"Work Redesign and Performance Management in Times of Downsizing"

A.S. Evangelista and Lisa Burke

Business Horizons

March-April 2003, pp. 71-76

This article addresses the concerns of organizations that have chosen to downsize to the extent that they may be facing any of the following problems:

1. the failure or inability to identify and categorize duties and assignments;
2. the failure to identify when they have overtasked an employee; and
3. the failure to see when a business unit's demands exceed its capacity.

The authors of this article propose that in order to deal with this situation that managers need to identify and categorize all projects and tasks to determine which activities are to be retained and which are to be eliminated. Four task categories are discussed in the article:

1. critical tasks—"those that enable a company to accomplish its primary organizational objectives; they are essential to maintaining the firm's strategic intent, and must be performed to completion at the highest quality standard";
2. sub-critical tasks—ones that need to be performed, but an average standard of quality will suffice;
3. minor tasks—ones that add value to the firm but will not hinder operations or organizational goals if left undone; and
4. unnecessary tasks—ones that can be discarded because they most likely drain resources away from the critical or sub-critical tasks.

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