As Australia struggles amid a dire global economic outlook, anaemic growth, low productivity and the advent of an AI jobs takeover, a sinister new problem is already here – and it’s ruining millions of Aussies’ working days.
Businesses are furiously searching for ways to lift productivity through AI, digital investment and workplace reform, but new research suggests many companies are still losing time to a more immediate problem: workers understand what needs to be done, but are being slowed by the way work moves through their organisations.
The boss of Nutrition Warehouse gave a stark example of how this hit his business, saying products were rotting on shelves while staff waited for a middle manager to reply to an email.
The monday.com study, conducted in collaboration with EnterpriseWorks, surveyed 385 Australian and New Zealand workers and found they are not unclear on the strategy, they are being slowed down by the way work happens after a strategy is set.
While 83 per cent understand how their day-to-day work connects to organisational strategy, only 51 per cent say their company is effective at organising work around the most important priorities.
Monday.com describes this gap as a “co-ordination tax” – the time businesses lose when teams are forced to redo work, rebuild updates, duplicate effort across systems and spend meetings aligning on work that should already be moving forward.
One major Aussie retail brand has revealed how simple communication bottlenecks caused products to literally rot on shelves while staff waited for a middle manager to reply to an email.
Duncan McHugh, chief operating officer at Nutrition Warehouse, said the company’s old approval system was heavily reliant on paper and email, meaning vital tasks would often get trapped in someone’s inbox.
“In retail, that delay is deadly,” Mr McHugh said.
“Products were literally expiring and ending up in the bin while everyone was trapped in email chains trying to figure out who was supposed to approve what.”
By finally moving away from messy email chains and centralising their requests, the business managed to save a staggering amount of money.
“Fixing that simple bottleneck saved us over $200,000 in a single year,” Mr McHugh revealed.
The hidden ‘tax’ ruining your day
Dean Swan, vice president and general manager at monday.com Asia-Pacific and Japan, said the co-ordination tax was a silent productivity killer destroying the Aussie working week.
“The co-ordination tax is rarely one dramatic failure. It is usually a series of small, exhausting delays that compound across the week,” Mr Swan said.
“The actual task might only take an hour, but getting the green light to do it can take days. We see Aussie workers losing entire working days just waiting for someone in another time zone to wake up and answer a simple question.”
According to the research, a massive 42 per cent of Australian workers say they spend a significant chunk of their week creating status reports, dashboards and presentations rather than progressing actual work.
Furthermore, 49 per cent admit that constantly changing requirements from bosses create endless “rework” and wasted effort.
Essentially, Aussies are spending more time proving they are busy than actually being busy.
Mr Swan argues that the culture of demanding endless update reports only happens because managers are left in the dark.
“Most status decks and update meetings exist because the work isn’t visible enough,” he said.
“People are far more satisfied when they spend less time proving they are busy and more time doing meaningful work.”
The trap of ‘creepy’ surveillance
With many Aussie businesses feeling the pinch of tighter budgets, there has been a massive push towards automated tools and AI to clear the administrative backlog.
While the data shows AI is reducing manual tasks for 71 per cent of active users, experts warn that technology can’t fix a toxic or disorganised workplace culture.
“AI can reduce the co-ordination tax, but it can also just automate the mess,” Mr Swan warned.
“If your workflow is fragmented, AI might produce a report or a summary in seconds, but your people will still lose days waiting for approvals.”
He also cautioned against bosses using technology to spy on their staff under the guise of increasing productivity.
“Creepy workplace surveillance does the exact opposite of helping,” Mr Swan said.
“Managers look at keystrokes, hours online, or messages sent because it’s easy to track. But typing doesn’t mean you’re getting things done.
“Adding another reporting requirement can quickly feel like management is transferring the burden of visibility onto employees. Better systems should remove blockers, not give people another tool they have to maintain.”