Let Them Do What You Hired Them to Do

You spend a long time figuring out what kinds of employees you need and what skills they should have. You expend a lot of energy recruiting just the right people. You invest a lot of money in training and professional development. And then you use them for something completely different.

Seems silly, huh? Unfortunately, a lot of companies end up doing just that.

In some cases, leaders and managers use their Creatives for related tasks. Hairstylists find themselves doing the assistant's work of prepping a client rather than spending time actually doing hair. Code writers end up providing unofficial "help desk" support around the office. Graphic artists create ads for the company rather than doing work for clients. It's a pretty natural thing; bosses look and say "if you have these skills, then you should also be able to do that." But just because somebody CAN do something, doesn't mean they SHOULD.

At other times, Creatives get pulled off their work to do administrative tasks. Doing inventory, setting up conferences, managing the budget, making travel arrangements...yes, they need to get done, but do they need to get done by someone you've hired to do something completely different?

Large companies and small ones are both guilty of this. Smaller firms often use employees for different tasks simply because there's no one else available and the work has to get done. For startup firms this might be acceptable, but to really be successful you're going to have to reach the point where you have an adequate support staff that helps your Creatives do creative work. You may not want to take over every support task from your Creatives but you also don't want them spending much time on non-creative (and usually, non-revenue-producing) functions. Larger firms often use people for unrelated tasks because they don't have enough "real" work for them to do, and they want to get their money's worth, but if you're paying people to be creative and then using them for administrative work, can you really say you're getting your money's worth? If you have more Creatives than you have work for them to do, you need to generate more creative work for them by increasing your emphasis on business development, or consider outsourcing during surge periods rather than paying full-time people for part-time work.

The whole point of hiring creative talent is to turn out a unique product that is better than what your competitors offer. It's hard for your Creatives to do that if they're focused on something else.