Smartsheet’s Inaugural Future of Work Management Report Uncovers Resource Recession Across Global Organizations, Need for Support and Technology to Initiate Resource Revolution
January 24 2023 - 9:00AM
Business Wire
Data reveals over four in five workers say
projects are run by colleagues who do not have a project manager
title or role, with over half of those workers being junior staff
and a majority having no formal project management training
Smartsheet (NYSE:SMAR), the enterprise platform for modern work
management, today released its first annual Future of Work
Management Report which surveyed thousands of global employees
about project and process management at their workplaces. The
results show that 96% of respondents manage projects regardless of
their role or formal project management training indicating a
global resource recession where traditional roles are no longer
what drive work. The survey revealed an opportunity for leaders
to move from a resource recession to a resource revolution by
focusing on their people and implementing the right technology.
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Smartsheet’s inaugural Future of Work
Management Report reveals new insights about global resource
recession. (Graphic: Business Wire)
In a slowly reopening world under macroeconomic pressure,
Smartsheet’s survey shows that many organizations—regardless of
industry or geographic location—are functioning with limited
personnel, technology and support, requiring employees to take on
additional work without proper training or experience. Nearly
one-fourth (24%) of respondents manage projects despite the
function not being within the scope of their job title or
description. These “citizen project managers” tend to skew more
junior than their titled counterparts, with 50% of citizen project
managers being frontline, support or admin staff. Alternatively,
over half of titled project managers are mid to upper-level
management (60%).
“We are in a global resource recession, but the good news is
that we have the tools to shift it into a resource revolution,”
said Praerit Garg, CPO and EVP of Engineering, Smartsheet. “The
constraints that organizations face aren’t going away, but leaders
have a unique opportunity to innovate to meet their teams where
they are. Businesses need to empower and support their people by
investing in training, mentorship and software that will help scale
work and retain talent.”
In order to shift from a resource recession to a resource
revolution, the report found three key takeaways:
- Support is sacred, and teams need more of it Although
the people doing the work recognize—and actively push for—support,
the report found that company leaders are far more likely than
others in their organizations to say that they are already
investing in the tools and processes needed to solve project
complications (60%). Leaders are also far less likely to admit that
project teams are understaffed (20% versus 42% of non-C-level
employees saying that their teams are understaffed). With so many
doing project-based work today, there’s a greater need for
foundational project support, with regards to both resources and
tools, and senior leaders must recognize that, too.
- The “middle work” is most critical to a project’s success
and to avoiding employee burnout The middle work, or the tasks
and processes that make up a project, is where the project moves
forward, but it can also be where it breaks down. Nearly
three-quarters of employees expect their company to ask project
teams to accomplish even more with less in the near future (72%),
and half of project professionals expect deadlines to stay the same
moving forward (51%). This shows that things aren’t slowing down,
regardless of whether teams have the resources or tools to be
successful. In order to overcome these challenges, teams need to
focus less on deadlines and more on the middle work that will take
the project from start to finish. Report data shows that
irrespective of deadlines, there is a clear connection between
effectively managed projects and job satisfaction, with over half
(54%) of employees reporting that when projects run smoothly stress
is lower and satisfaction is higher (56%).
- Repeated work is wasted work Projects are only as good
as the processes they’re built on. Since the middle work is so
critical, the best way to ensure the success of projects is to take
learnings and turn those lessons into scalable, repeatable
processes. The report showed that when projects have an experienced
project manager, respondents felt that work quality was higher
(57%), more efficient (49%), within budget (42%) and that there was
greater collaboration between teams (40%).
“With deadlines becoming tighter, expectations higher, and
resources becoming more constrained, we’re going to continue to see
more project-based work,” said Ben Canning, SVP of Product,
Smartsheet. “Employees are being left to fill in gaps without
proper training or experience. For organizations to fully embrace
the resource revolution they need to focus less on individual
projects and more on implementing scalable and repeatable processes
to set their teams up for success over the long run.”
To read the full Future of Work Management 2023 report and
insights for you and your company, click here.
About Smartsheet
Smartsheet (NYSE: SMAR) is the enterprise platform for modern
work management. By aligning people and technology so organizations
can move faster and drive innovation, Smartsheet enables its
millions of users to achieve more. Visit www.smartsheet.com to
learn more.
Report Methodology
The Smartsheet Future of Work Management Report survey was
conducted in September 2022 by Wakefield Research among 8,000
employed adults aged 18-74, who work at companies with a minimum of
50 employees, evenly distributed among the following markets:
United States, UK, Australia, and DACH (Germany, Austria,
Switzerland). All respondents self-reported that they engage, in
some capacity, in project-based work, as defined as “projects that
have a beginning and an end.” These project professionals—who
represent about 60% of the adult employed audience who work in
companies with 50+ employees—span a wide range of industries from
IT and business services, to healthcare and pharma, to banking and
finance, and construction and manufacturing and a wide range of
titles and levels within their organizations.
View source
version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230124005141/en/
Chrissy Vaughn pr@smartsheet.com
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