Common workflow problems in growing businesses
Too much of the working day is spent managing work
Workflow problems rarely arrive as one dramatic failure. They show up as the same project stalling again, another round of clarification, chasing, status checks, information copied into several tools or a capable person quietly keeping the whole process together.
In Asana’s survey of UK knowledge workers, 61% of working time was reportedly spent on this kind of “work about work”.
How UK knowledge workers reported spending their time
Common Workflow Problems
Projects keep stalling at the same stage
A project may repeatedly slow down after the proposal is signed, while waiting for approval, during setup or just before delivery. The delay is often blamed on workload, but the workflow may be allowing work to move forward before a decision, input or owner is ready.
The process depends on one experienced person
A business process can look reliable because one employee remembers the exceptions, knows where the real information lives and spots what everybody else misses. Their competence is hiding key-person dependency and undocumented operational risk.
Ownership is unclear and people keep chasing
Tasks fall between people when responsibility changes informally, decisions have no named owner or several people believe somebody else is following up. The visible symptom is constant chasing. The structural problem may be unclear workflow ownership or decision authority.
There are too many tools, spreadsheets and workarounds
Another platform rarely fixes a workflow that has not been understood. Private spreadsheets, chat messages and manual trackers are often evidence that the official process or system does not support the way the work really happens.
The same information is entered more than once
Duplicate admin often appears when each team or tool needs its own version of the same information. Before automating data entry, it is worth checking which source should be trusted, why the copies exist and where the information changes.
The business wants to use AI but does not know where to start
AI automation can support repetitive tasks, first drafts, categorisation and information checks. It is less useful when the inputs are inconsistent, the workflow contains hidden judgement or nobody owns review. The best first step is to identify a contained, measurable task rather than automate everything.
Handovers happen, but the receiving team is not ready
An email is sent or a status changes, yet delivery still has to search for the latest scope, chase access, reconfirm decisions and work out who owns the remaining questions. This is a sales-to-delivery or client onboarding handover problem, not simply a communication problem.
48%
of employees say their work feels chaotic and fragmented
Source: Microsoft, The Work Trends Index Survey 2025. Survey of 31,000 knowledge workers across 31 markets.
The same visible problem can have several causes.
Eave looks for the structure underneath, including:
missing or inconsistent inputs;
unclear workflow ownership and decision authority;
handoffs without an acceptance point;
information spread across several systems;
exceptions handled through memory and personal workarounds;
unnecessary approval steps;
manual admin that may be suitable for automation;
and a gap between the documented process and what people do in practice.
How we can help
Eave maps what happens in practice, examines the tools, information, decisions and handovers involved, and identifies what should change first.