Office Hours And Workplace Culture

Every Workplace has some culture. Infact it is one of the motivating factors for employees to either stick or seek a change in their job. Human being is a social animal and the importance of job in his life cannot be undermined. The time spent on job within office hours has a huge impact on employee mindset and how they take life. An environment that is conducive to growth and happiness has a positive impact on productivity and quality. What companies get is what they make out of employees and the workplace culture has a huge impact on the kind of output one gets. You change the culture from bad to good and what you have is a winning team that can take any challenges in life.

When I look back at my last two jobs and those of my friends and family, I see a huge difference from the kind of culture I have in my present organization. The culture I have built in my team is again too different from what I see happening at other places. I strongly believe that it is all about leadership. More leaders we create equal more success we get at the individual and the team level. And this assumption has a direct impact on the kind of culture that gets built. It is all about how we perceive work and our approach towards it that impact the environment in which we interact and operate. Let’s talk about the ideal workplace culture more and see it more deeply

Look at any organization and you would find

1) Employees have fixed office hours of work

2) They go and come back within those specific 8 to 9 hours

3) It is routine that gets built and they are happy with the way it is

It is a norm but inside it you would also find that

1) Even if the employees have no work they would still stick to same office hours

2) Even if they have less work, it would expand within same offcie hours

3) The become slave of the clock.

Infact it is not about them. It is more about the companies and employers

1) Who are very particular about when employees come and leave work.

2) They give rewards and recognition based on this behavior

3) They promote it with more stringent rules.

End result is

1) A complacent and lazy workforce

2) Low or minimal productivity

3)More politics and issues not related to work.

I just fail to realize that instead of amount and quality of work the employees do, the focus goes into when they come and leave office.

Such workplace culture has the ability to

1) Promote an environment that is all about everything but work

2) Talks of everything but work

3) Focus on every aspect except work

It is disheartening that work never takes precedence. Instead the hours spent is considered to be default for the amount of work that gets done.

Consider and Ideal workplace culture where

1) Work Assigned or to be delivered is considered to be of paramount importance

2) Office Hours doesn’t make a difference till the time work assigned is getting done

3) Employees have flexibility to choose the window within which they want to work that in some way overlap within the office working timings

All that one need to deliver is Work. They need not get bothered by other factors that constraint them to perform at their best. Infact that would help employers to have employees

1) Who are motivated a lot

2) Not bound by any limitation by owning their work

3) Give their best in every aspect

And on top of it

1) They can asses the amount of work they actually have

2) Plan their resources and investment

3) Remove overheads they put to control employees

On other end, The Employees would be happy too because

1) They can come and go within a specific time window

2) They know what matters is results and nothing else

3) Their mind becomes free of other tensions that arise because of office hours based mindset.

It is important to promote a workplace culture that talks of nothing but results. We need to selectively remove all factors that deviates the employees from such behavior.

When work is kept as central theme then decisions gets moulded in this direction only. I understand that such ideal workplace culture may not relate every job but it does for many. If people know beforehand that what is expected out of them daily rather than specific office hours, they would be better equipped to do it by planning at individual level. Planning it for employees and then making them inefficient is workplace culture that should be avoided at any cost.

Photo Credit-l'etrusco