September 3, 2009

I offer you today excerpts from my good friend Maura Thomas’s blog, Regain Your Time.

Maura makes clear that worker productivity results from how well the individual can handle information influx and workload overload. She’s right that providing tools and techniques to upgrade skills and accountability can benefit a business’s bottom line.

I admit that some of what Maura writes (italics) gives me a good launch pad to focus on how we may perceive culture as cause or effect of workplace engagement. Or misperceive it.

It goes without saying that in your company or department, most employees probably have a very full workload.  Have you ever considered how your staff or co-workers handle this workload?  The answers are probably varied.  There may be those who produce competent work and meet deadlines.  Are those employees happy?  Do they seem constantly stressed?  Do they work long hours to get their work done?

I venture that many managers can answer “Yes” to each of Maura’s questions above. That’s because you have positively engaged employees; they’re likely the happy employees. Those who engage in getting their work done because they feel they have to are the stressed ones.  Those who work long hours may attend to every detail painstakingly. Those who get everything done in their 8-hour day may maintain distraction-free focus. How a worker engages — not just that she engages — is critical to her successful performance.

Some people are naturally better at managing full and hectic workloads.  Others aren’t, but this doesn’t mean they can’t learn.  Most people are ill-equipped to handle the demands on their attention caused by the Information Age.  Your employees could be losing hours in their day simply because they don’t manage information well, and usually people don’t manage information well because they have never been taught.  A survey conducted by America Online found that, on average, people check their email five times a day.  A study in Scotland, using optical monitors fitted to workers eyes, found workers glancing at or otherwise checking email as much as 40 times per hour!

When workers feel tied to their email, as if they MUST be immediate with their response, this reflects a culture problem in the organization.  It means no one can focus on any one thing for more than a few minutes or seconds, and this must be addressed at the levels of both personal workload management, and company communication culture.

You can guess I am going to jump in here. If Maura’s reference to “culture problem” means that the business expects too much attention to e-mail, then that is a problem in their formal culture. If she means the employees are e-mail junkies (I’m one) and simply cannot resist 40 looks an hour, then the problem belongs to the informal culture brought in by the workforce. Either way, the issue is one of expectations: what the business culture expects of employees or what employee expects of himself. The business that is free from “culture problems” likely aligns both business expectations and employee expectations.

It comes to this: those at the top of the organization should define and design the culture. Then executives, leaders, and managers must communicate the culture, consistently and in a variety of ways.  Certainly, that’s essential to keeping the culture problem-free.

In addition to communication, accountability has a big affect on culture.  When there are employees who don’t produce, or who consistently miss deadlines, but there are no consequences, this brings down the productivity of the whole organization.  But often people aren’t held accountable because of the workload-management skills of the individuals delegating the work.

Does accountability affect culture or the other way around? It depends. Does the formal culture feature accountability and hold it as a visible, viable imperative? Or does the absence of accountability invade the informal culture and make employees feel engagement doesn’t matter?

If your staff has interpersonal challenges, stress issues, works more hours than you think they should, or any combination of these issues, personal productivity skills could be lacking.  Giving your staff the techniques and processes they need to keep up with the demands of the Information Age could have a huge impact on your bottom line, in employee satisfaction, teamwork, and productivity.

Here I fully agree with Maura. She refers to “techniques and processes.” These are perfect examples of Resources in my C.O.R.E. of Engagement. Information, tutoring, training and education remove obstacles to employee engagement. Engagement leads to performance improvement. Satisfaction, teamwork, and productivity are discernible signs of that improvement.

Yes, engagement is fundamental to productivity.

Thanks, Maura, for good thoughts…and for giving me something to think about.

Visit Maura’s website: Regain Your Time.

• Share
• Tweet

Tags: Employee Engagement, productivity