Tag: teams management

A Reddit member writes: Our senior leadership keeps dropping this “One [company name] mindset” slogan and they are using it to ask employees to perform functions beyond their job description and functional area, even going as far as temporarily re-naming entire teams to reflect a function that they weren’t hired to do, and is frankly a poor use of their expertise.

I’m hearing a lot of grumbling from my team, many of them seeing through this thinly-veiled re-skinning of the “family” exploitative trope.

Indeed, some team leads are more willingly adopting the slogan and are offering up their teams to be re-purposed, while others are protecting their teams and keeping them focused on their responsibilities. It’s causing a lot of angst because people are seeing their workloads increase while simultaneously diminishing their impact and visibility.

Minda Zetlin responds:

First of all, the slogan itself isn’t the problem. There’s nothing inherently wrong with saying “We’re all one company,” or “We’re a family here.” Some (rare) companies actually do treat their employees like family.

And it’s not necessarily bad to ask employees to perform tasks outside their regular duties. I get that those tasks are not in their job descriptions and aren’t a good use of their skills. But the real question is this: What does the company need most, and how can it best use its resources to accomplish those most essential tasks? In a fast-changing world, reassigning people to different jobs may be the best way, or the only way, to accomplish that. You mentioned that it’s a small company, and it’s common in small companies for people to take on multiple roles.

I see three big problems here. First, the company is asking your team members to put in a lot of extra work without any extra reward. I think that’s fine on a very temporary basis, if there’s an all-hands-on-deck sort of event. But stretching that over the any kind of long term leads to poorly done work, unhappy employees, and burnout.

Second, the new policy is being applied inconsistently. Team leaders who don’t go along with it are able to insulate their teams from the extra work. Team leaders who cooperate are watching their teams do extra work with no extra recognition. Third, and worst of all, you mentioned in the comments that some team members who took on extra tasks are now getting negative feedback for not making more progress in their real jobs. That’s unfair and infuriating, and you have every right to be angry about it.

From what you’ve said, it sounds like the smartest thing would be for you, too, to reject the new system and join the leaders who are shielding their teams from this thankless extra work. There seems to be no benefit in complying, and lots of drawbacks. It’s like the old saying that no good deed goes unpunished.

Can you negotiate for your team?

Because compliance is inconsistent throughout the company I also wonder whether you can use it to negotiate with management on your team’s behalf. For example, can you ask for a bigger bonus at bonus time for those who pitch in? Or to have their participation factored in to their performance reviews? Can you ask to have deadlines and other benchmarks changed for their real jobs so they won’t be punished for taking on additional tasks?

As a team leader, it’s your job to help the company succeed, but also to advocate for your team. Things get tricky when those two roles conflict, as they do here. But you’ve seen clearly that taking on extra work is a lose-lose proposition for your team. So your best choice here is to protect them as much as you can.

Got an ethical dilemma of your own? Send it to Minda at minda@mindazetlin.com. She may address it in a future column.