When Your Work Needs Five Approvals Instead of One
Organizations are increasingly implementing multi-level managerial controls and extra validation steps, often driven by risk awareness and regulatory demands. While intended to enhance accuracy and manage risk, this approach can negatively impact ...
Tasks that were traditionally accomplished quickly at one managerial level now have to pass through several levels of managerial control within many organizations. Workers discover they must complete their tasks not only once but also with approval from numerous individuals. From an organizational psychological perspective, systems like these are usually established in environments with a high degree of risk or complexity awareness (Frontiers in Psychology, 2017). The goal of such an approach is to enhance accuracy and effectiveness, which significantly alters the process itself. In addition, it affects the time frames and communication styles employees use to accomplish their tasks, shifting even minor decisions into more elaborate processes.
Organizations start adding extra validation
A number of verification steps are typically included to prevent errors and meet regulatory standards. Organizational structures that confront regulatory issues and need to make decisions usually use multiple levels of verification to maintain their capacity to manage the process (IntechOpen, Knowledge Management Studies). This approach distributes the risk of ignoring any issue across hierarchical levels. At the same time, this step introduces some uncertainty into the process. If there is some lack of trust in procedures and information flow, then this method serves as an insurance policy. It will probably increase reliability but decrease flexibility. Moreover, this approach may affect efficiency by slowing down the process and creating delays at every stage of approval.
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What does this do to employees over time?
Examination over and over again can affect employees psychologically. Over-validation has been shown to lower employees' motivation and increase their stress, as they always feel their capabilities are under scrutiny (Springer, Organizational Psychology Research, 2026). Their attitude turns sour, and instead of putting forward ideas, they focus on preventing anything from going wrong. The organizational culture shifts from one based on trust to one that emphasizes control. Control is important, but the manner in which it is done matters in the outcome.
