Shortcomings of Employee Multitasking

Everything in life comes with some positives and some negatives. Every coin has two sides and the same logic applies to employee multitasking as well. Employee multitasking has both pros as well as cons.

Let us go through the shortcomings of employee multitasking:

Employees who are responsible for many things at workplace are generally overburdened than others who are handling specialized tasks.

Tom was handling multiple responsibilities in Organization A. He was not only responsible for promoting Organization A’s products but also maintaining his as well as his team’s data, team attendance and even attending client’s calls.

During peak season he had to spend half of his day meeting clients and the rest of the day preparing reports for his immediate superiors. He was happy for initial six months, and then he started cribbing and eventually left the organization within a year.

What was the reason as to why Tom quit his job? Tom was indeed getting a handsome salary in Organization A but could not handle the pressure and challenge of handling multiple responsibilities simultaneously. He was doing well and in fact his superiors were happy with his performance as well.

Tom would have got a nice appraisal also had he survived there for a long time.

Multitasking leads to employees being stressed out and frustrated and eventually losing interest in work. In such cases work becomes a burden for them and they find it extremely difficult to deliver their level best in all fields. Something or the other does suffer.

Multitasking also leads to employees being overburdened. Common observation says that employees who are overburdened neither enjoy their work nor are bothered to achieve the goals and objectives of the organization within the shortest possible time frame. They attend office just for the sake of it.

It is essential for the employees to work with passion for them to excel in whatever they do. When employees do many things simultaneously, they, in due course of time, lose focus. Work done without dedication and sincerity is never up to the mark.

Employee multitasking in some cases also decreases productivity of employees. Multitasking employees find it extremely difficult to finish all their assignments on time. If we look at the above example where Tom in Organization A was handling multiple responsibilities, if Tom went for a client meeting, he could not maintain his data and vice a versa.

During month ends, when he had a deadline to follow neither could he send employee attendance on time nor mail consolidated reports to his Bosses. In such a scenario, productivity does go down and output is never up to the mark. Tom could not concentrate on a particular task as he had to do so many things together.

Organizations where employees are responsible for handling multiple tasks simultaneously suffer a lot if individuals concerned take leaves or quit all of a sudden.

Peter was a multitasking employee who did almost everything in Organization B.

Peter worked really hard and contributed a lot towards the profitability of organization B. In due course of time, he found an excellent opportunity and decided to move on. He left all of a sudden and joined a new organization. No other individual could do what Peter was doing. Who suffered the most?

Is it Peter, or his fellow workers or the Organization itself?

Ofcourse, it was Organization B which suffered the most. Management was so dependent on Peter that it was very difficult for them to find a new individual who could match Peter’s calibre.

Employees also sometimes become high headed and start taking undue advantage when they know there is nobody else who can handle multiple responsibilities.