Disclaimer: All names, workplaces, companies, and identifying details in this post have been fictionalized to protect privacy. Any resemblance to actual people or organizations is purely coincidental.
Lately, Angela has noticed what feels like a growing lack of communication, competence, and follow-through.
She recently contacted Greenwood Property Services about a minor electrical installation in her apartment. She was told someone would follow up, but more than a week passed without an update. Even after calling twice, she still did not know whether the request had been reviewed or assigned.
Similarly, when Danielle Carter was injured while working at Brighton Family Services, she had to locate forms and navigate much of the workplace-injury process herself instead of receiving clear guidance.
Why does the person requesting assistance increasingly have to become the coordinator, researcher, record keeper, and follow-up manager?
What Is This Called?
One term is administrative burden. It describes the time, effort, confusion, and emotional strain people experience while trying to access services or complete official processes.1
Another term is shadow work, unpaid labor that organizations shift onto customers, employees, patients, and tenants. People now schedule appointments, upload documents, track requests, correct errors, and coordinate communication that employees once handled.2
There is also diffusion of responsibility. Several people may participate in a process, but no one takes ownership of the final result.3
I also think of it as responsibility leakage: the organization is technically responsible, but the work gradually leaks back onto the person asking for help.
Why Is This Happening?
Organizations Are Operating Too Lean
Many organizations expect fewer employees to manage larger workloads. Human resources may be responsible for payroll, benefits, hiring, medical leave, injuries, and compliance. Property managers may handle maintenance, rent, inspections, contractors, and tenant concerns.
Heavy workloads and inadequate support can increase burnout, mistakes, and poor communication.4
High Turnover Weakens Knowledge
When experienced employees leave, organizations lose institutional knowledge. New workers may know how to enter a request into a system without understanding how to move it toward completion.5
They know how to open the ticket, but not how to own the process.
Work Is Too Fragmented
One person answers the telephone, another enters the request, a manager approves it, and someone else contacts a contractor.
Each person may complete a small task while assuming someone else will handle the rest. The customer becomes the only person following the entire situation.
Technology Creates the Appearance of Progress
A request can receive a ticket number, an automated reply, and several status updates without anyone actually resolving the issue.
Technology works well when it supports competent employees. It works poorly when it replaces judgment, communication, and accountability.
Activity Is Measured Instead of Results
Employees may be judged by how many emails they answer or tickets they close rather than whether the underlying problem is solved.
A request may look completed inside the system while remaining unresolved in real life.
Why Does the Work Fall Back on the Individual?
The person needing help has the greatest motivation to see the process completed.
The organization can forget the request and continue operating. The tenant, employee, customer, or patient cannot because the consequences affect their home, health, income, or safety.
That imbalance forces responsible people to keep calling, documenting, correcting, and escalating.
Eventually, “You have to advocate for yourself” begins to sound like:
Do everyone else’s job in addition to your own.
No One is Asking for Perfection
Most people understand that delays happen. What makes the experience exhausting is the silence and lack of ownership.
A functioning organization should be able to say:
“We received your request.”
“This person is handling it.”
“We are waiting for approval.”
“You will receive another update by Friday.”
People are not demanding perfection. They are asking for basic communication, accountability, and follow-through.
Someone should receive the request.
Someone should own the process.
Someone should explain what happens next.
And someone should make sure it is completed.
Footnotes
Donald Moynihan, Pamela Herd, and Hope Harvey describe administrative burden through the learning, psychological, and compliance costs people experience while interacting with institutions. (Oxford Academic) ↩
Shadow work includes tasks transferred from businesses to customers through self-service systems and technology. (Financial Times) ↩
Diffusion of responsibility occurs when shared accountability reduces individual ownership. (PubMed) ↩
Excessive workloads and inadequate support can contribute to burnout, reduced productivity, and mistakes. (American Psychological Association) ↩
Employee turnover can result in the loss of institutional knowledge and specialized expertise. (U.S. Government Accountability Office) ↩
No comments:
Post a Comment