MCreates

I see a lot of employees trying to fill their calendars or spend long hours in the office to show that they are busy. I guess they feel that the longer hours they stay, the more important they are in the company. I hear them say, I spend over 60 hours in the office every week like it’s a crown on their head. But should we really laud employees who spend long hours at work? 

I often say that if my team consistently works more than their required work hours, then it can generally mean 2 things – 1. We are understaffed or 2. There could be some skill issues that we need to address.  Please take note of the word “consistently”. There will be days when you really just have too much to do and the regular working hours will not be enough. However, if this is happening consistently for months, then you need to assess the root cause.

It is our job as managers to check if the work is enough or too much for our staff. To check if there is a need for more resources and fill those in. There will be cases when the company does not want to incur any additional manpower cost, which can really be frustrating at times, but business is business, so acceptance is necessary. It does not mean you will stop by just accepting that your team will be overworked for the rest of their stay. It may sound idealistic, but almost always, there are always some ways to optimize processes and make them more efficient. In this way, the team can produce more in less time, so it will help lessen the hours worked. There will surely be instances when this is not possible, which will more likely lead to attrition, and as a manager, we need to also make sure that top management understands that. Raise the flag and ask for help. If they don’t listen and everyone starts leaving, then at least you know you did your part.

The recruitment process does not give a 100% guarantee that the candidate will work out. Promoting from within is also not 100% success. As managers, we need to be able to identify skill gaps. If we see our staff struggling to finish work on time consistently, working long hours almost everyday and still unable to finish the tasks assigned to them, then that should cause some concern. We need to factor in the learning curve, for sure, but if even after that and the staff still struggles, we need to dig deeper. There will be cases when it can easily be addressed with some additional training and mentoring, especially if the staff has the right attitude. Other times, they just really don’t have it so we either transfer them or sadly, let them go. Of course, letting go is not the best option and will have to be the last resort but I find it unfair to keep someone unproductive while others do their best to produce as expected or more than expected.

There will be other reasons for people to stay long hours at work and in most cases, I assume they are valid reasons. What’s bad is when people just try to be busy to look busy and not really to be productive. I also do not agree in encouraging a culture when we raise our brows when people leave work on time. We all want to live our lives to the fullest and if that means doing our best to finish our tasks and provide good output within the 8 working hours, then it is not something to be frowned upon but something to be commended. I want my employees to live a balanced life. Relaxation and creativity enriches the mind and allows them to think better and consequently, more productive.