You spend a long time figuring out what kinds of employees you need and what skills they should have. You use up 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 employees for related tasks. 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. Hairstylists find themselves doing the assistant’s work of prepping a client rather than spending time actually doing hair. It is a pretty natural thing; bosses 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, employees get pulled off of their value-adding 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 have 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 is no one else available and the work has to get done. For startup firms this can be acceptable, but to really be successful you are going to have to reach the point where you have an adequate support staff that helps your employees do the work that makes money. You may need to take over some of the support functions, helping create the environment where your employees can get their work done. You may also want to consider one of the many small companies popping up specifically to take over your administrative tasks.

Larger firms, by the way, often use people for unrelated tasks because they do not have enough “real” work for them to do all the time, and they want to get their money’s worth. But if you are paying people to do a job and then using them for administrative work, can you really say you are getting your money’s worth? If you have more employees than you have work for them to do, you need to generate more revenue-producingwork 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 talented employees is to turn out a unique product that is better than what your competitors offer. It is hard for those employees to do that if they’re focused on something else.