Are You Paying for Admin Tasks a $100K Hire Shouldn’t Be Doing?
As your business grows, you naturally bring in more help. Sometimes that means hiring experienced professionals who command higher salaries. The problem? Those same high-value employees often end up spending part of their day doing administrative work that could easily be handled by someone else.
This is more common than most owners realize. A $100K hire might be hired for strategic work, but their day ends up filled with scheduling meetings, processing invoices, or updating spreadsheets. While these tasks are important, they do not require that level of expertise. The result is wasted time, wasted money, and slower growth.
Let’s look at why this happens, how to spot it in your business, and what to do instead.
The Cost of Misaligned Tasks
Every role in your company has an intended purpose. A marketing director should be focusing on brand strategy and campaigns, not data entry. A senior operations manager should be optimizing workflows, not chasing down receipts. When highly paid employees spend hours each week on basic admin work, you are paying top-dollar rates for tasks that could be completed at a fraction of the cost.
For example, if your $100K employee spends 5 hours a week scheduling meetings or formatting reports, that is roughly 260 hours per year. At about $50 per hour, that is $13,000 worth of time going toward tasks that could be handled by a lower-cost role or automated system.
Why It Happens
Misaligned tasks usually come from one of three places:
Rapid growth without systems
When a company scales quickly, processes often do not keep up. Without clear workflows, employees jump in wherever needed, even if it is not the best use of their skills.Lack of delegation
Leaders sometimes hold onto tasks because it feels faster to do them themselves or because they are hesitant to trust others.Not knowing what can be outsourced
Many business owners are unaware of just how many admin functions can be handed off to other team members or supported by simple tools.
Signs You’re Wasting High-Value Time
If you are not sure whether this is happening in your business, here are some red flags to watch for:
Senior team members spend time updating spreadsheets or pulling reports
Highly skilled staff regularly answer customer service emails
You are paying managers to process payroll or invoices
Projects stall because leaders are stuck on administrative details
Your team feels “too busy” but you are not seeing the results you expect
If any of these sound familiar, it may be time to rethink how work is being delegated.
Tasks That Can Be Delegated or Outsourced
Not every task needs to be handled by your most expensive employees. In fact, many recurring admin responsibilities can be delegated to support staff, outsourced professionals, or automated systems.
Here are a few common examples:
Scheduling and calendar management
Expense tracking and reimbursements
Data entry and database cleanup
Preparing standard reports or dashboards
Managing inboxes and client communication templates
Payroll processing and invoice management
CRM updates and contact management
Delegating these tasks frees up your senior team members to do the high-level work you hired them for, like strategy, leadership, and growth initiatives.
How to Rebalance Workloads
Shifting work off high-value employees’ plates does not happen overnight. It requires a deliberate approach to identify, delegate, and support the right tasks.
Here are four steps to get started:
1. Audit Time and Tasks
Ask your leadership team to track their time for one or two weeks. Identify which tasks are administrative versus strategic. This will reveal how much high-cost time is being spent on lower-level work.
2. Prioritize High-Value Activities
Clarify what each senior role should be focusing on. For example, a director should spend the majority of their time on planning, analysis, and leadership. Anything that falls outside those categories is a candidate for delegation.
3. Identify Delegation Opportunities
Decide which tasks can be reassigned to existing team members, outsourced, or automated. Even small shifts, like moving scheduling to an assistant or automating recurring reports, can have a big impact.
4. Create Processes and Training
Document the steps for each task you are delegating. Clear processes make it easier for others to take over without confusion and ensure the work gets done consistently.
The Benefits of Proper Delegation
When you stop paying top-dollar salaries for admin tasks, the benefits go far beyond cost savings.
Increased productivity: High-value employees spend more time on the work that drives growth.
Greater job satisfaction: Employees feel engaged and challenged when they focus on strategic work instead of repetitive admin.
Stronger scalability: As tasks are delegated, you can handle more business without overwhelming your leadership team.
Better financial efficiency: Money spent on salaries produces the results it is meant to, not busywork.
Final Thoughts
Administrative tasks will always be part of running a business, but they should not consume the time of your most skilled and highest-paid employees. By auditing workloads, delegating wisely, and setting up clear processes, you can align tasks with the right people and the right systems.
This shift helps your business scale more efficiently, keeps your team focused on what matters most, and ensures that you are investing your payroll dollars where they make the biggest impact.
