Members of organizations constantly complain that they don’t have enough time, yet managers are not focusing on ways of saving time.
“If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are,” Tim Kreider writes in the New York Times. “It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing.”
I’ve been working with organizations on web management issues since 1994; some things have changed a lot and some things have remained the same. One thing that has remained stubbornly the same is how management deals with knowledge worker time.
Now, if you’re a factory worker then your time is often managed down to the last second. But if you’re a knowledge worker -- on a salary -- you’re expected to work longer and longer hours, for sure. But once you’re seen to be slaving away putting in those long nights and longer weekends, management seems to think its job is done.
I spoke to some managers from a very large organization recently about their intranet, which everybody admitted was terrible. There were plans to create a new intranet. What did these plans involve? Buying some new technology. Yeah, they had done a few workshops and brainstorms about the design and usability, but these were essentially seen as trivial activities.
The quality of the content was going to somehow sort itself out magically once they bought this new technology, which of course would have personalization and customization. One manager said to me that an intranet was essentially impossible to manage so they weren’t going to bother.
“USA Today published a multi-year poll in 2008, to determine how people perceived time and their own use of it,” Ray Williams writes for the Financial Post. “The survey found that in each consecutive year since 1987, people reported being busier than the previous year, with 69% responding that they were either “busy,” or “very busy,” and only 8% saying they were “not very busy.””
In corporate culture today it’s sinful not to be busy. The more hours people are seen to be working the better. Thus, focusing on saving these workers time is not even on the radar of most senior managers (who themselves are working longer and longer hours). More hours equals more productivity which equals more profit. It’s the law. But is it a good law? An effective law?
Learning Opportunities
Webinar
Mar
29
The CX Commute vs. the CX Joy Ride
Is your CX traffic holding up your customer's journey?
Webinar
Mar
29
Is Your Microsoft 365 Data Recoverable? How to Survive the IT Hotseat When Data is Lost
See why MIcrosoft recommends third party backup
Webinar
Mar
30
An Optimized Customer Contact Strategy Combines Transparency and Intelligence: The State of Outbound Communications
Learn from the Neustar-commissioned Forrester Consulting study on challenges and solutions for contact centers
Webinar
Apr
13
Accelerating Content Velocity Across the Digital Supply Chain
Learn to integrate DAM with upstream tools to improve workflow efficiency.
Conference
May
10
CMSWire CONNECT Customer Experience Conference - Austin 2023
Don't miss the top customer experience and digital experience conference of the year — live in Austin, Texas May 10-12.
Conference
May
10
Reworked CONNECT Employee Experience & Digital Workplace Conference Austin 2023
North America's best employee experience and digital workplace conference of the year — live in Austin May 10-12, 2023.
“From May through October, we switch to a four-day workweek,” Jason Fried founder of software company 37signals, writes. “And not 40 hours crammed into four days, but 32 hours comfortably fit into four days. We don’t work the same amount of time, we work less.”
That’s corporate suicide, right? But Fried goes on to write that “better work gets done in four days than in five. When there’s less time to work, you waste less time. When you have a compressed workweek, you tend to focus on what’s important. Constraining time encourages quality time.”
Being busy is no achievement. How to we break away from the culture that celebrates the cult of volume? How do we reward what people actually achieve rather than rewarding the time they are spending?
Editor's Note: Another by Gerry McGovern:
-- E2.0: How to Increase Productivity in the Digital Workplace