Learning opportunity or overload? How companies use 'growth' to assign extra work

Employees are familiar with such a scenario. Either there will be a sudden need for handling a challenging task, a co-worker will leave at the last moment, or the team will be understaffed, requiring a member who can rapidly take on extra assignments. Rather than stating the obvious about having a staffing problem or assigning extra tasks to an employee, managers usually say that there is “a wonderful learning opportunity.” This seems very positive and developmental, which is precisely what makes employees respond to such phrases in very different ways based on previous experience. At times, this is indeed true, but in most cases, employees realize that they will have more work with little reward.

The findings of Gallup’s research into employee engagement clearly demonstrate that the chance to learn and develop still has strong ties with motivation and employee retention; however, employees tend to disengage quickly whenever there are vague expectations or a lack of supportive measures. The point here is that employees do not complain about challenges by themselves. The problem lies in the fact that challenging or risky projects can be seen as opportunities for professional development, but they lack sufficient support to ensure tangible results in the future. With time, employees start seeing a pattern. By describing something as a learning experience, one means a task no one else would like to undertake, a gap that a company is not ready to cover, or additional strain on employees that they are expected to tolerate in silence.

Employees often trust the support structure more than the phrase itself

In most cases, the reaction to a stretch assignment will not be based on the assignment but rather on the environment that surrounds it. Workers can easily take tough assignments positively, provided expectations, coaching, visibility, and recognition of their efforts in the future are clearly understood. The issue occurs when management employs general motivational terms while remaining vague about what is expected in operation. Gallup studies indicate that, despite the importance attached to feedback and communication by managers in enhancing engagement among workers, it still continues to occur inconsistently, although those who get effective coaching are much more engaged.


Those employees who work in an overloaded environment receive warnings from their employers that they must be prepared to resolve tough issues on their own. Likewise, as reported by the APA Work in America survey, hostile work environments, lack of respect, and unmanageable workloads are key factors that significantly impact how an employee perceives a challenging task or stress at an organization. It is also important to note that the problem is not whether or not challenging tasks exist. Successful careers definitely involve working on difficult projects and undergoing tough times. What is crucial in this case is whether organizations turn this challenge into something lasting for employees.

Real growth opportunities usually become specific very quickly

In general, healthy developmental assignments get more concrete when examined closely. The employees know the reasons for their selection, the skills they need to develop, the metrics used to define success, and the assistance that will continue to be provided throughout the assignment period. It will also link directly to future performance evaluations, discussions on remuneration, or opportunities for career advancement instead of leaving it as a general notion of future possibilities. Thus, instead of rejecting every stretch assignment as unhealthy or accepting every "opportunity for growth" without any further discussion, the most appropriate approach would be to make the growth opportunity more concrete. The employee could ask himself such questions as "What specifically do I have to learn?" or "How does this assignment impact future scope/advancement discussions?"

These Gallup statistics emphasize the significance of making such a differentiation. Workers have proven themselves quite capable of managing tough jobs, provided there is no fuzziness in communication. The onset of burnout becomes much more rapid when excessive demands are combined with uncertainty and fuzzy lines. Just because an assignment turns out to be hard does not mean that it is necessarily exploitative. Employees have more reason than ever to wonder whether all this "learning" actually pays off.