As a supervisor, you have some ability to dictate what your direct reports work on. The requests you make should typically fit their job description, though most descriptions have a catchall “other duties as assigned” attached, which is likely to cover you.

That said, the jobs you give someone generally have a particular expectation of the skills required, the hours to be worked, and the stress level associated with the tasks. If you’re going to ask someone to do something that far exceeds the norm, there are a few things you should consider first.

The people you supervise probably want to keep you happy. You have power over their evaluations, and your recommendation can help to propel them to a promotion or other opportunities. This means that when you ask your reports to do something, they are likely to agree.

You should make sure that when you’re making a big ask, the employee is likely to benefit rather than suffer from doing the work. For example, you have work that needs to be done, but you don’t want to put the time of a higher-priced employee onto it. If you’re going to try to save money by using a less-experienced person, you should be careful that you’re not adding a lot of extra hours or stress to their work just to cut costs.

Your reports pay attention to the hours that other people are putting in. If you ask far greater effort of them than you put in yourself, that can rankle in ways that may ultimately cause dedicated people to want to work elsewhere.

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