Time vs. Productivity vs. Results
I recently saw a job post for a Software Developer that included the following requirement:
"Working 40 hours or less a week is not in your vocabulary"
In other words - don't take this job unless you want work to dominate your life. Do you have kids at home during the pandemic? Do you have personal goals? Care about wellness? Sorry, need not apply!
I found this to be an interesting insight to the culture at the company, and so counter to the progress I've seen as an HR professional towards results-oriented environments. Even prior to COVID-19, businesses widely recognized that work / life balance is critical to engage and motivate a productive workforce. Remote work and flexible hours became a common perk to recruit and retain employees. Performance management systems shifted towards goal and results oriented factors vs rating for "attendance." Some old-school companies resisted, and denied the ability to be productive in a non-traditional way. Then COVID-19 hit and non-essential workers were required to stay home. So many eyes have been opened to the fact that work and business can be conducted effectively in other ways.
I'm not saying there aren't issues and challenges associated with the current situation, because there are. My point is this... Top performers are focused on getting results, not putting in a certain amount of hours.
If you tell your employees they have to work 60 hours a week, they will find 60 hours of "work" to do. That doesn't mean that it is necessary or productive work.
You can also have an employee who appears productive but is not efficient. An example of this would be spending 10 hours a week producing and analyzing reports that could be automated to take only 1 hour a week.
We should challenge ourselves, and our employees, to think about how to produce results in the most efficient way possible.
We work on this constantly at Bravent, which is why we're able to help our clients hire top talent for a fraction of the cost of traditional contingent agencies. If you're interested in learning more about these concepts, contact me at [email protected]!