This reuters article about Facebook and YouTube at work making employees more productive has been doing the rounds lately. After reading the article, various blog posts, being in a “feedback” style meeting yesterday and then listening to a This Week In Tech episode that mentioned it (albeit only briefly towards the end), a number of threads began falling into place for me.

For me, this issue is more about the duality between your work and non-work self rather than what technologies you’re allowed to use at work. Let’s explore this using two examples …

The value of money

In the book Predictably Irrational, Dan Arielly describes an experiment conducted with a group of lawyers:

… some lawyers were asked by AARP to provide needy retirees with services at a cost of about $30. The lawyers did not accept the offer. However, when asked to offer services at no cost, they agreed. Experiments also showed that offering a small gift would not offend anybody (the gift falls into social norms), but mentioning the monetary value of the gifts invokes market norms. – Wikipedia: Predictably Irrational

Money is not the motivator here. It seems to lead to lesser results and could be considered to hold negative value. What motivates these lawyers is perhaps the social norms of doing something good for those in need.

What does this say about the offer of overtime payments? My guess is that if your company is one that values market norms above social norms, then you will need to fork out lots of overtime payments whenever you need your staff to work outside of 9-5.

Instead of paying overtime, companies should consider adopting more social norms within the workplace. You shouldn’t have to put on a different work face before entering the door. Of course, we shouldn’t sit around our desks drinking alcohol all day either, but people need to feel comfortable being their complete selves at work. This should be encouraged by organisations.

By introducing and adopting social norms in the workplace, organisations reap the benefits of more engaged staff and staff are provided with more living time. The following situation becomes more and more likely and more and more acceptable from both sides:

“Hey I know you’re at home at the moment but would you mind checking your email to fix this issue we’re having? You know we’re a friendly/family company here and really appreciate it, blah blah blah.”

In order for this to work, organisation need to allow staff to access their “social selves” during work hours. A part of this includes engaging in online social networks. If we can bring the social tools and norms to work, then work life spreads into after hours and therefore more work gets done overall.

This is not about manipulation. This is about providing people with an outlet to contribute to society and the world around them. More and more I see people selecting jobs that align with their own values and need to contribute something significant to the world. Employment is no longer a means to an end, nor should it be.

“Work” hours

I can’t find the original resource for this story, but I will do my best to paraphrase …

The tradition in Japan is to stay at work until after your boss leaves. At a particular games company (Nintendo I think), developers were working incredibly long hours and continually getting more and more behind schedule. Their output was actually slowing. A knight on a white horse road in and fixed it up (that’s my paraphrasing bit there!) He did this by reducing their work hours.

What’s happening here?

Simply speaking … Knowledge workers (which software developers are) need time to think. How often have you come up with a solution to something when you haven’t been actively thinking about it (say, whilst you’re in the toilet)?

When people are stuck at work for long days, they have less opportunity to disengage and therefore not enough brain space to solve problems. When you allow people to go home at reasonable hours, whilst they still have energy to burn, their brains keep working. They think more about work problems and develop creative solutions to them – all in the “off hours.”

So, reducing “at work” hours, could actually increase the number of hours a business gets from their people.

What should we do?

Two seemingly different ideas, but to me they gell closely with each other. It’s all about bringing social norms into the workplace. Developing closer relationships with those you work with and treating work as part of your social life. In turn, organisations need to see their employees and social beings. Allow them to bring their whole selves into their work. Provide them with opportunities to disengage and refresh. Ensure that the work they do is rewarding (beyond financially) and actively engage in their social norms.

Perhaps it’s my age, but I feel that people are begining to see work as less of a means to an end and more about their real life, their values and what they want to contribute to the world.

There are opportunities for us as managers and leaders in organisations to do more and be smarter about how we view the employees.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 9th, 2009 at 2:19 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.