Stealing Time

I've noticed recently a disquieting trend towards stricter employee control. Be it via camera, punch cards or even biometrics, employers are attempting to exert more control over how and when their employees work. The reason: to discourage dishonest employees from stealing. This is less about goods - even though people have been sacked for sneaking a few buns of bread - and more about time. "Stealing time", as it is termed, is apparently running rampant, costing employers millions for time spent chatting, surfing and generally not working fast enough. Having run my own company and being an employee now and in the past, I'd like to share with you what I think about the phenomenon, where I think it's coming from and what to do about it. If you're a team or business manager who is facing people "stealing time" you may want to listen closely.

How it happens

"Stealing time" is not what Employees endeavour to do when they sign with your company. What eventually drives them to it anyway is what I consider a case of mismanagement. I know this because I have both stolen time myself (the usual: "creative research" i.e. browsing the web when I realised that everything I'd worked on the previous month had been scrapped without any kind of note) as well as what one could call having my time stolen. I employed a friend back when I was freelancing, and paid her better than myself, yet she got frustratingly little done and we ended up parting ways, friends no more. Up until recently I believed I was in the right - now I know what went wrong. And that I owe her an apology.

Why it happens and what to do

When people feel their employer owes them something and as a result they feel entitled to "stick it to the man", there is any combination of these three things wrong:

1. Their work seems meaningless
there either aren't any set goals, or the goals are unclear or can't be reached, or the goals themselves mean nothing to the employee (buying the CEO a yacht is not something that drives your workforce). There is nothing to focus on, no benchmark to be reached, no clear image of where the company wants to be in a few months/years/decades and how everybody can contribute toward that goal. Find out what motivates your employees and how to combine those aims with your own goals.

2. Their input is not valued
This may seem the same as 1, but it isn't. Employees can contribute to the end result in a lot of different ways. Just powering through what needs to be done is one way. Another less obvious option is evolving the process of work to allow it to be done more efficiently. This is especially true of people with little experience in your field of work. Being unhampered by "the way it's always been done", they might just come up with the revolutionary idea that makes your company take the lead. Trust your employees with coming up with their own ways of solving a problem, and you might be amazed at how creative they can be. This doesen't mean task them and leave them alone for a month. Check up on their progress, offer your expertise and experience. If you have neither, don't interfere. Respect their choices.

3. Lack of enthusiasm
Not at all fixable by shouting loudly what goals you want out of your employees today or having them perform a company dance. That is demeaning and it violates rules #1 and #2. Fake Enthusiasm is bad, and so is saying "Yeah, great job. Keep it up or you're gonna get sacked". Real Enthusiasm is the spirit that together, you can do anything. Which is true. Just ask the people who flew space rockets to the moon.

How and why to fix it

You can chain a man to his desk, but you can not chain his mind to the task. All the biometric fingerprint sensors in the world won't make him care any more about the work he is doing for you. Threaten him and he will stab you in the back on the next occasion. If he does care, however, he will clock in extra hours, because he cares about finishing a project, furthering the company success, reaching a common goal. Which of these two behaviours would you like to encourage? People who ask for stricter control are fighting the symptoms of the disease, not the cause. Control isn't a cure, no more than crutches are a cure for a broken leg. You need to fix the leg, not make living with a broken leg easier.

A ball and chain costs cash to implement and needs constant checking whether the collar is tight enough. Saying "thank you" or "good job" (and meaning it) is absolutely free. And if you do decide you want to at least spend a little to get your employees to work better, spend ten bucks on Ken Blanchards amazing book "Gung Ho" and see how good management can work for you.