Silver Linings Ed. 5 - Time to stop asking fish to climb trees!

Has anyone seen my 9-5 workday? Last seen in late March. Was looking a bit shabby at times back then but now completely AWOL. 

Disruption was already on trend when Covid hit. In fact entire methodologies such as Agile were adopted by organisations, in part, to help them disrupt themselves! Turns out we didn’t need Agile, we needed a pandemic! I jest of course. And while many sought disruption no one wanted it in this fashion or with so many devastating side affects. But as with almost any bad situation, there are silver linings. And one of these is the disappearance of the 9-5 workday.

The concept of the 9-5 institution reminds me of this cartoon (below) about the education system and the associated quote from Albert Einstein. “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.’ 

For me this cartoon highlights the importance of setting people up for success by giving them the resources that enable them to get the best out of themselves. And what more precious resource is there than time? To suggest that we all have 24 hours in the day and we sleep and eat for a portion which leaves us X hours in the day to deliver on our purpose, massively oversimplifies the situation. Not every hour is created equally!

Not every hour is created equally!

In fact it’s not just that not every hour is created equally. It’s that different brackets of time mean vastly different things to different people. 

With people working from home. Now unbridled from the restraints of 9-5 we are seeing some, those that are enabled, start to drift towards their natural rhythm and use these different brackets of time in ways that best fit them as individuals. Let’s take two examples.

Frank is a software developer. Tammy is a change manager. 

Frank really enjoys sitting at his desk coding away on the latest application for his employer. He’s quite social so he misses going into the office to catch up with his team but engages on Zoom as much as possible. BUT. Frank is a Night owl! For reasons that are beyond the scope of my knowledge and this article, Frank does all he can to eschew early mornings. He prefer’s to start his working day when the sun has passed overhead and is descending towards the horizon. To do the majority of his living throughout the night. So rather than a 9am-5pm person. Frank is best suited as a 2pm-10pm person.

Tammy on the other hand couldn’t imagine living as Frank does. She is definitely a ‘Morning person.’ Her habit is to wake by 4am, do some yoga, down a smoothie and get to work in her Feng Shui aligned office by 5am.

By the time Tammy has finished with her 11am meeting, Frank is just starting to poke his head from under the doona. Around this time Tammy will take a break to do some run training, reading and relaxing until 4pm when she will recommence her work day. So Tammy is working 5am till 8pm. With a break in the middle of the day.

To some degree, on any team, your could end up with a mix of Frank, Tammy and everyone in between. This in itself raises some questions. If the team as a whole is working across a 17 hour day this could create some benefits. Equally though there could be some challenges when it comes to team catchups/standups. How do you have your 9am standup when Frank will be asleep for another 3 hours?

By Frank following his natural Rhythm he’ll be at his happiest and most productive. The essence of a perfect employee. So would we force Frank to work Tammy’s hours? Would we force a fish to climb a tree?

Of course you never get anything for nothing and we need to consider the impact of these changes on organisational productivity but I am confident there are methods that can be adopted to ensure people don’t have to return to 9-5 and we’ll all be happier and more productive for it. And that is certainly a Silver Lining to the dark cloud of Covid-19.

What do you think? How is it working for you? What changes need to be made to truly accomodate such flexible working hours?