The Benefits of a Strong Work Ethic, and How It Can Help You Land and Keep Your Dream?Job

When it comes to employment, there is one must-have trait (among others such as dependability and self-motivation) that 73% of companies desire the most in their candidates.

Can you guess what it is? It’s work ethic.

Many job seekers struggle though to understand that work ethic is more than just an innate mix of a good family upbringing and personal qualities, but rather a trait you can actually nurture.

So, what does work ethic mean?

Work ethic refers to a set of key moral values that guide individuals towards successfully completing their work in a formal environment.

So the next time you see a job ad that requires candidates with a strong work ethic, understand that you’ve got to own a series of abilities — like professionalism or punctuality — that will help you (and your future employer, of course) deliver work within a set of agreed rules. We’ll go into all of these skills you need to cover for the strong work ethic aspect later on in the article.

Realistically though, work ethic means different things to different people. While some see it as the guiding force behind an employee’s motivation at work, others regard it simply as being a complete list of skills that companies need to get their projects done.

More controversial than its simple definition remains whether or not a strong work ethic is something you’re born with or can learn.

Is a strong work ethic something you can learn and/or train?

The truth is somewhere between the innate and gained aspects.

I’ve seen that a strong work ethic is behavior that is honed over years of our development. And it’s impacted by what we were trained to do from early childhood on. I’ve worked with hundreds of mid- to high-level professional women who, for instance, learned to become “perfectionistic overfunctioners” — doing more than is healthy and trying to get an “A+” in all of it. We develop that approach to life because our parents praised us more when we did and they withheld affection when we weren’t striving to be the very best. While being a perfectionistic overfunctioner looks like a great work ethic, it’s a crushing way to live that can lead to exhaustion and burnout. — Kathy Caprino, Career Coach, Speaker, Leadership Trainer, and Senior Forbes contributor

No one is just born with a strong work ethic. It’s something you develop in time through all the small things you do and are taught in childhood. From the first human interactions you have, to school group projects, and small chores you get at home. All these are often involuntary learning opportunities we stumble upon at various stages throughout our life.

Then there are the educational paths we deliberately take to develop our own traits and, consequently, our work ethic capacity. Whether it’s taking an after-school course or a business ethics class in college, that educational institutions like the Oakton Community College, the University of Maryland, or the Australian National University offer business and work ethics classes to their students. These courses aim to promote an understanding of the role of ethical behavior in the office and even develop the skills needed to handle all ethics-related situations — another proof of our capacity to learn these principles even later on in life.

So if work ethics are a set of skills, what are some of the traits that can be developed in time?

Punctuality, for instance, is something we’re all encouraged to master through several situations in our lives. From getting to an appointment on time to attending classes in school or just not missing a lecture. Similarly, our parents teach us to be respectful to other people and even indirectly guide us to become true professionals when they tell us to speak clearly and be consistent in our speech.

How to foster a strong work ethic as an employer

Just check out any random Glassdoor job descriptions and you’ll notice that “strong work ethic” is almost everywhere. We’ve already done the research for you so here are the stats on job listings that include “work ethic” as a top requirement:

• 8,500+ jobs in New York
• 4,000+ jobs in London
• 4,000+ jobs in Los Angeles
• 4,000+ jobs in Washington, D.C.
• 3,500+ jobs in Chicago

And that’s just on Glassdoor!

Employers are always looking for people who are eager to give their best at work, follow the company’s policies, and be prepared for most challenges. No surprise since 85% of employers consider attitude and work ethic as the top attributes when picking their next employee. Traits that are even more important than a candidate’s education.

Companies can’t get anything done without their employees, so it’s clear that they’ll be looking for the best ones. But what exactly are the benefits they’re looking to get from hiring a worker with a strong work ethic?

Get employees to show up on time

Set a detailed scheduled complete with exact work hours, downtime, and meeting intervals to offer your employees a starting point for making the most out of their time. After all, nobody can work for 8 hours straight to their full potential.

Most importantly, having employees who organize their time efficiently (or doing that in their place) will also help you deliver work within deadlines. Get them to show up 5 or 10 minutes earlier so they’ll have time to grab coffee and set up their workspace before the actual start of the workday. To compensate, you can offer an extra 10 minutes break — maybe after lunch — since scientifically our energy levels decrease around 2–4 pm anyway.

Develop a strong collaborative environment

Solid work ethics also refer to how your staff handles team relations, each role contributing to the project/work outcomes. In general, someone who is professional, dependable, and open to share information with the team is a great asset. These kinds of people find fulfillment in the success of the whole group and can motivate and help others improve their work ethic, to the point of directly contributing to the company’s overall evolution.

Constructive feedback can only help the growth of the company. Have regular 1:1 feedback discussions with your employees to dig for hidden needs or challenges. Find out if your policies work for them and how you can improve them.

If you want to get unbiased feedback that can express the reality within your organization, use employee surveys to get anonymous answers so they won’t feel pressured to put together a sugar-coated answer. This will also encourage employees to actively have a say about the company’s future trajectory and derive satisfaction from it.

Promote honesty and trust within the workplace

It’s your workers you’ll turn to whenever you need to get a project done and delivered to your clients. That’s why hiring decisions are based on how a person will influence the projects’ performance and fit within the existing team.

In a previous article I highlighted how trust begins at an upper-management level. However, more and more line-managers are expected to take the lead and master more than two management styles, in parallel with creating an environment that promotes honesty and trust between team members. Here are a few tips to help you achieve this:

• Praise your employees when they deserve it
• Avoid office gossip
• Share appropriate information in accordance with everyone’s role in the team
• Let others speak their minds and bring their personal contribution to a project’s development
• Discuss professional growth reports with every individual and help them become better at their trade
• Set an example yourself by delivering on the points promised, which shows consistency and character integrity

Keep your team accountable for their work

Imagine having someone pretend to work just to make a living at the end of the day and fill in their timesheets. Sadly this is the reality we live in, as 51% of American workers are not engaged at work.

To avoid turning employees into mere clockwatchers, equip them with the right tools, techniques, and frameworks. We’re talking here about work management software that keeps them accountable or personal monitoring routines, like time reporting. These won’t work though if you don’t create a trust-based environment where each person can take full ownership of their duties. This step is only easy if you’re willing to let go of the strict hierarchies and penalty measures you might have in place.

Only then you can expect your team to spot potential issues related to their tasks and come up with realistic solutions to fix problems and prevent them from happening in the future.

How to nurture a strong work ethic as an employee

Shocking or not, people change jobs an average of 12 times during their lifetime. We don’t quit our jobs just for wage-relates reasons. Most of the time, it’s also a matter of how well your principles align with the company. Respect, trust, getting well-deserved recognition, and good work relationships have a big say in this equation.

Here’s the hard truth: if you’re only looking for better pay, chances are you’ll miss out on opportunities that are better suited to your own values, hence end up running from one job to another.

We’re always motivating ourselves to do more work so we can get a pay raise or a bonus, but how many of you are actually trying to be better at your craft for your own good? If you can’t see the definitive advantages of having a strong work ethic for your personal development, below are the four main tips to keep in mind.

Organize your work efficiently

All successful projects are built on top of a solid structure. You need client data to build a website, ingredients to put together a recipe, you get it. Just like that, tasks should follow a systematic order if you want to finish work on time.

This doesn’t mean you have to work harder. Although there are 8 hours in a workday, on average we spend a low 2 hours and 23 minutes doing productive tasks. Sure, slacking is inevitable, but you can get smart about how you distribute your time and tasks.

In fact, smart work is all about giving your best while at work. Be it 6 or 4 hours, make sure you’re being your most productive self and clear out tasks that have the highest impact — both for the company and yourself.

For a full look at the methods you can use to organize and prioritize your work activities, check out our complete guide to task management.

Avoid procrastination

Why do most people procrastinate? Mainly because of Parkinson’s law, which states that work expands in direct proportion to the time allocated for its completion. This means that if you have one day to complete a task, you’ll eventually spend it all, even though the task would take 3 hours to finish in reality.

A strong work ethic is what motivates us to move further with our daily activities and say no to distractions when they pop-up. There are dozens of methods you can use to better manage your time, from the famous Pomodoro technique, to the automatic time tracking tools that help analyze in-depth where you spend most of the day.

In the long run though, the best way to beat procrastination is to be stoic and think in terms of active and dead time. That means trying to make the most out of the time you spend at work to learn and continuously develop yourself professionally. So instead of thinking a task is a waste of time, consider it a method of educating yourself either in terms of your hard or soft skills.

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