When a job requires a worker to perform all tasks to complete a job from beginning to end?
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Duties. Deliverables. Deadlines. No matter if an employee is working as part of a tiny startup based in the CEO’s basement, or a multinational company with offices across the globe, there are important tasks that each and every employee needs to knock out the park. But how can companies ensure their employees can complete tasks effectively? And that employees aren’t creating a backlog of work for themselves, which could decrease overall productivity by up to 68%? Answer: An employee task list. At least, that’s what countless top, thriving companies have told us after we asked them about their task list and checklist habits. In this post – which is the next part in Process Street‘s series investigating how, why, and in what ways successful businesses use lists for their workflows – I’ll deep dive into the nitty-gritty of employee task lists. Plus, you’ll get the exclusive opportunity to discover the never-seen-before findings from our in-depth research. 🚀 Just read through the following sections:
However, before delving into our findings, I’ll first define exactly what an employee task list is. What is an employee task list?An employee task list is a documented series of duties that an employee must complete, usually given by the employee in question’s line manager. It can offer the employee details on what needs doing, why it needs doing, and how to go about completing those tasks. All in all, it ensures employees keep on top of their workload, manage their daily routines more effectively, and that they don’t forget important steps along the way. But how an employee task list is presented varies. For instance, a common (but problematic) method for providing employees with an employee task list is via a physical piece of paper that they can check off with a pen. It’s problematic because physical objects are prone to getting lost, damaged, or shoved in a drawer never to see the light of day again. That’s why companies at the top of their game use business software to provide their staff with employee task lists. Utilizing a checklist app like Process Street is a surefire way of documenting, creating, and then providing accessible, cloud-based checklists. Easily. To learn a little more about Process Street, check out the video below. What jobs require an employee task list?(Source)As part of our qualitative research, we asked a large pool of founders and CEOs – as well as managers and employees themselves – several questions regarding making checklists, employee checklists, and the simple checklist template. If you’ve read the above posts, you’ll know the answers we received certainly piqued our curiosity (and yours, too). So, naturally, we wanted to take our investigation further and look at how organizations used the employee task list! The first question we posed to our participant pool was: “What jobs do you think absolutely require an employee task list in your business?” Reader, the results are now in. Let’s waste no time and dive straight into them. Providing us with the first answer is Kenny Trinh, the CEO of Netbooknews. Trinh advocates for task lists to be used by higher-ups, so that they don’t get too overwhelmed:
On the flip side, David Reischer – an attorney and the CEO of LegalAdvice.com – suggests that an employee task list shouldn’t just be used by high-ranking employees, but by all employees:
Similarly, the Director of Marketing at find.jobs – Ettore Fantin – says all employees at Find.jobs are provided with differing employee task lists, depending on their role and the team they’re in:
So far, there’s been several CEOs and directors who have contributed their thoughts on which roles should be using employee task lists – but what’s the opinion of time management and productivity experts? What roles gain the most use from an employee task list? Alexis Haselberger – who’s a productivity, time management, and leadership coach themselves – says an employee task list is, indeed, incredibly useful – particularly for office-based employees:
Magdalena Żurawska, the HR specialist at LiveCareer, also agrees that employee task lists are well-suited to those in office-based jobs, and gives us examples of roles that require an employee task list and how it’d help:
It’s not just HR managers, payroll specialists, and IT support members who can use task lists to their advantage – software developers and engineers can, too. Blake Sutton at Electrical Knowledge agrees:
To boot, you don’t have to be in a purely office-based role for task lists to make a beneficial impact, as Matthew Meier at MaxTour explains:
There you have it: An array of insightful responses on which jobs require an employee task list. But what’s been uncovered from this section alone? It’s fair to deduce that no matter what team an employee is a part of – or whether they’re office-based, on the road, or working as part of a virtual team – employees in all job roles should be using an employee task list. An effective employee task list enables workers to complete their recurring tasks to the highest possible standards, all while keeping avoidable human error at bay. If this is the point where you’re thinking “Surely the positives don’t end there?!”, you’re right. The benefits certainly do not end there. How is an employee task list useful?(Source)In the modern world, organizations are accelerating at lightning speed. This is so they can overtake competitors, cement themselves as industry leaders, and out-innovate other businesses (in fact, a study by Deloitte shows that for 96% of businesses, innovation is a top priority!) However, for an organization to scale, accelerate, and innovate quicker than its competition – and in a healthy, sustainable way – its employees need the right tools to succeed. One of those tools? An employee task list. If it sounds too simple of an answer to be effective, let me assure you; it’s not. An employee task list lowers employees’ work-related anxiety, stress levels, feelings of being overwhelmed, and explicitly informs them of what duties should be tackled, meaning there’s no second-guessing if they’re working on the right tasks. All in all, it’s a smart, simple solution to keep your employees far less stressed and more engaged, helping you to truly accelerate and scale your company. Now, that’s a multi-level win if I ever heard one. But don’t take my word for it. Take the word of industry leaders. To start us off, here’s Rahul Vij – the CEO of WebSpero Solutions – discussing how employee task lists and checklists have helped WebSpero scale:
Similarly, employee task lists have helped entrepreneur Sean Pour to scale SellMax, a car-buying service that now covers the entire country:
On the subject of scaling, Winston Nguyen, the CEO of bitcoinseo.services, found himself pleasantly surprised after his newly-hired VAs used an employee task list:
The above CEOs and entrepreneurs have attributed their success in part to employee task lists. Martin Luenendonk – who’s the Co-Founder and CEO of Cleverism, which is an online job portal – reiterates that, from his own experience, an employee task list is something of an entrepreneurial must-have:
Organizations that are actively growing and scaling have substantial workloads. Mohammed Abuzar – a Digital Marketing Specialist at Siva Solutions Inc. – explains how an employee task list or checklist can masterfully help with the management of work:
At ResumeLab, task lists have helped them to scale, too, as Jagoda Wieczorek states in this informative quote:
However, an employee task list isn’t just useful for businesses that are scaling; they’re useful all the time! Here, Plamen Beshkov at 10Beasts lists some general benefits of using an employee task list:
To round off, the Founder and CEO of Calendar – John Rampton – explains the specific reasons why he’s such an avid fan of using an employee task list – and why his employees are, too:
After reading those first-hand accounts, it’s safe to say that an employee task list brings a vast array of useful benefits to both the employee and the team they’re a part of. Speaking of teams, let’s now take a deeper look into how marketing teams, in particular, are using employee task lists in the workplace. Why marketing teams around the globe utilize employee task lists(Source)Marketing teams have their work cut out for them. Why? Because a lot is going on in any one marketing team. From graphic design to content writing, social media to video creation – not to mention advertising and growth hacking – an abundance of material is being created, edited, and published so the wider world can know just how great the company in question’s product or service is. Needless to say, without some kind of guidance and structure, marketing employees wouldn’t be able to, well, do their job. Take me as an illustrative example. I’m a content writer at Process Street – a nifty checklist app that allows you to document workflows, business processes, and important procedures. After we’ve planned each sprint, I’m allocated a certain amount of work to complete every month. To help me compartmentalize my work into daily, achievable chunks, I edited the daily to-do list template below so I can map out my working day accordingly. (With an employee task list, they can either be given straight to employees, or employees can create their own bite-sized versions!) Now, marketing teams around the globe are using employee task lists and checklists not only to properly plan out their days, but for many, many more reasons – all of which you’re about to find out! Just read this statement from David LaVine, the Founder of RocLogic Marketing, on why an employee task list is essential for any marketer worth their salt:
Next up is OptinMonster‘s Allison Hott, who explains how the content writers on a marketing team need a task list (and I’d certainly agree with her!):
Now you have Growth Marketing‘s Founder Stacy Caprio who, like Allison Hott, knows that an employee task list can do wonders for writers and their writing process:
Likewise, Bryan Truong – the Founder of GameCows – says that task lists are invaluable for him and his team:
Seeing as SEO is a large part of modern-day marketing, it has to be done correctly to reach the coveted spot of being #1 on Google’s front page. Ronald D’souza – Angel Jackets’ Digital Marketing Manager – explains how an employee task list can be beneficial for SEO marketing efforts:
Debashri Dutta, a content marketer at Blog Tyrant, suggests that an employee task list is not only useful for creating content, but also pushing it live once it’s been created:
Considering all the benefits an employee task list and checklist is having for those in marketing, imagine the plethora of other benefits those in sales, engineering, customer success, and HR have to gain! If you’re ready to reap the rewards of an employee task list for you and your team, I’ve got you covered. Employee task list best practices: Crushing duties & deadlines(Source)Where employee task lists are concerned, there’s a right way to go about introducing, creating, and utilizing task lists and checklists in your organization. But there’s also a wrong way, too. To stave you away from that incorrect path, our talented participant pool has some insider tips and tricks for you. Read them. Acknowledge them. Take them on board. Without doing so, you could potentially disengage and demotivate your colleagues (which is the last thing you want to do!) The first tip comes from Barbara Hernandez-Taylor – the Head of Product Marketing at Azuga – who says that a task list should be mainly used for standardized processes:
Similarly, Abir Syed – a CPA who owns upcounting.com – suggests using task lists for essential processes where there’s little deviation (and even provides an example!):
Meanwhile, WebTek‘s Digital Marketing Manager Antonella Weidman advocates for task lists that have clear, specific action times, so employees can get tasks done efficiently:
Bringing us to our conclusion is CrunchTime Analytics‘ Founder Cody Smith. Smith explains how wonderfully broad an employee task list can be, how it can be used, and he even lists the benefits that come with using task lists and checklists:
That final quote wraps up our research and findings on the employee task list. I’d like to extend a special shoutout to the team at Outfunnel, who also gave us some incredible insights into how they use task lists themselves! Now, with all the helpful statements above, you’re nearly set to implement and create some stellar employee task lists and checklists for your team and organization. But I’m not finished here quite yet. I’ve got another piece of advice for you: Use Process Street! Use Process Street to create a superpowered employee task list!Process Street is superpowered checklists. By documenting vital workflows, processes, and procedures as templates, you can then launch an infinite number of checklists from those templates. No matter if you’re following a daily employee task list or something like an employee onboarding checklist, you’ll always be properly and sufficiently guided through the process, so you can get high-quality work completed. Again and again. If you haven’t already checked out our informative intro video, do so now to learn more about Process Street – state-of-the-art BPM software! After everything you’ve read about employee task lists, I bet you’re raring to make your own employee task list – or task lists for the colleagues you manage. Whether these are daily, weekly, or monthly task lists, Process Street’s nifty workflow features will turn run-of-the-mill task lists and checklists into ones that are out of this world. This is due to the following features:
Stop tasks ensure vital tasks are never accidentally – or purposely – skipped over. With conditional logic, checklists dynamically change to suit the user’s needs – perfect for an employee task list that may differ day-by-day or week-by-week! Don’t want somebody to see critical or private information? Task permissions allow you to keep information and data out of view. If you’re collaborating with others, assign them to tasks on your task list with task assignments! For times when you need to work with different roles on your team, use role assignments to dynamically assign tasks straight to them. Need an employee task list approved at the end of each day, week, or month? The process is made incredibly easy with approvals. With the embed widget feature, you can include other apps and content – like Google Sheets, an interactive map, or an Airtable view – in your checklists. Send automated messages and other information from one app to another (Process Street to Slack, for instance) with the genius webhooks feature. Do note that, while it’s completely free to sign up, to use the above features to their full capacity, you’ll need to be on one of our paid plans. For an in-depth explanation of how some of these features work, watch the webinar below, hosted by Process Street’s customer success team. So, what’re you waiting for? It’s time to create amazing employee task lists and checklists with the information in this post and a subscription to Process Street! Do you or other members of your team use an employee task list? Are there any tips you’d like to share? If so, write them down in the comment section below! 💡 What is the process of organizing work into the task required to perform a specific job?Job design is the process of organizing work into the tasks required to perform a specific job. It involves the conscious efforts to organize tasks, duties and responsibilities into a unit of work to achieve certain objectives.
Is the degree to which a job requires completing a whole piece of work from beginning to end?Task Identity -- the degree to which the job requires completion of a "whole" and identifiable piece of work. Doing a job from beginning to end with a visible outcome. Task Significance -- the degree to which the job has a substantial impact on the lives or work of other people.
What are the 4 types of job design?In order to increase the motivational potential of a job, four common job design strategies are used. Each of these strategies will make an impact on one or more of the elements in the MPS formula. The strategies are job rotation, job enlargement, job enrichment, and job simplification.
What is determining job tasks and responsibilities employees are expected to perform?Job analysis is the process of studying a job to determine which activities and responsibilities it includes, its relative importance to other jobs, the qualifications necessary for performance of the job and the conditions under which the work is performed.
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