{"id":213,"date":"2025-11-01T14:27:23","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T14:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iablueprint.com\/blog\/?p=213"},"modified":"2025-11-30T05:32:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T05:32:00","slug":"your-team-is-busy-but-not-productive-heres-the-real-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iablueprint.com\/blog\/your-team-is-busy-but-not-productive-heres-the-real-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Team Is Busy \u2014 But Not Productive. Here\u2019s the Real Issue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sandra looked around at her team. Though it was past five o\u2019clock, they were still hunched over their desks, busily working away. It was the second day this week they\u2019d worked overtime, yet they were behind on reaching their targets. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is going on? <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">she thought. They clearly cared about what they were doing, and they had a lot of talent. But somehow, that wasn\u2019t translating into results achieved.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That\u2019s an all-too-common scenario. Due to overlapping responsibilities, poor workflows, and lack of communication, teams often grow busier and busier without having much to show for it. The biggest culprit is misalignment of duties, as we\u2019ll discuss in a moment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to the global consulting firm McKinsey, workers can be grouped into six different categories:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Quitters<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Disrupters<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The mildly disengaged<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The reliable and committed<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Double dippers (those working more than one job)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thriving stars<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thriving stars <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mckinsey.com\/capabilities\/people-and-organizational-performance\/our-insights\/some-employees-are-destroying-value-others-are-building-it-do-you-know-the-difference\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">represent just 4%<\/span><\/a> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of the total workforce. As a leader, your main job is to help <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">all<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of your employees become thriving stars \u2014 or at least reliable and committed. In other words, you need to enhance your team\u2019s productivity without causing burnout.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But how to increase team productivity when people are already maxed out? If your team is overworked but underperforming, let\u2019s address the main factors that are probably holding it back. By taking action to correct these issues, you\u2019ll help your people achieve their full potential.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Misalignment of Duties<\/span><\/h2>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-214\" src=\"https:\/\/www.iablueprint.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Screenshot-2025-11-24-222552.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"621\" height=\"414\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.iablueprint.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Screenshot-2025-11-24-222552.png 621w, https:\/\/www.iablueprint.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Screenshot-2025-11-24-222552-435x290.png 435w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 621px) 100vw, 621px\" \/><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pexels.com\/photo\/a-group-of-people-having-a-meeting-in-the-office-5946207\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Image source<\/span><\/i><i><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When people are handling tasks that fall outside of their competencies, productivity plummets. This is the number-one reason why teams remain busy but not effective. Because employees don\u2019t enjoy these tasks \u2014 or just aren\u2019t good at them \u2014 they do them poorly. Or they take several times as long to complete a task as it requires.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a recent report by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM),<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shrm.org\/content\/dam\/en\/shrm\/topics-tools\/research\/gwp-report-4.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">37% of employees<\/span> <\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">said their role doesn\u2019t line up with their abilities and experience. Meanwhile, 53% said their job doesn\u2019t align with their training and education. Many companies are only using a fraction of their people\u2019s skills, while requiring them to focus on work they just aren\u2019t good at, these findings highlight.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How to correct this problem? Conduct a skills audit of your team, listing each person\u2019s core strengths. Then, write down the key skills required for their role. If you spot areas of misalignment, look for ways to reorganize roles, as we\u2019ll discuss in a moment.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Overloaded Teams<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Feeling swamped and strapped for time makes it incredibly hard to focus. People may jump from one task to the next, scrambling to do things rather than devoting their full attention to a task. Worse, they\u2019re likely handling a mix of unrelated tasks \u2014 including lots of things they aren\u2019t truly good at, as discussed above.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this situation, you\u2019ll usually find lots of redundancies. People are carrying out overlapping tasks \u2014 an inefficient use of their time. Because functions are muddled together, managers struggle to see where backlogs are occurring.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Address this issue by <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iablueprint.com\/blog\/how-a-siloed-team-made-one-agency-2x-faster\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">creating departments<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, or mini-departments, in your organization. You may need to design new roles within them centered on specific functions. By dividing up work in this way, you\u2019ll gain a clearer picture of where bottlenecks are happening. If the sales person is thriving and doesn\u2019t feel stressed, but the renewals person is overwhelmed, you can take action to address that issue.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You might also need to restructure roles, as mentioned above. If people aren\u2019t using their core skills, place them into jobs that use their strengths. Then, look for where any skills gaps exist and make a new hire to fill them, if needed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For example, a client in San Antonio, Texas, determined that they needed someone to handle cross-selling to existing clients. This was a new role they were creating. Already, staff had achieved double their quota for these renewals \u2014 but it was time-consuming. They were making 100 calls a day even before hiring for this role. By enlisting ia Blueprint to fill this position, they found an experienced client renewal specialist with expertise in cross-selling. This VA expertly handled client updates throughout the year, matching customers with products that met their needs exactly.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A Focus on Putting Out Fires<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Are you more fixated on addressing emerging crises than moving long-term plans forward? That\u2019s a common problem for leaders. If you\u2019re always in reactive mode, you need to step back and figure out how to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iablueprint.com\/blog\/leadership-means-doing-more-not-less\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">recenter your core priorities<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this situation, hiring an executive assistant could be the most important thing you do. An executive assistant can tackle the pressing tasks that are derailing your focus, letting you zero in on your core contributions. They\u2019ll respond to emails, help you prepare for meetings, and make client calls with much more efficiency than you probably can, since their role revolves around tasks like these.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Neglecting the Roots of Problems<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Similarly, productivity plummets when you don\u2019t address the roots of a problem. If you\u2019re always looking for workarounds, you\u2019re probably wasting a lot of your time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Start with Why<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Simon Sinek tells the story of how a bunch of American car executives traveled to Japan to tour a car factory. Looking at the assembly line, they asked how the company ensures its car doors fit perfectly. In their own factory, a worker would tap a rubber mallet along the edge of the doors to ensure proper alignment. But on the Japanese assembly line, this step was missing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe make sure it fits when we design it,\u201d their tour guide told them. Instead of troubleshooting a problem, they circumvented it through good engineering. As this story shows, fixing problems at the beginning can avoid a lot of headaches and save countless hours. If you have a cumbersome process, instead of trying to speed up how quickly you can perform each step, think about how you can streamline things through more efficient design. You\u2019ll not only increase team productivity \u2014 you\u2019ll also build a better product or service.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Short-Term Thinking<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Short-term thinking keeps people locked into inefficient ways of working. For instance, leaders may feel they don\u2019t have time to train someone as their assistant. So, they avoid delegating time-consuming tasks \u2014 even though in the long-term, this would make a massive difference for the business.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In reality, training an executive assistant, or a virtual assistant, will<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inc.com\/tricia-sciortino\/the-44-million-roi-of-delegation\/91239825\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">pay tremendous dividends<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That\u2019s why <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shrm.org\/executive-network\/insights\/6-ways-to-improve-your-delegation-skills-as-a-leader\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">91% of HR execs<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> say delegation is a crucial skill for leaders. And according to Gallup, leaders who delegate effectively bring in<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/businessjournal\/182414\/delegating-huge-management-challenge-entrepreneurs.aspx\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">33% more revenue<\/span><\/a> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">for their company.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When delegating, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bccpa.ca\/news-events\/cpabc-newsroom\/2024\/june\/why-leaders-should-invest-in-delegating\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">don\u2019t expect perfection<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> right off the bat. Resist the urge to claim ownership over the task if someone is struggling. Instead, share pointers and resources to help them along. Plan to mentor them in the task over the next few weeks until they grow proficient.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By taking these steps, you\u2019ll enhance your team\u2019s productivity without causing burnout and exhaustion. You\u2019ll not only achieve a sustainable level of productivity; you\u2019ll also boost job engagement and satisfaction. This begins with addressing misalignment and overload by putting people in the functions they\u2019re actually good at. Through these strategies, you\u2019ll continuously increase your whole organization\u2019s effectiveness while also supporting each person\u2019s well-being.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Want to learn more about how hiring a virtual assistant can increase team productivity? Let\u2019s <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iablueprint.com\/book-a-discovery-call\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">set up a conversation<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. We\u2019ll discuss your distinct needs and what a VA can help you achieve. Whether you\u2019re looking for an executive assistant to handle time-consuming admin tasks, or a VA to handle customer service, we\u2019ll pair you with exactly the right person to meet your needs.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Teams often waste countless hours focused on the wrong tasks. By addressing the root of the problem, you can ramp up productivity exponentially.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-beaux-pilgrim","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iablueprint.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iablueprint.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iablueprint.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iablueprint.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iablueprint.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.iablueprint.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":225,"href":"https:\/\/www.iablueprint.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions\/225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iablueprint.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iablueprint.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iablueprint.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iablueprint.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}