Off the top of your heads, without over-thinking this, please tell me how you would prioritize such a request and how long you think it would take you to answer it. Anyone who answers is humoring me on satisfying my own curiosity.
Scenario:
Every company/industry has compliance/housekeeping procedures that must be dealt with every year. The chairman of your company reminds each employee in the company that this procedure is upcoming for the year and tells every person to have a small, easily accessible bit of information available to provide to a member of the department for compiling and presenting to the department head. The department heads will then all provide the information and analysis to the chairman. The department heads notify each department of the task and the designee to whom the information should be provided. But do not give a specific date for responding. Got it so far?
So, you, individually, as a professional: What timeframe would you give to that task. I’m seeing a split between people who think a request from on high should be answered immediately (it is not an onerous task) and a whole other half of people who have blown off the request for over a week and need to be chased. I’m just curious as to whether it’s the kind of thing that half of the people will come down on one side and half on the other.
If no timeline is stated, it tends to go into my “do when other more urgent tasks have been completed,” and I’d try to get to it within a week or two, barring any urgent rushes that pushed it back further. If folks want things by a specific date, they need to specify a due date, so it can be calendared.
Personally, I’d do it ASAP. In fact, if I was able, and it was a simple task, I’d respond immediately to the request. Part of it is having respect for my boss (whom I have only met once, accidentally), but if she wants something from me, I’m there to help. Another reason is that if I don’t take care of things immediately, sometimes I forget. I wouldn’t like to get reminded to do something by my boss, as I prefer to keep any contact with anyone up the line positive. I rarely meet or talk to anyone in my chain of command (yay).
I’m the designee, so I know that the chairman intended everyone to immediately provide the information (it’s top of the head info for each individual) by forwarding the email to the departmental designee. I come down on the side of respond right away, but I do think the chairman should have given a deadline. I think it was a “poof I can wave my magic wand and receive this information immediately” kind of thing. However, it’s embarrassing to have to be chased over something so simple.
I would have done it immediately, especially since it’s something I know off the top of my head. When you read is request, you already know the answer. Just type it in the email and hit Send. Boom, you’re done.
If I was a member of the department, I’d act on something small like this within 24 hours just to get it done and not have to think about it further.
If I was the head of the department, I would give an arbitrary deadline of a week . . .so basically I could collect it and chase down the laggards before someone chased me down!
Just now reading your further clarification . . .as the designee, I would set whatever arbitrary deadline you think is appropriate. So if you think the chairman wanted the info immediately - - I would put in my email that I needed the info by the end of the day.
that’s what I’m going to do amarylandmom. I was just interested because it seems to be almost split between immedat responder and ignorers, and the same with the designee of the neighboring department.
I’m in the do it right away camp, just to get it off my desk, but the problem was in not setting a deadline in the first place. If you’re in charge of collecting the info, I’d say you should create your own deadline per whatever you decide (right away or in a week).
If there was no deadline, I would see it as not too urgent, but I work in an industry where EVERYTHING is a rush, so if someone doesn’t say it’s a rush, I think it’s commonly interpreted as something that can wait. Personally, I would also ask for a deadline. Again, I work in an industry where it’s encouraged to always make sure to ask when the person would like to have the task completed by.
As the boss who has to do all this regulatory mumbo jumbo, Im usually clear with deadlines or I ask how long something will take. If I did ask someone to do something I’d expect it within the next couple of days unless we talked about a later deadline. In general people ask for things they want need sooner rather than later.
I would probably ask, because my boss has a tendency to ask for things that he needs by a certain time for a certain reason, and sometimes he gives me multiple time-consuming things at once. Sometimes, the conversation is even, “okay, so if you want to email this out to the board at 3 pm today, should I get it to you at noon?” AKA drop everything and do it?
I don’t think i was perfectly clear. It’s not a task in the sense of doing something, it’s a yes period or no and question that every employee will know off the top of the head,and everyone knows that this report is done at this time of the year.
Yes or no? If someone procrastinates on that one… Maybe that’s why there was no deadline, expectations might be 5 seconds to type yes or no, hit send, so why would anyone wait?