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If You're Always Working, You're Never Working Well
An anonymous reader writes: Hard work is almost an axiom in the U.S. — office culture continually rewards people who are at their desks early and stay late, regardless of actual performance. Over the past decade, it's encroached even further into workers' private lives with the advent of smartphones. An article at the Harvard Business Review takes issue with the idea that more work is always better: "When we accept this new and permanent ambient workload — checking business news in bed or responding to coworkers' emails during breakfast — we may believe that we are dedicated, tireless workers. But, actually, we're mostly just getting the small, easy things done. Being busy does not equate to being effective. ... And let's not forget about ambient play, which often distracts us from accomplishing our most important tasks. Facebook and Twitter report that their sites are most active during office hours. After all, the employee who's required to respond to her boss on Sunday morning will think nothing of responding to friends on Wednesday afternoon. And research shows (PDF) that these digital derailments are costly: it's not only the minutes lost responding to a tweet but also the time and energy required to 'reenter' the original task." How do we shift business culture to reward effective work more than the appearance of work?
nice
I would say that such an employee deserves to get paid for that time, at overtime rates. Even for salaried employees, although that gets messy I imagine.
Our employees take a day off each week. No email, no ambient tasks. Shut it all down for 24 hours.
On the flipside, unless you're our social media manager, fb and twitter are off limits at work.
Really dedicated people like scientists - never stops working. They work even making love.
One of the bigger cultural differences I've found working in both the U.S. and Scandinavia is that American meetings are long, unpredictably scheduled, and really disorganized. A 10am meeting might really get down to business by 10:15 if you're lucky, maybe 10:30, and probably won't end on time at 11:00am. Nobody will have distributed any material to consult ahead of time, or even a proper meeting agenda for that matter, and as a result people don't come particularly prepared, and a ton of time is wasted. Since there is no real agenda, who needs to be at the meeting also hasn't been very carefully decided, so a bunch of people are just in case, and they spend half the time on Facebook or email while irrelevant parts of the meeting happen. The assumption seems to just be that just half-assing the whole thing is the best way to go...
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Hard working Americans, are always the ones the get fired first for not working at all in Europe...
How did you get here from Bizarro US?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
>The assumption seems to just be that just half-assing the whole thing is the best way to go...
But that is the American way! It is the spirit of America!
I'm going to email these links to my boss & coworkers right away! Even though it's the weekend, I think they really need to see this immediately :)
... what will happen to those incapable of efficient work? :)
At least this way they can do unpaid overtime and convince their boss - who's also incapable of efficient work - that they're useful...
I apologize for the lack of a signature.
I find in most business cultures I've had contact with that actually spending time to think about a problem is actively discouraged. Problems get bounced from one person to the next, and the actual work performed by any one person on something is so limited that often no-one understands the full problem. The always connected culture described in the article is part of the problem, but more fundamentally it is that there is such the constant stream of email with so little thought put into it
The need has come to educate yourselves: http://www.dailyblogtips.com/e...
One of the bigger cultural differences I've found working in both the U.S. and Scandinavia is that American meetings are long, unpredictably scheduled, and really disorganized.
They're also intentionally made that way. Therefore, nobody is really accountable and nobody really has to do anything about whatever problem is discussed, and they can all blame it on the "didn't quite get what was supposed to be done" thing.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
People learn what works. Secretly producing all of your required output in 5 hours then adding some extra on top of it - then going fishing for four days is a recipe for dismissal. Productivity measurement equates to attendance and attitude and workers have adapted by creating a steady stream of noise. You show up at the meetings, respond to email and participate in discussions. You smile. You go all-in any time of day for some trivial shit that you could have let go except demonstrate activity. You are a value to the team. It does not matter that you haven't actually accomplished anything meaningful.
Hey... I have found out my colleagues are American and I make Scandinavian complaints ;)
As it happens, Americans are too nice about their own time. If a meeting is more than 5 minutes overdue Scandinavians (and Germans) will brusquely get up and leave. Americans sit around and chew the fat waiting for somebody else to make the move.
All TFA talks about is the hours of working, but there are more aspect of work than mere number of hours
If one really enjoys the work one will not treat the work as _work_, but rather something that is FUN - - EXCITING - - REJUVENATING
I have been in the tech field for decades and I keep seeing people who take the task they are assigned with as challenges that they want to overcome getting the job done faster, with more zeal, and produce much better code than those who take whatever they are being tasked with as "burden"
It's not the hour that you put in, it's the fun-quotient that will ultimately determine whether you will excel in the job you are in, or otherwise
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
See for yourself!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Would you hire Bob?
used to be of the belief that the money I would earn would be directly proportional to how hard I worked.
However, I learned about 14 years ago that a far, far more significant parameter is how effectively I work. How much time I spend working is almost irrelevant, if what I'm doing is genuinely what the situation is calling for in that moment.
I'm not especially clever, or especially well trained, but currently I earn around $150K for about 2 hours work a week.
Here's how it's done - put a feedback loop into your behaviour so that you assess every hour spent in terms of the genuine value it added to other people. If it didn't really add any value, then look for ways to get that activity out of your life. This might mean tough negotiations at work or even getting a new job, or working for yourself so a bit of courage might be needed to make the change, but it's crucial to prune out unproductive "work" activities where you could just as well have been sitting on the beach for all the value it added.
And if your hour DID add value, how much value did it add to other people's lives? Did you get paid a reasonable sum for the value you added? If not, why not - if the reason is due to other people's inefficiencies, then again - how can you change your situation so that your efforts and skills are not wasted?
It will take time for this feedback loop to work it's magic because it has the effect of slowly tending the garden of your career in a beneficial and fruitful direction, but for myself - my situation was quite radically transformed within 3 years.
One quite pathetic situation/problem in large organisations is that people can be seen to be more effective the more "face time" you have with them. Thus some long meetings exist for the sole purpose of spending time with the people with the power to promote. Apparently it then snowballs into the "company culture".
Since I'm now in a small enough place that everyone has no choice other than spending time with everyone else I can avoid that stupidity but I still see it on occasion when the company I work for takes jobs from some large multi-nationals - I get to see a little window into full-on Dilbert territory. Things like meetings where eight people from the other company turn up but only two speak, who get left floundering with no backup when out of their depth despite all the others there.
really, this is brainless
How do we shift business culture to reward effective work more than the appearance of work?
In the academic world, stop the "publish or perish" mentality.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Quantify "effectiveness". Seriously - how can you reduce something as emphemeral as effectiveness into a stoplight chart or bar chart that middle management can digest in 27 seconds or less?
Number of heads being managed, billable hours, email activity - those are easily quantified and would seem to apply, hence that's what matters.
You forgot to mention that no one takes meeting minutes or notes. Thus any decisions made are lost two steps out the door. Which in turn requires future follow up meetings to re-decide/debate the same issues. I've seen heated discussions over issues that were already resolved in a prior meeting.
That's because here in Sweden at least, we learned from childhood to work in groups, including presentations etc, though that has changed a lot now that we've adopted more international methods. Aka, downgraded our education...
For example, when I was a kid, we had student councils in school, from age 10, where each class has 1 or 2 representatives, who then report to the rest of the class at the weekly class meetings etc. It was also a good way to teach students about democracy.
As for the difference between US and nordic culture in regards to meetings, time keeping etc, I do notice that a lot in my freelancing. US clients are more likely to call at completely idiotic times(like calling at 19:00 their local time, meaning it's middle of the night/really early morning for me), and as you say, less coordinated with materials at meetings etc.
What did they expect when the keep promoting morons? Or, if you promote a successful technical person to a management position. An engineer may be good at engineering, but that skill does not translate to business administration. I know a lot of smart people who are horrible bosses. Can't we just pay them better and let a qualified manager do managing? Why do we have to make someone a manager in order to pay them better?
I'll just establish this new policy:
During off hours you are allowed to intermix business and personal communication, whereas during business hours you are not allowed to use facebook or any of the other popular sites.
That way I get both the focus during working hours and the extra effort during off hours.
Those who refuse to respond to business communication during off hours will be replaced by those who are more dedicated. Same for those who are caught facebooking during business hours.
Next.
office culture continually rewards people who are at their desks early and stay late, regardless of actual performance
>>>POOR office culture rewards that. Try integrating anonymous peer 360 reviews as a part of annual job performance to find out who is worth a damn and who isn't.
we may believe that we are dedicated, tireless workers
>>>Only truly stupid management believes that. Good management knows each individual has their limits and knows each of limits per individual they manage AND how to maximize that individual's productivity given those limits. Management does this for the benefit of the company, not the individual. See maximizing shareholder value.
After all, the employee who's required to respond to her boss on Sunday morning
>>>No, this is NOT required. See POOR office culture for reference.
Facebook and Twitter report that their sites are most active during office hours [...] will think nothing of responding to friends on Wednesday afternoon, And research shows
>>>That linked research is fascinating. However, it mentions NOTHING of social sites. Author is wrongly extrapolating researchers findings to support his opinion piece.
Some parts of the workforce do rely on constant real-time communication. But others should demand and be given proper breaks from the digital maelstrom
>>>See POOR culture for reference. You have multiple tools for communication ... learn to use each effectively and with common sense guidelines.
Being busy does not equate to being effective.
>>>Common sense.
I really hope HBR does not permit this garbage to continue. Opinion pieces are fine, they need to be quality opinion pieces.
I think one contributing factor is the commonly conceived idea of management: Managers tell people what to do and when to do it. They rate their own success at managing and workplace status more by how well others comply with their demands than from their teams' or departments' productivity (that's an abstract number on a report somewhere). Lots of workers are unhappy about the way their managers treat them and want to leave at the earliest possible opportunity, unless of course, they like their colleagues (Should we reward colleagues more for workers' productivity?) When managers can drop the "command and control is good" mindset, then they're ready to do something more constructive, egalitarian, and ultimately productive... you know, like show some support and leadership.
Some people use this to advantage to deliberately re-fight the same debate that they lost last time.
That's one reason minutes, with clearly marked decisions and actions are so important.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
If you are not prepared to work at all hours, your US clients will find someone who is. I am also a European freelancing for American clients, and I answer calls whatever hour of the day or night they decide to call, and I don't complain about it either. I can always just go back to sleep afterwards if it is not particularly urgent.
Business is global now. That necessitates 24/7 availability.
up or out rules need to go as they lead to that as well.
I'll tell you what I'm seeing after 35 years in the US workforce - more slackers. Millennials and what used to be called yuppies coming in late and leaving early. Oh and if you look closely, they are not hunched over their computer getting work done. They are hunched over in front of their computer, but instead of working on something, they are twiddling with their phone on Wastebook. Every now and then, they respond to an email after blabbing about with their friends. That's it.
Christ, what happened to the Strong Work Ethic in this country?
As a system designer and programmer, my work is fairly creative in that I have to take a complex problem is simplify it into something that can be cleanly programmed. I require a lot of down time during the day to subconsciously maul over my work. 5 minutes means nothing to me. In an 8 hour day, I only get about 1-2 hours of real programming work done. The rest of the time I'm relaxing my mind, albeit in a very specific way.
I question the idea that managers care about "better" work. They seem to only care about people sitting at a desk for a certain number of hours each day. If you can't measure it, you can't manage it, and creativity can't be measured or managed. Managers would rather have people doing sub-optimal work they can measure than doing great work independently.
and I deal with the phone when I'm available to do so. In rare cases when I know a call is time sensitive I'll switch it on. Mail on 30 min check.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
As a tech contractor, I only work 40 hours a week from Monday through Friday. My contract doesn't allow me to work overtime or make up time(i.e., if some idiot throws himself in front of the morning train). I earned enough money and live a modest lifestyle to salt away half of my income into savings. The only work I do from home is filling out and submitting my time sheet.
My time limit is 15 minutes. If no one shows up or I'm not informed that people will be late, I'll leave. I startled many recruiters and hiring managers by walking out on them if an interview doesn't start promptly. Since my Rolodex contain the names of 600+ recruiters, my time is too valuable to waste.
This is a great summary/article. And lets be honest here, most 'office' based people only have so much they really need to do on their current projects. You can sit at your desk for hours making work, writing emails, or sit though endless meetings where nothing is decided and the action plan in the minutes always unashamedly reads "x to report back next week with a final decision", when that decision was the purpose of the meeting. Contrast this with the more "Scandinavian" model where people come in, figure out what needs to be decided and work together to sort it out as directly as possible, and quite often end up getting home by quarter to five to see their kids come in. And I don't mean they're trying to minimise their work contribution - its just that unless you're kidding yourself about how important you are, there really isn't that much to do! Of course the exception here is the creative individuals who choose to work much more than they need for their own satisfaction. But often the bosses won't know they are anyway so I don't think the article applies to them. In the UK I think we have it about half way between the US and Scandinavian models, although neither are anywhere near as bad as Hong Kong, where meetings can last ALL DAY (up to 8pm), and you walk out realising that nothing was decided and a new event has appeared on your calender - same time next week!
My new job is like that. A 90-minute training session goes on for three hours. Most of the trainers are working from home as all the new contractors are working on site. They're comfortable with kids and dogs running underfoot at home. Like most tech companies where everyone has worked for a long time (eight or more years), there's no documentation and key work knowledge are locked away in people's head.
How do we shift business culture to reward effective work more than the appearance of work?
Promote managers who have a clue?
You are not a hard worker or care much for your job if you are doing things not work related throwout the day. Granted, I'm a office/warehouse position, but other then a quick check on my fantasy baseball team to see what players are not playing, my time is spent on what I am being paid for, work.
All this time spent on social media (and other non-work related things) are a result of demonizing corporations of profit. Other then CEOs, most people don't care if their company make money, hell, they think their company should make less money I bet.
Need managers who have been in the position of their workers they are in charge of, so they how to tell if the employee is slacking off. Need to find employees that are dedicated to their job, even if some of what they do is not noticeable. This can be hard to distinguished till you go threw a few lazy employees, then find a good one.
its your fault, not the endless meetings to discuss what your not working on while in the meeting
Testify Brother (or Sister) Not handling Action Points properly is another problem for a lot of people
Some people use this to advantage to deliberately re-fight the same debate that they lost last time.
Pro-tip: The best way to win, is to hold another meeting to rehash the issues, and don't invite the people that disagreed with you last time.
I always use my full ass at these type of meetings, none of that half-ass stuff for me.
He didn't say that, but either way you'd have to scale any accomplishments by population at least if you really want to compare.
... oh yeah, that's the problem, we're all working so hard in the US. Except those who aren't working at all, which is a huge cohort.
From working from Europe in a global organization a few years ago, it was interesting to see how American colleagues always seem to be projecting the importance of their work and their persona, with an always-on mindset. And it was interesting how emails got answered in the late evening US time zones, with replies that were clearly in the style of "I want you to know that I read your email and am working in the evening", but with no real effort behind the response. And with silly emails like "going away with family on vacation for two days, so I will be reading email less frequently" - dude, why are you checking your emails on a vacation.
Furthermore, US colleagues often seemed obsessed about strengthen their own work position, paranoid about any initiative which may reduce their importance, and generally working relations and politics to make themselves as hard-to-fire as possible. Some people clearly playing their own agenda not really caring about what is right for the company. And creating as little transparency as possible about information they own, making it hard to objectively assess their performance, or replace them with someone else. The kind of person who will do what they are asked, and little else.
In Scandinavia, my experience is we tend to focus on getting sh%# done, and nobody really cares when you do it. In most work environments people are not expected to be always-on, and we embrace the idea that it is good for people to be able to take some weeks vacation once in a while. Plus with public welfare systems - yes, the dreaded "socialism" - you don't have to be overly paranoid about the consequences of losing your job.
One of the most effective tools I have had in terms of time management, is that whenever someone has asked me something with a questionable or unreasonable timeline, I have questioned the time frame and discussed what are actual requirements - and usually there is no problem shifting the timeline to something reasonable. Just because someone asks, that does not mean you have to say yes. There is nothing worse than under-delivering. It is better both for yourself, and for whomever is asking, to push back and find something that works - and then deliver a quality end product. Or some times reducing the scope - someone asks for a big presentation, which you know they may end up changing everything - and you agree on instead making a rough draft and storyline. So you just saved yourself a ton of work, and all it took was 2 minutes of intelligent discussion.
As for changing the culture, I'd say just take a position regarding how and when you plan to work, and let your colleague and peers know. Or at least discuss what is the expectation in terms of work commitments. So they will not be expecting an always-on mindset. In the end, if you keep delivering your stuff, I would think that is what matters.
There's a push among some to cut back the work week. That solves all the worlds problems right? Full employment, more leisure time, more people commuting, less expendable income...oh wait.
Jesus is coming.
Working like that only leads to health problems(both bodily and mentally), and only helps to foster a retarded culture.
It also leads to more errors and lower quality. And the quality of your work matters more.
You may not realize it or even care, but you're one of the turds at work that everyone hates. You make everyone's day longer even if you don't goad people into actually staying longer. Say, you wouldn't be a manager who gets extra credit and bonuses by making your underlings work longer hours and weekend while you go home on time and enjoy a nice BBQ'd steak with the family?
I work with clients in /several/ countries besides the USA (e.g. Japan, The Netherlands, UK). Call? They can email me. And if it's urgent, they should've emailed me earlier. Of course there are exceptions, but those are extremely rare, because I make clear that the preferred way to reach me is email, and that I don't want to use Skype (or similar). And it really works. I can't be standby 24/7 because that would affect my work, and so far there hasn't been any need for this.
With one project they hired a new guy. He asked me (on Skype) "how do I edit a file on Linux" (really!). So I replied "vi, otherwise just transfer the file and edit it locally". He picked vi but .... he insisted that I was going to teach him how to use vi via Skype. No thanks, even if I could declare my hours. In general, my experience with Skype has been that the other side sets a time, and when I am on Skype, on time, they always have to finish some business first. If I can hold on for a while (20+ minutes). One of the reasons I don't do Skype anymore. The other one is that some customers tried to use it to get a real time quote. I need time to think about such things (most things, in general), so no. Besides brain storming via email also gives a nice transcript (which I am more than happy to turn into a formal document).
Perl Programmer for hire
Exactly. Moreover, clients who insist on 24/7 availability etc. are also the ones that drop you as soon as they've found someone who claims to be available 24/8 and/or asks a few cents less. Rent-a-coder et al are good places to find such clients (can you write a facebook clone, the budget is 200 USD...).
Perl Programmer for hire
Of course Americans are more prone to call at idiotic times. Why would a nordic person call in the middle of your night? It's the middle of their night, too.
Yeah, but let's face it. You.. are... so... fucking... dull.
No more than getting up in the middle of the night to piss leads to bodily and mental health problems.
No, the culture is already there, and in other to keep my clients I need to meet their expectations.
It's very rare that clients expect you to work, as in perform complicated tasks, when they ring you at 0200. It's almost always a matter of answering their question or jotting down a detail, and then you can go back to sleep.
I'm not sure how valuable anyone that actually has a Rolodex can be outside of an AARP meeting. Perhaps they were startled at the speed which you can still move.
For example, when I was a kid, we had student councils in school, from age 10, where each class has 1 or 2 representatives, who then report to the rest of the class at the weekly class meetings etc. It was also a good way to teach students about democracy.
I recall this from my elementary school (in America) -- it was structured precisely the same way. We had lots of group work and campus clubs, student senate in middle school and high school, things like mock trial, model UN, and speech and debate where you would learn Robert's Rules of Order, things like boyscouts and Boys and Girls of America to teach leadership skills, etc. And any kind of camp for sports or band would focus on teambuilding. Americans are actually very well-trained on how to work together, and they can do it amazingly well despite huge cultural and personal divides.
But that is part of what lets these pernicious managerial practices persist. Americans can often work around them, so there's not a huge pressure to punish or reform managers who get it wrong. It's also the case that while we're cultivating this cooperative culture, Americans are also cultivating a competitive, get ahead of the other guy, win at any cost culture. People who go into business administrative positions are often the fruit of the latter rather than the former.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
I remember John Cleese starring in a 20 minute training video 'How to plan a meeting'. It addressed all your complaints.
The absolute best system I've heard of is at arista networks where they require (or did 3 years ago) their employees to do 40 hours of work a week. Not be at the office 40 hours. Although it was on the honor system it allowed people to do what they needed and not feel the drive to work constantly, so long as 40 hours happened.
Using my own time tracking tools, I find that in a very very productive week I do 35-55 hours of productive work at my desk. This is as a startup cofounder / engineer. Especially if my time is focused 85+%.
Not "partly as a result". The things you mention are cultural issues, and problems, but not related to electronic enablement of 24x7 work.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
That is why it's called "management" and not "solving", "empowering" or "understanding".
Did I say Rolodex? Sorry, I meant LinkedIn.
That's because here in Sweden at least, we learned from childhood to work in groups, including presentations etc, though that has changed a lot now that we've adopted more international methods. Aka, downgraded our education...
For example, when I was a kid, we had student councils in school, from age 10, where each class has 1 or 2 representatives, who then report to the rest of the class at the weekly class meetings etc. It was also a good way to teach students about democracy.
As for the difference between US and nordic culture in regards to meetings, time keeping etc, I do notice that a lot in my freelancing. US clients are more likely to call at completely idiotic times(like calling at 19:00 their local time, meaning it's middle of the night/really early morning for me), and as you say, less coordinated with materials at meetings etc.
The US has 30 times the population of Sweden, so please don't assume that all Americans are the same in terms of education or courtesy.
I think the best manager realize the best way to manage is by empowering their workers to get their job done and removing any obstacles in the way.
You can forget about people not doing facebook and twitter at work. Being on these services 24/7 is instilled in people now starting in elementary school. The cell phone is the lungs of a now 'typical' person's being and social media is the air they air breathe. I am a college professor and I actually have a penalty in my grading system for using mobile phone's in class. You know what? The students don't care. They continue to check n' post as they wish, whenever they wish.