Telecommuting as a tool for productivity

The world has grown into a global village now. Thanks to computers and internet. But it’s not just our loved ones that the internet has been able to connect. It’s even the workers in organizations. Yet the benefits of this technology are not being utilized for purposes other than posting photos in Facebook. With the advent of the computer generation, change in work schedules and organizational structure has been possible. Yet at this part of the world, I don’t see these changes being adapted.

I work at an organization where one of my key works involves designing courses to be taught to school children. Now this work involves some thinking, some internet research and some book and article references. For this, I don’t need to be present at my workplace. I can do the work at home and submit the output with the click of a mouse. How much time does working from home save me? Two hours at least! These two hours is just the time for commute. There is also added time I need for rest due to the physical exhaustion I have to experience as a result of being a part of packed buses and be stuck for hours in traffic jams. Yet my workplace would consider me as working only if I am present at the workplace during office hours. What matters is that I remain within the office (even if I spend time in gossip) and not that I produce something worthwhile at my own time. Where are we heading with this mentality? Nowhere, I suppose because the focus is on whether the employees are giving their time to the organization or not for the salary they are paid each month. Zero focus is placed on productivity or output.

I know the justification for this could be the matter of trust of whether employees would honestly work from home or not. But if the work is made deadline based and result-oriented, then why does it matter at what time the employees work and at what time they choose to rest?

I believe that organizations need to trust their employees and make them more driven by focusing on results. I don’t think “The employees must give their time for the organization, even if they are idle, because we are paying them” is a positive attitude in part of organizations. Why not buy results or outputs from employees rather than their time?

There are jobs like that of administration, customer service or accounting that requires employees to remain at their work desk. That’s fine. But there are other kinds of work that may or may not require the employee to be within the periphery of the office all the time. And if social interactions are required, then what about a weekly get-together?

As an aid, why not make telecommuting a new basis of work design if the work is such that it can be performed from home? This way an organization is not just buying output but also granting the employees freedom to use their time at their will and showing trust upon their work commitments and capabilities.

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Rat race - where did it all start?

Leg-pulling, back-stabbing and the rat race is prevalent and persistent in corporate culture. Manipulations and politicking to get ahead never stops. Soon after people enter the work life, they start reminiscing their childhood days in school or college. But my question has always been, "Where did this rat race start in the first place?" I found my answer today.

As I was conducting the 'Life Skills' class encouraging students to compete only with themselves, the coordinator madam entered the class. She picked one student and said, "Alice, you used to come in the 10th position and now you're 11th. Are you going to win next time? Are you going to let anyone overtake you?" Then she picked another one and said, "Alex, are you going to let anyone win you? You're going to be better than everyone else, right?" The kids nodded their head in agreement and I could see how desperate they were to get ahead of others and be better in relation to other classmates just to please the authority figures including the parents and teachers. That's when it struck me. This culture of rat race begins right from the roots of education.

Competition is a good thing as long as it inspires and encourages you to improve and excel than your previous self. But the way of motivating kids or motivating anyone as such has been through making them compete with someone else. A child who learns in his more than 10-15 years of schooling to compete and win others is definitely going to do the same thing when he enters his work life. Kids are simply not taught the value of co-operation and helping one another. It's not enough to teach 'Moral Science' when the basic form of judging the kids is based on their ranking on examination or how well they have performed in comparison to the next kid.

In one of the Toastmasters' meeting, an experienced Toastmaster said, "Toastmaster is not about competing with anybody else but competing with yourself. It is about improving your previous speech and becoming a better speaker yourself. You compete only with yourself." I also remember the lines from the sunscreen song, "Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and at the end it's only with yourself." But when will the educators and administrators learn about this? When will the kids learn about this? And as long as the kids don't understand the importance of competing only with oneself and the worthlessness and irrelevance of competing with others, how can we expect the workplace to be any different? We might enter a workplace and long for the good old days with friends without understanding that what we long for was the very place where the feeling of competition and the desperate urge to win was inculcated in our basic drive and instinct.

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What kind of work you want to do?

Consider the following two scenarios:

Scenario 1: You have a work that enriches you and fulfills you internally. Your senior is not your boss but your mentor. He believes in you and your ability to do any task assigned. Even when you make mistakes or sometimes dodge deadlines, he doesn't make an issue out of it but tries to understand what has been bothering you. He has his complete faith in you and every time tells you 'you can' even when you're not doing your work as per his expectations. 

Scenario 2: You have a work that drains you from the inside. Your senior is a dictator. He constantly doubts your ability to do the work assigned to you. When you make an error, he gives this mocking smile and says "I knew you couldn't do it all right". He expects you to be a machine rather than a human. Even when you do the best of your work, all that anyone notices are the mistakes you've made and not the good work you have done.

Now it is quite evident what scenario anyone wants to be in. Everyone likes scenario one and no one likes scenario two. If you're in scenario 1, you're happy, motivated and loyal. On the other hand, scenario 2 means unhappiness, frustration and ultimately doubting your own capabilities. There are always professions we choose and we have this constant pressure and need of making a career for ourselves. But I believe before career comes happiness. Being happy means choosing scenario 1. The work may not add much to your career but it will surely add a great deal to your happiness and state of self-esteem. But if you're in scenario 2 then even if the job pays well and is a stepping stone for a brighter life ahead, as long as you're stuck there you're losing your happiness and draining yourself from your self-esteem.

However, there's no way of figuring out before you start any work whether you're joining scenario 1 or scenario 2. If by some bad misfortune, you're stuck in scenario 2 then perhaps that's a test in your life. One must learn to be patient and tolerate. There is much to learn from that kind of experience too. If you can handle that, you can handle anything in the world. But then there comes a time when integrity and a sense of peace and self-respect takes precedence over career. One must know when that time has come. Until then lets just survive the test and carry on.

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Being a manager...

They say, "MBA is for managers." And, thus, fresh graduates enroll into an MBA and expect to be managers as soon as they get a degree. At other times, we have people with years of experience assuming the role of a manager. But, being a manager isn't just about having a fancy degree and years of experience. It isn't also just about signing documents, authorizing actions and attending meetings. Being a manager extends far beyond all these external elements. Being a manager entails that you be fair, just and responsible. As a manager, you have to ensure that you treat all your subordinates equally. In the same way, if you have to stand up for the ones you're managing then you will have to do that. You've got to be just. You also cannot shift over all your responsibilities to your subordinates and let them take the final blame. You need to be able to have their back. As a manager, you also have to be concerned about the learning and development of the people you're managing. You're supposed to be a motivator. If someone is not doing a good job, then it is the manager's responsibility to find out the reasons and take necessary and positive actions. If someone is working well, then one has to ensure that person is acknowledged and rewarded. 

The job of a manager is not easy. You have to leave control but also have to take charge of so many things. You have to be firm yet flexible. You need to be proactive and patient. You have to be able to trust your own judgments. You've got to be a learner and also a guide. First time managers may fail in many respects but one must never stop trying. But, most of the times it is often the experienced ones who forget about all the necessary elements of being a manager and are only focused on power and prestige. Education and experience are both very important elements of a manager. But, along with it character and attitude plays the biggest role in determining whether the manager is a good one or bad.

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Management Styles

I'd always been the kind of person who've believed in motivating a person through love. I regarded fear motivation as a wrong practice. Appreciation and kindness seemed to me the best way to get work done through people. Democracy and freedom in work was important. But, lately a few instances where I've had the responsibility to manage has made me think differently. How you motivate and manage largely depends upon the kind of people you're dealing with. If it's proactive subordinates or team members who take their work seriously, are dedicated, willing to learn and understand what is expected of them then appreciation and democracy works the best. However, if you're dealing with people who're incompetent yet exhibit an atmosphere of overconfidence, take no initiative to learn, have no respect for authority and constantly makes mistakes that put you in a difficult position then direction, strictness and some degree of fear motivation becomes necessary.

Administering activities and managing a group of people is a difficult job. We cannot say one model works better than the other one. Whether you become a democratic leader or an authoritarian one depends directly on the kind of people you're managing. On a personal level, it might be considered as changing colors but on a professional level it's being flexible and tactful. After all, one's responsibility as a chief administrator is getting the work done efficiently and up to the standards without any blunders and not pleasing people. The key rule here is to learn about the people you're going to manage and adjust your management style accordingly.

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Importance of Job Description

You might have heard the famous story of Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. This is how the story goes:

"An important job had to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when nobody did what Anybody could have done."

Do you realize what was the underlying problem in this story? Well, there was no job description!

Job description defines a list of tasks an individual is supposed to undertake as a part of his/her job. It ensures that work is evenly and appropriately divided and is timely executed. Job description, in short, assigns fixed responsibilities to every member of an organization. For many Nepali organizations, job description seems to be only a theoretical concept that has no room for implementation. But, we already know what happens in the absence of job description - a job that can be done by everybody, somebody or anybody will be done by nobody.

Take an example: Your organization is holding a training session for five days. The person organizing this training says that he needs some stationery for the training. There are four of you present when he expressed his stationery requirement. However, none of you have a job description. Thus, none of you know whose responsibility it is to order stationery. Hence, no one orders the stationery and when the training is set to begin and no materials are available yet, the organizing personnel gets angry at everybody. Everybody then gets angry at each other because they think they were scolded for someone else's fault. Each one begins to think that the other person is incompetent. This consequently results in an environment of mistrust and negativity. 

Whenever a position is filled, it is important to define the roles and responsibilities for that position. One must know what one is supposed to do. Here are the key risks of having no job description:

1. A culture of blame. If no one has their work and responsibilities defined then when something goes wrong, they can easily blame it on someone else. This promotes a culture of blame rather than a culture of support and team work in the long run.
2. Mistrust and negativity. As the culture of blame starts to take its root in an organization, mistrust and negativity are the obvious consequences and the worst working environment is the one surrounded by negativity.
3. Demotivation. Suppose a task needs to be done and everyone steps up to complete that task. You won't feel important because everyone else is there to do the job. "Who needs me?" - you think. Now, suppose a task needs to be done but no one steps up to do it. You have to do all the work on your own every time. You think again - "Why does everyone think I'm a machine?" In both cases, you are demotivated to work.
4. Overstaffing/Understaffing. When the components of each task is defined and divided then an organization can know exactly how many people they need. In the absence of it, there is greater risk of having staffs either more or less than the requirement.
5. No proper grounds for performance appraisal. An employee's performance is evaluated based on how well he/she does his/her assigned work. In the absence of a job description, there will be no grounds for performance appraisal. 
6. No motivation for improvement. If the task at work is everybody's and nobody's responsibility then one does not feel like giving one's best or using one's ideas for improvement. After all, it's human nature to work for one's benefit. If there is no grounds for performance appraisal due to the absence of job description, there is obviously no motivation for improvement.
7. No personal responsibility. If the management of an organization does not define the job of its members then no one will step up to assume responsibility. The common excuse might be, "Why should I do it?" However, if the job is defined properly then responsibility no longer is an option. One must take responsibility for the activities outlined as per the job description.
8. Loss of good people. As the organization builds itself into a one that's filled with negative environment where there is rampant mistrust and negativity and the staffs are highly demotivated, any good person who's hard-working, smart and believes in taking individual responsibility is eventually going to leave. The key asset of any organization are its people and  the inability to retain proactive and smart people is obviously a serious case of concern.

For the proper management of human resources in an organization and the smooth flow of operations, forming a job description for all staffs is a must. This, however, does not mean being too rigid and avoiding all tasks that lies outside one's area of responsibility. Helping other out and doing new things does no harm to anyone. An individual can always have some core responsibilities and can have other supplementary tasks where he/she can be of assistance. However, one has to avoid the story of Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody in an organization and develop a job description for all.

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