Are Managers Overburdened With Work?

In order for an organization to function, managers play a crucial role. Managers strive to improve the efficacy and efficiency of their teams, projects, and businesses as a whole. Planning, organizing, leading, and regulating are the four critical tasks that managers manage and which help an organization run smoothly. However, it is important to think about are managers overburdened with work? given a lot on their plates. In this edition of the “HBR IdeaCast” podcast on the “Google Podcasts” platform, Lynda Gratton, professor at London Business School and creator of HSM, analyze the issue and suggests a few solutions.

The podcast opens by emphasizing that managers undoubtedly have a lot of work to do in light of the rapid technological development, flattening hierarchies, agile work, and new attitudes towards talent. They are accountable for the firm’s play development, organizational culture, and digital transformation in addition to the business outcomes. They must manage projects remotely, flexibly, and empathically. Therefore, it is obvious that the answer to the question “Are managers overburdened with work?” is a resounding yes. As a result, Lynda starts out by outlining a few practical suggestions for redefining the job of a manager and reconsidering their duties in order to scale back and enhance them. According to her, establishing a middle ground between managers and executives—where managers agree to give their all to the task at hand and executives give their all to the growth of managers—is the key to redefining the job of a manager. The first suggestion she makes to improve managers’ jobs is to teach executives to be people leaders. The least that employers can do, according to her, is to make sure that their supervisors are not being burned out. She also says that leaders need to provide learning opportunities for managers. She proposes outsourcing certain tedious managerial responsibilities in her second advice. A portion of the manager’s activities that appear monotonous and can now be readily completed utilizing the newest technology and digital transformation, must be outsourced. This will provide them the time they need to focus their energies on the more critical activities and handle them more effectively. According to her last recommendation, firms can split the manager’s position such that some monitor work while others address talent development. This allows individuals to apply for jobs in the fields in which they are most interested, and it also gives managers fewer responsibilities to oversee, resulting in a lower workload. This would not only lower their chances of burnout but will also promote a happy and orderly work environment.

The conversation in this episode clearly proves that the answer to the question “Are managers overburdened with work?” is a resounding yes. Given their importance to the corporation, firms must implement improvements to ensure that they complete the appropriate amount of work without experiencing burnout. The aforementioned are some effective ways firms can accomplish this suggested by Lynda Gratton.