Employment And Productive Workers

Productive Workers

ALMOST all organisations have a mixed variety of employees. Some are hard-working, some are efficient, some are quiet and some are boisterous. All of them go about their work in their own unique ways. There are, however, some employees who think that showing up and looking busy is their version of work. They really do not have much to do, but try to hide this by 'looking busy". Unfortunately, this works most of the time because many organisations, as much as they deny it, do not reward efficient and effective workers but those who are "busy and by implication, hardworking" employees.

Those who work the longest hours, write the hundred-page-long colourful reports and serve on the most committees are much more visible and more likely to be rewarded than those who work smart.

The manager who attends endless meetings and generate reams of reports is often rewarded with a promotion, budget increases and even an administrative assistant to help him cope with his massive workload.

On the other hand, the other manager who quietly saves cost, does his job efficiently and in less time, and who goes back on time from work is likely to be regarded as less dynamic and less committed.

Identifying the "actors". Some of the ways in which these employees go about their business of "being busy" are as follows:

They leave the office late every day, giving the impression that they are hardworking and have a lot to do. My view is that if you leave late everyday, it simply means that you are inefficient, you are not organised enough in your work or else you are acting.

Whichever way. these employees do not come under the category of efficient employees. Anyone who works late hours will also, sooner or later, start to produce poor quality work.

Another way in which they keep up this facade of being hardworking is to constantly tell their workmates about how busy they are. It is like marketing; the more times you tell someone about how busy you are, the more they start to believe you.

When they really have work, they make sure the whole organisation knows about it by calling for endless meetings, sending e-mails about progress reports and generally looking busy by walking around with files even when they go to the canteen.

The trouble with all of this is that these people get away with it, as organisations usually reward the people who punch in early and punch out late.

This fact is compounded by the fact that many managers assume the busiest people who work endless hours are the best workers and tend to reward them for busy behaviour, instead of results.

Once an organisation starts rewarding busy behaviour, it’s sure to get more of the same. This will then result in activities that become ends in themselves. There is a likelihood that meetings will become weekly meetings, reports will become monthly reports and committees will become standing committees.

Rewarding The Producers

The solution to this dilemma is to reward people for achieving specific, measurable goals rather than for just showing up for work and looking busy.

Reward acting and you get actors. Reward results and you get results.

In addition to rewarding specific measurable goals, there are several other useful ways for turning actors into producers:

Set goals and objectives for employees, and judge them by the results. In this way, it does not matter if a person wants to look busy so long as he achieves his targets.

Make sure you have the right person for the job. People who lack either the ability or the training for a job will waste enormous amounts of time and energy trying to do what they simply cannot do. Given the right amount of patience and motivation, most people can be trained to do most jobs very well.

Do not create an organisational culture where working late is the norm: Otherwise, even when people do not have work, they stay in late because "that is the way, we do things here". If people have finished their work, let them go home. Assuming the nature of the job permits it, why keep people around if they have completed their work? If you make them stay, they will just learn how to waste time and create problems for others. And, time off is a great way to reward effective workers. In the final analysis, results are all that matters.

Review the job description of each worker on an annual basis. When company strategy changes or when technology is adopted, this will have an influence on people’s work. It is therefore imperative that jobs are reviewed so that it conforms to the objectives of the organisation and is in line with changes taking place at the work place.

Give special attention to workers whose results fall short of their efforts.

They may have developed poor work habits. Counsel them in a caring and helpful way that you want to see them do the best possible job while expending the least amount of time and effort. Point out that the rewards are for results, not for working long hours.

We leave these "producers" alone, thinking that they know what they are supposed to do and therefore do not need any feedback. In a sense, we are taking them for granted. And then we "punish" the stars by giving them extra work, which the other 80 per cent were not able to do.

Put yourself in their shoes. When someone takes you for granted, what do you do? If you are like most people, you seek a situation in which you will get the appreciation you think you deserve.

When your "producers" leave for more money, recognition, or a better working environment, it is the organisation that will ultimately lose. Recruiting is expensive, and the odds are that you may not get another top producer.

In conclusion, it must be reiterated again that when organisations reward acting they will get actors and when they reward results they will get "producers'.

Ultimately, organisations must be able to devise means to discern the "busy" workers from the "producers'. Only then will they be able to extract quality work through rewarding the right people.

Lieutenant Colonel (rtd) Heera Singh

Principal consultant of HEERA Training and Management Consultancy.

He can be contacted at: +6012-6083708

New Straits Times/Saturday, 12 August, 2016