Empower your team by automating the annoying work.
What is Friction Work?
Friction work is work where an employee is operating outside or above their level of expertise.
There are two main ways this happens:
- When someone really good at their job is stuck doing simple stuff. Like a top salesperson spending all day entering data instead of making deals.
- Or when someone who's not trained for a job has to do it anyway. Imagine someone who usually does office work suddenly being in charge of content marketing strategy.
This imbalance results in labour that is paid at a premium and an employee who feels frustrated about their workload.
Why Do We End Up With Friction Work?
Fundamental Truth #1: Friction work is pervasive.
As a company grows, workflows evolve. Everyone starts wearing different hats, doing whatever needs to be done to keep moving forward. The plan is always to sort it out later when things calm down. But let's be honest, that "later" rarely comes.
Why is Friction Work a Problem?
Friction work is like tiny bits of grit on sandpaper. A single grain doesn't make much difference. Many grains create tremendous friction.
It's easy to miss these small, annoying tasks because they don't seem like a big deal on their own. But pile them up, and they start to drag everyone down. It's like barnacles on a ship. You could stop and clean them off, but is it worth it?
Fundamental Truth #2: Friction work is expensive.
Friction work has a subtle, yet massive impact on your business including:
- Lowering productivity and quality control
- Decreasing customer satisfaction
- Slowing down sales and marketing efforts
- Decreasing employee satisfaction (and driving turnover)
- Limiting your ability to compete with direct competitors
The average employee spends 1-2 hours on repetitive, manual, low-skill tasks [2]. This accounts for roughly $13,000 per employee, per year in friction work that could be eliminated through friction-less workflows.
What can we do about it?
We can combat friction work by implementing a friction-less philosophy.
The goal is to make work easy and efficient for everyone. It's about leveraging people's strengths, smart tools, and always looking for ways to do better.
Fundamental Truth #3: Friction work can be eliminated.
Companies that invest in workflow automation save $46,000 per year, on average [1].
Smaller companies are more likely to see positive results through workflow automation than large corporations.
Core Tenets of Friction-less Workflows
- Use the Right Person for the Job: Assign tasks based on what someone is good at. If someone excels at creative work, don't bog them down with number crunching. Match tasks to talents and ensure they are adequately trained to perform each task.
- Automate the Boring Stuff: Use technology to handle repetitive tasks. If a computer can do it, let it. This frees up people to do the work that needs a human touch.
- Keep Getting Better: Always look for ways to do things quicker and easier. Ask for ideas, try new methods, and if something doesn’t work well, change it. Keep evolving.
Why invest in a friction-less workflow?
A friction-less workflow empowers your team to:
- improve productivity and quality control
- increase customer satisfaction
- improve performance of sales and marketing efforts
- increase employee satisfaction
- increase competitive advantage
The cumulative effect of friction-less workflows are powerful. Put simply, your business glides towards its goals instead of grinding towards them
How to implement a friction-less workflow?
Step #1: Identification & Isolation
Fundamental Truth #4: Friction work is noisy.
72% of workers say they believe inefficient processes negatively impact their job [2].
Your first move is to spot the friction work in your current setup. It's usually the stuff that makes your team sigh or roll their eyes. They might not label it as 'friction work', but they'll definitely have other names for it – like 'annoying' or 'headache-inducing'.
Here's how employees tangled in friction work often feel:
- They're not using their best skills and feel underused.
- Stress creeps in because they're not doing what's really important.
- They might vent their frustration with colleagues.
- They'll probably suggest hiring someone else to do these tasks.
- Or they'll wish for a tool that can take this work off their hands.
To get a clear picture, have a chat with your team. Ask them where they feel the friction.
Try asking questions like:
- "Which tasks make you feel least motivated?"
- "If you had an assistant, what would you delegate to them?"
- "What's getting in the way of you being more productive?"
- "If you could, what tasks would you automate?"
Step #2: Automation
Automation is like your secret weapon against friction work.
- First, list down all the tasks that came up in your chats with the team.
- Next, figure out which of these can be automated. Think repetitive, rule-based, and time-consuming stuff.
- Look for tools and software that can handle these tasks. There are plenty of options out there for things like data entry, scheduling, email responses, and more.
- Implement these tools, but do it step by step. You don't want to overwhelm everyone with too much change at once.
- Train your team on how to use these new tools.
Step #3: Reallocation
Fundamental Truth #5: Frictionless workflows increase productivity and satisfaction.
With the boring stuff on autopilot, you free up resources to reinvest into your team.
- Look at your team's skills and interests. Who's doing what they are trained to do? Who's not?
- Shift tasks around so that everyone's doing something they're great at or interested in.
- For tasks that still need a human touch but don't have a perfect match, consider upskilling. Training your team not only boosts their skills but also their morale.
- Keep this realignment flexible. People grow and interests change, so be ready to shuffle things around as needed.
Friction work where someone is doing work they are not trained to do is not easily automated. These scenarios are often best resolved through upskilling your existing team using the time/money freed up from other automation efforts.
Step #4: Continuous Improvement
Fundamental Truth #6: Friction work reemerges over time.
Like bacterial regrowth after sanitation, you may rid yourself of 99.99% of friction work only to see it creep back in over time. It’s a natural byproduct of growth. However, it’s not a necessary cost of business. Once you have an existing automation system, it’s easier to spot and eliminate friction work as it emerges.
Keep your workflows in a constant state of evolution.
- Regularly ask for feedback from your team. What's working? What's not?
- Be on the lookout for new tools or methods that could make things even smoother.
- Encourage a culture where everyone feels comfortable suggesting improvements