just to give those who enforce them power. In other cases, a rule may have made sense at a given time but no longer does. Ask why the rule exists. Sometimes people don't even know why they have rules other than, "We always have done it this way."
Other times the rules assume the worst of all employees. Guess what: that's what they bring out, too.
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4. Redundant paperwork.
A friend of mine refers to the term as "administrivia." The more forms, the better. To increase the torture, administration insists on multiple signatures. Worse yet, only certain people can fill out those forms. A salesperson I met took a job for less pay because she was tired of filling out forms rather than taking care of customers.
If you are considering applying for a job with the government to escape the behemoth bureaucracy that hides under the label of administration, you have a problem.
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What do you do? Stop complaining about administration if you feel your administrative function is out of control. Make sure those in leadership know where administration provides support or where it creates unnecessary obstacles.
If you provide factual concrete examples to leadership where administration provides unnecessary obstacles, you should get relief. If not, you may need to look to another employer to provide it.
