Recently I have come across more and more companies that judge their employees’ work by the time they spend at the office. By doing this they are slowing down the development of productive habits. By focusing on hours worked instead of results produced, they let their team members avoid answering the most critical question: “Am I currently using my time in the best possible way?” As a result, members of the team often use their time inefficiently.
More broadly, many team members use their time inefficiently because their company’s hour-oriented culture hasn’t forced them to think rigorously about what’s really important. Sometimes, this leads team members to spend an excessive amount of time perfecting one particular task for example, the formatting of an internal presentation, instead of spending time where it adds most value to the company.
What You Can Do About It
How can you remove yourself from this treadmill of long, wasted hours at work? Start by constantly evaluating your use of time — even if your company’s culture doesn’t force you to.
That means knowing what’s important to you and your company as well as what’s not important. So think critically and rigorously about your priorities.
Then, be prepared to say ‘NO’ to tasks and requests that don’t matter:
- Decline meetings, whenever you can.
- Don’t be afraid to use the “delete” button when reviewing your inbox.
- If you can’t say ‘NO’ to a certain request, recognise that it may only require a B effort. Don’t spend hours bumping it up to an A unless you really need to.
While individual employees can change their own habits, high growth companies need strong leaders to make more radical changes and be an example. These high growth leaders must thoroughly reform their company’s implicit and explicit reward structure. Are employees praised for coming in on Saturday — even if only to finish work that could have been completed during regular hours? Are employees frowning at others who leave early for the day in order to spend time with their kids?
Of course, this change won’t come easily. It’s easy to count hours. It’s much harder to set project KPI’s or make subjective evaluations. But smart leaders realise that the only way they can succeed is by getting the most out of their employees. And the only way they can get the best out of their employees is to focus on results, not hours.
