This piece "Managers drowning in paperwork" by Leon Gettler from Management Line on Fairfax Digital ought to resonate with anyone in business whatever their role:
"At the end of last month, I did a blog entry looking at how much time people waste at work. But that's even more true for managers who have spent years working their guts out to get a promotion. But when they get there, they start asking themselves what was it all for? So much of their time seems to get wasted on papework.
Managers always tell me about the time they spend pushing around bits of paper, and attending meetings that seem to go nowhere. It seems to come with the territory.
An interesting global report from Proudfoot Consulting tells us how much managers' time actually gets wasted and the figures are scary.
This is a critical issue because it goes to the heart of one of the oldest management problems: how do you get your people to do more without actually paying them extra? Particularly when they already feel they are doing the work of two or three people?
The study of 1276 mid-level managers in 12 countries around the world, including Australia, reveal that managers spend 34% of their time on administrative tasks. Even more alarming is the finding that it's getting worse. Unproductive workforce time rose 2.2 points in 2007. Think about that. This means people are spending 1.7 days of every workweek on unproductive activities."
"At the end of last month, I did a blog entry looking at how much time people waste at work. But that's even more true for managers who have spent years working their guts out to get a promotion. But when they get there, they start asking themselves what was it all for? So much of their time seems to get wasted on papework.
Managers always tell me about the time they spend pushing around bits of paper, and attending meetings that seem to go nowhere. It seems to come with the territory.
An interesting global report from Proudfoot Consulting tells us how much managers' time actually gets wasted and the figures are scary.
This is a critical issue because it goes to the heart of one of the oldest management problems: how do you get your people to do more without actually paying them extra? Particularly when they already feel they are doing the work of two or three people?
The study of 1276 mid-level managers in 12 countries around the world, including Australia, reveal that managers spend 34% of their time on administrative tasks. Even more alarming is the finding that it's getting worse. Unproductive workforce time rose 2.2 points in 2007. Think about that. This means people are spending 1.7 days of every workweek on unproductive activities."
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