Why your team never complete tasks that you ask them to do
It can be incredibly frustrating when you keep asking your team to complete tasks and they just never do them. You are left with a huge list of to-dos, inefficient operations and repeated conversations to try and get things done.
Below are a few reasons as to why your team aren’t finishing tasks that you set them to do:
They are too scared to ask for help
Perhaps your employee begins the task that you have asked them to do, but they encounter an issue. Rather than ask you they just forget about the task and hope that you don’t ask them about it again. This is common when a manager belittles a staff member or makes them feel foolish for not knowing the answer to something. The bottom line – always help your staff when they get stuck and don’t make them feel bad for asking.
You don’t check in
As mentioned above if you never check in to see if the task has been completed then staff have no incentive to complete it. If you set a task, set a reminder to ask the staff member when it’s completed. This will make sure it gets done.
You’re impossible to please
Every time they do any work for you, you say you don’t like it or that it’s wrong. When you continually do this, employees start to give up because what’s the point of wasting time and energy on a task when you never like it anyway. The trick is even if you don’t like what they do start with a positive of what they have done then end with how they could improve.
For example “You did really well at changing the window display yesterday, tomorrow would you mind checking the window checklist before you start.”
They’re already swamped with work
Don’t just dump tasks on an employee without checking their schedule first. They might already have a thousand other things to get done, so the chances of getting a new task completed are near impossible. Always find out what other responsibilities they’ve got going on and fit your task in with these.
You assume that they know things
Perhaps you’ve asked them to put the deliveries away assuming that they know where everything goes and what the process is for the paperwork afterwards. Never assume, go over every detail of what needs to be done and check, check and double check that they have fully understood.
How to make sure that tasks get done
Give them a deadline for when it needs to be completed.
Ask them questions to test their knowledge. This helps you tell if they have fully understood what you’ve asked them to do.
Tell them that they can ask you whenever they get stuck.
Tell them you’ll be checking in with them before the deadline to check how they’re doing.
Use a digital operations tool such as Oplift. It allows you to set a quick task with a person responsible and a deadline. Everyone is clear on what needs to get done, by when and who needs to do it. Finally.
