Your best employee may be doing two jobs. You’re paying for one.

Good morning. Tuesday!

Thanks for coming back. Keep voting, keep replying, and keep sending Still Monday to the people who enjoy workplace commentary more than the workplace itself.

Today’s story should interest employees, managers, and anyone who owns a company, because there’s a decent chance someone on your team has acquired an entirely new job without anybody officially mentioning it. The title stayed the same. The work did not.

Corporate efficiency has a very attractive slogan:

Do more with less.

It sounds disciplined. Lean. Responsible.

Eventually somebody should ask what happens when “less” is already doing more.

Korn Ferry recently surveyed more than 16,000 professionals across 11 countries. Sixty-two percent said their workload had increased significantly during the previous two years. Sixty-one percent said they were now carrying responsibilities from more than one role. Nearly half—45%—said they were too busy to deliver meaningful results.

That last number is the one owners should circle.

People aren’t simply complaining that they have a lot to do. Almost half are saying the volume of work is interfering with the work that actually matters.

The pattern usually develops innocently.

Someone leaves.

The company decides not to replace them yet.

Part of their job goes to Lisa because Lisa knows the process.

Another team gets reorganized.

Lisa absorbs some of that work too.

Then AI arrives and saves Lisa three hours a week.

Wonderful.

Lisa now has three available hours.

Management has ideas.

None of this requires bad intentions. It can happen inside a well-run company with smart people trying to control costs.

The problem appears when new responsibilities enter faster than old responsibilities leave.

Gallagher’s latest U.S. workforce research shows the pressure from the employer side too. In a survey of more than 3,700 employers, 61% expected revenue growth by 2027, while only 50% expected their headcount to grow.

That gap has to be filled somehow.

Better tools can fill part of it. Better systems can fill part of it. Automation can fill part of it.

People will fill the rest.

That can work beautifully if the organization actually redesigns the work. A repetitive report disappears. An approval step gets removed. Software handles the manual part. Meetings get shorter because information no longer needs to be presented aloud.

What fails is adding efficiency on top of the same pile.

Korn Ferry found that 52% of workers who described themselves as AI-weary said the technology had actually increased their workload. Someone still has to review output, correct mistakes, feed systems and take responsibility when the tool is wrong.

So when someone gets faster, the management question should not immediately become:

How much more can we give them?

Ask something better:

What can we stop doing now?

That question is much less exciting.

It is also where productivity starts.

Korn Ferry says worker motivation fell from 71% in 2024 to 61% in 2026 as workloads increased and organizations pushed for more growth from constrained teams.

Apparently “Congratulations, you now own Procurement too” has limits as an engagement strategy.

Gallagher found that 61% of employers expect revenue to grow by 2027, while only half expect workforce headcount to increase. The same report found that 63% of employers had annual turnover rates of at least 10% in 2025.

Companies want more output from roughly the same number of people.

The spreadsheet approves.

Amazon announced a $1.5 billion investment in higher U.S. core-operations pay. Minimum starting wages for full-time core operations roles are rising to $20 an hour, average hourly pay is approaching $24, and the company says average total compensation exceeds $32 an hour when benefits are included.

Labor markets eventually send invoices too.

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Take your current job—or one important role on your team—and compare what the person was hired to do with what they actually do today.

Mark the work that was part of the original role. Identify what was added later. Then find the uncomfortable category: work that could stop.

That last part matters. If every new responsibility becomes permanent while every old responsibility survives, the job description eventually becomes an archaeological record.

Managers should do this before adding work.

Employees should do it before a compensation conversation.

If your job has materially expanded, walking into a raise conversation and saying “I’ve been working really hard” gives your manager very little to work with.

Show the difference between the job that was originally priced and the job you perform today. New responsibilities. New decisions. New processes. New people you coordinate. New financial or operational impact.

The conversation changes when the evidence says: This is a different job now.

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Marketing Manager

JOB DESCRIPTION — 2026

Marketing
Sales support
Operations
Reporting
AI implementation
Vendor management
Training
Whatever happened to Procurement

SALARY UPDATE

Still Marketing Manager.

A faster employee does not automatically have unlimited capacity, in the same way a faster highway does not mean you can keep adding cars forever and remain pleasantly surprised.

Eventually you have traffic.

Vote below. Reply and tell us which responsibility quietly appeared in your job after you were hired.

And send this to the person whose title hasn’t changed in three years even though their actual job has changed six times.

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Technically Tuesday. Emotionally Monday.

— The Still Monday Desk