What is boundary blurring?
What is boundary blurring?
Research finds four in 10 employees take on ‘significant’ extra responsibilities at work and experts are urging businesses to end ‘toxic productivity’ and acknowledge the extra work being done.
- 43% of employees are taking on significant extra responsibility in the workplace, averaging five tasks on top of their day-to-day duties
- 104 hours of work added to contracted time per year
- 23% were given additional responsibilities during the first three months of their positions
The top additional tasks given to employees included
- 47% supporting and guiding newer colleagues
- 40% taking the lead on projects related to their job description
- 30% being asked to provide cover for long-term absentees
At the same time, the survey found that
- 69% workers had not seen a pay rise since taking on new tasks
- 50% had felt pressured to take them on to remain employed
Read full article here.
A lot of the HR people I speak to struggle with setting boundaries:
❌ Work life balance
❌ High workloads
❌ Saying no
Here’s what boundaries sound like:
✅ no thanks
✅ I’m not available
✅ it’s not a good time
✅ I can’t commit right now
Setting boundaries is easy – MAINTAINING them is the hard bit, so I always suggest:
💡 Start small: say no to little things first
💡 Reframe: in saying yes to others – are you saying no to yourself?
💡 Have a ‘boundary buddy’ to help you: get them to challenge your yes-ing
