Superman in the Organization

We all have seen people complaining about the workload and the management’s reluctance to hire new staff to manage that workload. So what is the reason behind management’s decision of not hiring new staff? There are many reasons one of which is the presence of an employee who by multitasking and other ways tries to perform all tasks on time. This employee portrays himself as a Superman, and becomes a Cost Saving Agent in the eyes of management. The management, instead of hiring a new employee, which requires more cost, provides him with a handsome amount of raise in his monthly salary, boosting his motivation level and enabling him to work with more enthusiasm.

In the above scenario, nothing seems to be wrong. But if we look at the other side of the picture, we find that unfortunately this is not true. This employee (referred to as Superman) is harming not only himself but the job market and the organization as well in the following ways:

• Eliminating job vacancies. Organizations usually appoint new employees to minimize the greater workload. But in an organization, where an employee does majority of the work all alone, the organization finds no good reason to appoint new staff, and this is where the problem starts. A problem like closing doors for new entrants. In today’s world where the unemployment level is already high, such employees should not be allowed to eat others’ jobs.

• Putting health at risk. For a healthy life, proper sleep is an important factor. An employee performing all tasks single-handedly needs more than office hours to accomplish tasks. Therefore, he has to work after office hours and often skip holidays. Due to such tiring efforts and continuous working he doesn't get at least 6 hours of proper sleep which affects his health and causes depression, stress etc.

• Losing productivity by multitasking. People often say that doing more than one thing at a time makes you less productive. This is almost true especially in the above scenario. In order to complete tasks on time, the employee multitasks which may be harmful because human brain cannot concentrate on more than one task at a time. And this lack of concentration results in errors, which affects the quality of work.

• Behaving rudely with co-workers. It is human nature that he gets irritated if he works constantly for hours. This is why the office timings always accommodate a break of an hour or two so that employees get fresh. Same thing if we put in this employee’s scenario, we see that after working continuously in order to meet unrealistic deadlines, he gets irritated resulting in an indecent behavior with peers, which may call for a disciplinary action against him.

• Jealousy and Demotivation. In recognition of his efforts, management blesses him with a handsome salary increment, increases his perks and benefits or promote him, which creates jealousy among his co-workers. They see him as a ‘flatterer’ who, for the sake of his own benefits, does all these efforts and pleases management, which becomes the reason of their demotivation. It also ignites the fire of professional jealousy within them which sometimes causes the organization to loose skilled and experienced employees.