Slingshot has unveiled additional insights from its 2023 Digital Work Trends Report, exposing a gap between leaders’ expectations for work standards and employees’ actual needs for productivity and performance. Despite the common practice of frequent check-ins by employers to monitor progress and enhance productivity, employees disclose that having clear priorities (42%) and established deadlines (30%) would contribute more significantly to their productivity.
Slingshot’s Digital Work Trends Report explores the relationship between employees’ productivity and management. The report shines a light on how employees’ productivity and performance are impacted by many of the things they look to their leaders for, including priorities, deadlines, and the amount of work they’re responsible for. The report also reveals a generational divide in the ways employees navigate work and manage as leaders.
“Employees often feel overloaded, unsure of priorities and deadlines, and afraid to say no to additional work–even when they have too much on their plates already. And leaders are left scrambling when employees haven’t been focusing on the highest-value task or miss deadlines after taking on too much. This is all caused by a lack of visibility and alignment across teams,” said Dean Guida, Founder, Slingshot.
The new, inaugural report is based on research conducted by market research firm Dynata, on behalf of Slingshot.
Among the findings:
- Employees are overloaded and unguided–and they’re losing half of their day because of it. Employees say their productivity is most negatively impacted when they have too many projects/tasks on their plate (37%), don’t know what their priorities are (25%) and have no set deadlines (17%). A majority of employees (64%) say they lose at least 1-2 productive hours a day when they don’t have deadlines–with 22% of employees saying they lose 3-4 hours each day. Having to juggle too many projects follows closely, with 62% of employees losing at least 1-2 productive hours a day and 20% saying they lose 3+ hours to it.
- More meetings don’t mean more productivity. More than half of leaders feel the need to closely supervise employees when they are not delivering quality work (69%) or hitting deadlines (52%). But employees feel micromanaged when their boss checks in on them too often (45%) or they have unnecessary status meetings (43%). In fact, 25% of employees say work meetings are the most frustrating interruption throughout their day.
- Generations and genders differ in their approach to determining priorities in the workplace. Nearly half (49%) of Millennial workers (ages 27-42) guess what’s most important when they are not given priorities, while 33% of Boomer workers (ages 59+) and 35% of Gen X + Y workers (ages 43-58) choose what to do. A majority (55%) of Gen Z workers (ages 18-26) say they communicate with their colleagues to identify priorities. Males and females differ in their approach as well: 43% of females communicate with their colleagues to identify priorities while 45% of males say they choose what they want to do.
“Where employees spend their time is where their priorities lie–but this often doesn’t line up with their leaders and the larger goals of the company. Once teams are aligned on goals and objectives, employees are clear on their priorities and expected outcomes and leaders can have peace of mind that the right things are getting done in a timely manner. This is what will drive business results,” continued Guida.
The two-part 2023 Digital Work Trends Report is based on responses from 305 adult respondents working full-time as employees and leaders, across four age groups and all 50 states. View the full Slingshot 2023 Digital Work Trends Report Findings.
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