WHY ARE YOUR MARKETING AND CREATIVE TEAMS DOING REDUNDANT WORK?

Being forced to do something you hate is an awful feeling, but we don’t usually think about our team members’ assignments in those same terms. What’s worse, tasks that don’t add noticeable value to a company are frequently assigned without much thought to the damage they might do.

This could be something as simple as manually inputting data when there are simple tools that can automate the process. It could be asking your creative team to create dozens of variations of an image for different purposes.

How can you tell the difference between necessary and redundant work – and what can you do about it?

Legitimate vs. redundant work

Say that a server goes down and the whole team needs to work late to fix the issue. Nobody likes being forced to work long hours, yet the results are undeniably valuable. This kind of legitimate work helps build stronger teams.

On the other hand, it’s incredibly demotivating to request someone to do something unpleasant without a good reason. Imagine if your boss demanded – with no explanation – that you manually resize hundreds of images when you know there are effective tools to do this automatically. You’d be deeply frustrated by this unnecessary request.

Redundant tasks are bad for business – and workers

In fact, being asked to perform monotonous duties has a deep effect on our psychology. One Danish study found that redundant jobs were “associated with increased self-reported stress, cortisol, and counterproductive work behavior.”

If you’re adding stress, making your employees feel like they’re taken advantage of, and pushing them into toxic behaviors, your teams will suffer – and productivity will, too. So what should you be doing differently? The answer is two-fold.

1. Reducing redundant work for team members

Look at the common jobs you assign to your marketing and creative teams and identify what can be automated. For more precise feedback, consider creating an anonymous poll to ask team members what work falls under this category.

Once these elements are identified, you may discover that the issue really comes down to poor communication. In these cases, the solution is simple: Ensure your team members understand why they’re being asked to carry out that specific task. Put yourself in their shoes, clarify issues, and apologise for not better explaining it beforehand.

If this isn’t the case, it’s time to find ways to eliminate those duties.

2. Empowering your team members with the right tools

Automating repetitive tasks offers several key benefits. The first is greater efficiency: When one team member can do more, your overall ROI improves.

Second, automation shows team members that you’re willing to invest in making work better for them.

Using StreamEye, designers no longer need to create dozens of sizes of a single banner image. Your marketers won’t need to manually update PPC ad copy. Not only will your business save massively on time, but your team will also feel more valued, empowered and – unsurprisingly – more productive.

Improve your marketing and creative work today

At a time when many of us are working remotely, it’s never been more important to supercharge and streamline your marketing efforts. Our experts look forward to showing you how StreamEye can take your team to the next level. Get in touch today!