Myth of long hours
YOU know, many times in my career as an employee, employer and entrepreneur I have taken pride in declaring how I’ve achieved success by slogging through twenty hour (or some such ridiculous number) work days. It was a badge of honour to claim how I sacrificed my social and family life to get “it” done.
Somehow sending emails at 2am was the ultimate exhibition of responsibility, dedication and loyalty to work. Conversely, I've had a boss or two in my long career who piled on endless work thinking I still must have more time in my day for the company. I've actually even witnessed an administrator demanding a report from a son at his parent's funeral. All I have to say about myself and these bosses in this context is that we were idiots.
I have a small company, and I do sometimes work more than a normal eight hour day. Occasional long hours do happen because of contingencies or bottlenecks. However, when I find myself having to work long hours repeatedly, I stop and analyse why that is happening. It usually comes down to poor planning.
Planning, quantity of work, resourcing and quality of work are interrelated. They say you can have it cheap, fast, or good – pick any two. Cannot have all three.
As an individual, my planning must kick-in in the form of work load analysis when a project or task is handed to me.
Ethically, the quality of work should never be compromised. So, that leaves me to play with the quantity of work and resourcing in my planning, assuming honest efficiencies. My capabilities, skills and other obligations at the time determine the resources I can personally contribute to the project or task.
As you can see, assessing realistically what I can do in a specific amount of time gives me the ability to convey to my task masters what I, as an individual resource, can accomplish.
This is helpful in that it brings together all the parameters in the form of planning to determine what resources must be engaged, for how long, to produce what work, in what time-frame, without affecting the quality of work. Whether you are your own boss or you have a boss above you, such analysis helps prevent surprises and blame at the end, rather helps you bite the bullet and deal with an unrealistic expectation upfront by either resourcing it better or declining the offer to engage in it.
Companies can, and do, engage in exactly the same exercise in principle by looking at workload analysis, process flows and process flow optimisations.
Also, two exact same positions do not mean you will get the exact same productivity out of both. We, mostly have humans occupying positions and not robots.
Each human has a spectrum of strengths in various areas.
So, in efficient and caring companies the managers make it their business to know the appropriate work load for every position and situation, and how they can negotiate between time, skills and capabilities of various team members to produce optimal results without overloading the system, including individuals.
If a company is to operate as an efficient and smooth machine, then no component must be loaded beyond its designed capacity.
Efficiency and safety also drop over long hours. How does this explain a one-person startup company owner having to put in endless hours?
Ah, yes, the ambition of the owner drives him/her to overload the system, i.e. himself/herself because no additional resources are available/affordable, in achieving overly ambitious outcomes.
As is commonly observed, this works only for a while, after which you will either engage additional resources or crash and burn, and also damage your family-life balance. The value of your work will never exceed the value of the moments and memories not realised with loved ones. Successful companies are built on foundations of strong principles. If you appreciate the quality and time your employees spend with their families, they will value the quality of effort and time they put in the company because they will treat the company as extended family.
This holds true for indirect obligations as well. Just because you are an insomniac, don't send 2am emails because it makes the employees feel obligated to prove they are responsive by replying at 2:15 am.
Set an example of worklife balance, starting with yourself, by setting boundaries and communicating them to your employees.
This could mean holding off until 8am on sending that email.
■ Dr Dilawar Grewal leads Augeo Asia Pacific, a Fijibased company that partners with organisations to connect the dots between strategic planning, operational planning, business process optimisation, and performance management. Dr Grewal is a strategic thinker, planner and is skilled at creating pathways to organisational successes for the public and private sectors in the Pacific. For more information or to discuss solutions in more depth please contact Dr Grewal at augeop@ augeoap.com or visit www.augeoap.com.