The allocation of people and work, seems pretty simple. And why not. There's been work since humans climbed down from trees. Finding food, making shelter and defending your stuff is primeval. And since that time many people have done work for others too. So allocating work is almost second nature us.
When you allocate work to others, or yourself, or have recieved work, have you considered what drove that decision? Ultimately an allocation decision might be simple in itself, however, it’s based on an astounding number of influences, that we generally take granted.
Here’s one view of allocation considerations that might have actually influenced your last decision to allocate work to people.
Are there considerations that you think are missing? Wellbeing, for example? Maybe that’s an outcome driven by policy and objectives. What about, flexible hours? Again, that’s policy and the number of people you have available. No doubt this model is incomplete. Its intent, however, is to provide a framework that expands our understanding
Human values might be a surprise inclusion. When applied to Human Limits, Human Values have driven Agreed Boundaries - ‘rules of the workplace’. However, no amount of legislation and rules can cover all situations. Managers routinely make allocation decisions drawing on their own values to judge, for example, what a reasonable workload is. If this is the case however, why is it that more than 40% of workplace stress comes from excessive workload? Is it that the harmful impact of stress is not understood? Or, do managers just struggle to predict workload? Or when it comes to the crunch, do some organisations turn a blind to Human Values? Maybe it’s a combination of all of these.
Many managers, however, do successfully balance the amount of work, with the number of people – in small teams. In larger organisations, however, there’s more at stake because inefficiencies and headache’s can grow. The drive for better results, through greater consistency and optimisation, requires organisations to better manage these considerations before allocating work to people.
The problem is that managing a lot of allocation considerations, at scale, can makes good workforce allocation too complex to be done well. This is particularly true if considerations are taken for granted and are not well understood.
Published 9 September 2020 © Copyright - Alex James
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