I recently had a discussion with an old friend of mine. She is currently overloaded with work, and really starts to show heavy signs of burnout. The funny thing about this is that she has a secretary who does nothing day in day out…
When asked about why her secretary is idle all day, she says that giving her a task is pointless as she would need to go over it with her once again; and that would take more time than doing it herself.
At the first glance, her maths work out. Writing report x takes 2h, having assitant write it and review it afterwards takes 3h. Obviously, method number 1 is cheaper… .
However, what is forgotten in the example above is that good people can learn. You can probably still recall the first articles that some of us wrote on TamsPalm when we were new – but now, all of us write much better than we ever did before!
So, training your staff can and usually will pay out. Most activites in business are somewhat repeating; having your assistant trained to handle an especially annoying task will pay out big on the long run.
Of course, the hour lost into training is annoying today – however, tomorrow, when x’ is needed, your assistant can start saving time. This example probably oversimplifies the matter, but employees usually stay at a company for a long time. Investing 50 hours of training can pay out in a year if the person saves you a single hour of work each week.
Last but not least, a word on staff that doesnt want to learn. They need to go…really!
When you go to work tomorrow, look at the environment that you create for your secretaries/analysts/programmers/foos. Can they learn in a safe way(aka no punishment for mistakes)? Is there someone who mentors them? Are YOU mentoring them?
What do you think?
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I agree. A secretary is supposed to take away a lof of the work that is administrative in nature. The higher up’s job is to take care of her own work, not wasting her valuable time doing something else.
Imagine a surgeon being taken away from doing surgery but instead, having to find the tools himself, doing all the other work like monitoring the blood pressure, etc. How effective will he be?
If the secretary isn’t effective, then get another one if you can’t waste time teaching her to do the task properly. There should be lots of potential candidates waiting at the door willing and able to fill the job.
Efficiency as being ourselves is partly using our time and energy wisely. Hopefully, the Palm can help in many instances.
Just my 2 cents.
[...] If you want things like mentoring and patronship delegation to work, you need to give your employees the ability to work on their own. If you micromanage your employees or fire them at the smallest mistake, they will feel helpless and fall back into gofor mode; if they feel responsibility and “power”; they will grow! [...]
With regards to the topic at hand, Empowerment is the key here in my opinion.
Simple example – certain traffic wardens become very empowered and play on this power (would never generalise!)
But they are given a feeling of importance, which they thrive on.
The point being that mundane work needs spicing up.
People need to feel that they are worthwhile – that their duties are necessary as well as important.
To Re-title a secretary as an assistant for example, as well as addressing responsibilities, is a step away from the old mindset eluded to at the top.
The CEO, Executive and Managment levels should know that they are necessary to the running of a company (some more than others!) this should permiate rather like the writing inside a stick of rock right through an entire organisation – the results can be quite telling.
the palm? you need to address the issue of whether someone can do the job or not before expecting the palm to to it for them.