How Much Time Does Your Manager Spend Managing?

What Piece Of The Puzzle Do Your Managers Become?

In this day and age the effort to manage limited budgets has caused every business model to develop work patterns for its employees that lean more in the direction of multi-tasking.  It is no longer affordable to operate a small business by employing specialists that perform a single role.  Delivery employees do more than drive the truck, load and unload the products.  Delivery people become part of the product receiving crew.  They participate in the inventory control system and handle the maintenance and repair of the facility.  They also become the mechanics for the vehicles and the equipment, provide the security for the plant, become the safety managers and are given the duty to manage the company energy use.  The limited budgets of a small business have forced the owners to graduated to these types employee demands.  Multi-tasking is a minimum requirement for landing a healthy job position.  Bookkeepers are also the marketing managers, the inventory control facilitators and the health care administrators, or visa versa.  Everybody employed wears a long list of job responsibilities.  Small business models believe this is the only way to function profitably.  Truthfully, it may be.

If you do not believe this to be true, pick up an employment section in the classified ads and read the descriptions of the duties described for the job openings.  Then call the number listed or go online where they have more information posted about the job descriptions and discover the original listing only included a few of the required duties.  It is amazing what we have come to expect.  I am guilty.  I hired people knowing full well how many different tasks they would be expected to perform all without giving it a second thought.  I had to get a lot of work done with very few people.  That is how most small business models are designed.  That is how most small business models will succeed.

Managing the work requirements in the small business world of today has led each employee to become so diversified and so filled with multi-tasked responsibilities that very few employees can tell a friend what their job description really is anymore.  A sales clerk may describe how they manage inventory, place orders, run reports of old stock, produce special customer mailing lists, develop the advertising program and handle all of the company customer service challenges.  The sales clerk is no longer the register clerk.  The list of duties and responsibilities they are expected to perform grow with each day.  When another employee leaves to take time off, the sales clerk now must add and perform the warehouse and cleaning duties once completed by the person taking time off.  Getting the work done in a small business model is a huge challenge.  In most models, it is obvious that the work load is much larger than the time a staff can devote to completing that work load.  A good manager sees this challenge and leads the staff as best as is possible.  Good managers 'fill in' where the need demands their time the most.  Good managers want to help their staff become more productive and lend a hand wherever they see fit to help make productivity happen.

How much time does your manager spend managing the duties they must do?  Is the time they devote to each day 'hi-jacked' by 'filling in' for the normal daily duties?  I think most owners do not see this trend.  Managers do not manage anymore.  They are too busy helping to become the clerks.  Owners expect the manager to do their management job after hours since they cannot find time during the day to accomplish this task.  It has become a widespread nightmare for nearly every small business model.  The world of tight budgeting has become plagued by the need to hire a manager who can do all of the other daily functions.  Owners have learned how to become frustrated with poor performing managers and do not understand why these managers are producing the short results they produce.  Every minute a manager spends on running the sales register is a minute of time not dedicated to working the necessary behind the scenes machinery of that business model which is so crucial to helping that business model to perform like a well run model.  Owners have come to accept how to 'hi-jack' the success of their managers.  How much time does your manager spend managing?

Are Your Managers Doing The Wrong Stuff?

Last night the wind blew very hard in our region.  Some tree limbs were laying on the ground around my house.  Some small branches and twigs were scattered about on my driveway and on top of my vehicle.  No damage was discovered, however.  I had some new work to do this morning before leaving for work.  I needed to remove a lot of the debris.  I found a place in the yard to make a small wood pile.  I spent nearly 30 minutes gathering up the stuff that needed to be removed.  I did not finish picking it all up because the wind came as a surprise.  I did not get going early enough in my routine day to add this new set of tasks to my already tight schedule.  I will pick the rest of it up later, when I have more time.  Some of the debris in the yard is too big to even mow the lawn.  It all needs to be removed.  We live next to 200 trees all around our house.  We are surrounded by a lot of small stuff that the wind tumbled down and about.  I also notice some of my possessions have been blown to areas they do not belong.  I will need to come home early and get a lot of this picking up stuff done.  My day is too jammed to do it right now.

Guess what might happen to me today?  My day will over-run its time with other stuff at work that happens just like this wind and debris stuff.  My day will likely run longer than expected and the things I wanted to do to clean the wind mess up will be left undone tonight.  I will need to push it off until tomorrow.  Right?  Does this sound familiar?  When employees and leaders have a full plate of multi-tasks to accomplish, any new interruption is a nightmare to manage.  Something has to give.  Good performance is usually the first thing to go.

I will get my week done as best as I can squeeze in but when I go to mow the lawn this weekend I will discover how I forgot to remove the debris and twigs from the yard after the wind storm a few days ago.  This is exactly how most people work their way through each day at their job.  They are constantly managing too many half done tasks and too many interruptions that interfere with the original tasks they were hired to perform.  They discover they eventually get bogged down with the twigs in the yard.

The manager is busy trying to 'fill-in' where the work demands have harnessed his attention the most.  It might likely be demanding the manager to run one of the sales registers for a little bit to help the staff get caught up.  It might likely be demanding that the manager handle the customer service phone lines for a little while.  It might likely be demanding that the manager help perform some of the packing room deliveries since the shipping staff is running behind.  Whatever the case, too many twigs and branches are getting in the way of the managers responsibilities.  The manager will not be able to mow the lawn without working extra hard on removing the debris of life.  Stuff will happen each day that will 'hi-jack' the managers ability to go to the office and perform the real management work needed to develop a successful model.  The managers duties will easily run second fiddle.  Second fiddle for a manager is not a very good sound an owner likes to hear.  When a manger plays second fiddle with their own job responsibilities, the solo sounds very empty.  It is not a pleasing sound.  Business models usually fail trying to perform this type of arrangement.

How much time does your manager spend managing?

I think it might be time for every owner to re-evaluate how they expect their managers to perform.  Make sure you did not hire a manager to become a 'fill-in' clerk, too.  If you did, you will lose.  You will also blame the manager for not being someone who can walk on water.  Just because the job market favors owners right now does not mean owners should maximize what they think they can hire.  Be honest and fair.  Hire a manager to manage.  Do not hire a manager to perform multiple tasks because the employment market is titled in your favor.  You may be sabotaging your best talent pool with foolish thinking.  Your results are likely labeled in the reports sitting on your desk.  They usually call those reports...budgets, inventory listings, comparisons sales reports, market analysis, cash-flow analysis and income statements.  I bet your manager spends less than 1 hour each day working on these types of things.  Most managers work every day hoping their reports come out well instead of guiding the reports to the desired end.

Oops.

Until next time...