When I say “process bloat,” I mean steps that have been added to what used to be a straightforward process and have never been removed even when they became defunct.
Most of these steps were introduced as “innovations” that senior management got excited about, had meetings about, sent a company-wide memo about… and then lost all interest in within a few weeks. Or the senior exec who implemented the change has since left the company, and their project has been abandoned but remains clogging up the pipeline like a clump of extra-wiry pubic hair in a drain.
The steps are things like “navigate to a particular tab in this spreadsheet and find the relevant code in the table and append it to your report when you submit it” (for something that is no longer being tracked) or “when submitting, navigate through 100 options in this dropdown menu and find the one that's most applicable” (again, for something that's no longer being tracked). You can't skip these steps because the software is set up to reject any report submitted without them.
As a result of being exhausted by these million and one steps, I'd say my personal productivity at work has been cut by at least 80%. Fortunately, no one seems to care. There's no point trying to flag these steps for removal because my manager has no power to make any decisions, and his boss has no power to make any decisions. All previous attempts to run suggestions up the ladder have been met with irritation from senior management that the peons (a.k.a. people with multiple degrees and decades of experience in the industry) would have the audacity to make suggestions.
In conclusion: Everyone on or near the front line knows they're doing pointless busywork and that it's hurting the company's bottom line. The people who are supposed to be looking out for the company's bottom line don't care and won't listen. And that's why I'm writing this post on company time! 😀