They Work Long Hours, but What About Results?

Harvard Business school 강사인 ROBERT C. POZEN 이 Harvard Business Review와 뉴옥 타임즈에 기고한 글.

캘리포니아 주립대에서 수행한 연구 결과에 따르면 거의 모든 관리자들이 직원들의 일터에서 보내는 시간을 기준으로 평가하는데, 효과를 보면 전혀 반대로 나타났다고 한다.

문제는 얼마나 오래 남아있느냐가 아니라, 얼마나 효율적으로 시간을 활용하느냐인데

결과물로 평가한다면 오래 남아있는 사람이 효율성이 떨어진다는 것.

따라서 직장인(특히 21세기 지식형 노동자들에게 ?!!)들에게 눈치를 보며 회사에 오래 남아있기 보다는 결과를 만들어 내는데 집중하라고 권한다.

이러한 결과 지향형 전략을 위한 지침을 몇가지 제시하고 있다.

1. 꼭 가야할 회의가 아니면 가지마라

2. 자료를 모두 읽어 본다고 시간을 허비하지 마라

3. 빨리 작성하라. B+ 정도로 충분한 일에 A+ 수주을 만드려고 시간을 허비하지 말라는 말이다.

이러한 결과 지향적 전략을 통해 사무실에서 보내는 시간을 엄청나게 줄일수 있다.

문제는 거의 모든 관리자들이 자기 눈에 오래 띄는 사람이 열심히, 성실하게 일한다고 생각하며 높은 평가를 내린다는 점이다. 이를 극복하기 위해서는 직장인들이  관리자와 소통을 통해 자신이 얼마나 효율적으로 일하고 있는지를 보여주고, 설득해야 한다고 이 글들은 주장하고 있다.

소통을 통한 설득 ?? 차라리 안하고 말지....

http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2012/06/stop-working-all-those-hours.html

Stop Working All Those Hours

by Robert C. Pozen  |  11:20 AM June 15, 2012

What You Can Do About It

How can you remove yourself from this treadmill of long, wasted hours at work? Start by constantly evaluating your use of time — even if your organization's culture doesn't force you to.

That means knowing what's important to you, your organization, and your boss — and, vitally, what's not important. So think critically and rigorously about your priorities. 

Then, be prepared to say "no" to requests that don't matter:

Decline meetings, whenever you can. To be polite, you can explain your workload and request to see the meeting's minutes instead.

Don't be afraid to use the "delete" button when reviewing your inbox.

If you can't say "no" to a certain request, recognize that it may only require a B+ effort. Don't spend hours bumping it up to an A+ unless you really need to.

While individual employees can change their own habits, organizations need strong-willed leaders to make more radical changes. These leaders must thoroughly reform their organization's implicit and explicit reward structure. Are employees praised for coming in on Saturday — even if only to finish work that could have been completed during regular hours? Are employees suspicious of others who leave early for the day in order to watch their child's Little League games?

Of course, this change won't come easily. It's easy to count hours. It's much harder to set project metrics or make subjective evaluations. But smart leaders realize that the only way they can succeed is by getting the most out of their employees. And the only way they can get the best out of their employees is to focus on results, not hours. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/business/measure-results-not-hours-to-improve-work-efficiency.html?pagewanted=all

They Work Long Hours, but What About Results?

By ROBERT C. POZEN

Published: October 6, 2012

...

Firms that bill by the hour are not alone in emphasizing hours over results. For a study published most recently in 2010, three researchers, led by Kimberly D. Elsbach, a professor at the University of California, Davis, interviewed 39 corporate managers about their perceptions of their employees. The managers viewed employees who were seen at the office during business hours as highly “dependable” and “reliable.” Employees who came in over the weekend or stayed late in the evening were seen as “committed” and “dedicated” to their work.

One manager said: “So this one guy, he’s in the room at every meeting. Lots of times he doesn’t say anything, but he’s there on time and people notice that. He definitely is seen as a hard-working and dependable guy.” Another said: “Working on the weekends makes a very good impression. It sends a signal that you’re contributing to your team and that you’re putting in that extra commitment to get the work done.”

The reactions of these managers are understandable remnants of the industrial age, harking back to the standardized nature of work on an assembly line. But a measurement system based on hours makes no sense for knowledge workers. Their contribution should be measured by the value they create through applying their ideas and skills.

By applying an industrial-age mind-set to 21st-century professionals, many organizations are undermining incentives for workers to be efficient. If employees need to stay late in order to curry favor with the boss, what motivation do they have to get work done during normal business hours? After all, they can put in the requisite “face time” whether they are surfing the Internet or analyzing customer data. It’s no surprise, then, that so many professionals find it easy to procrastinate and hard to stay on a task.

There is an obvious solution here: Instead of counting the hours you work, judge your success by the results you produce. Did you clear a backlog of customer orders? Did you come up with a new idea to solve a tricky problem? Did you write a first draft of an article that is due next week? Clearly, these accomplishments — not the hours that you log — are what ultimately drive your organization’s success.

Many of your results-oriented strategies will be specific to your job and your company, but here are a few general ways that professionals across all industries can improve their efficiency.

...

Focusing on results rather than hours will help you accomplish more at work and leave more time for the rest of your life. And don’t be afraid to talk to your boss about these issues. To paraphrase the management guru Peter Drucker, although you don’t have to like your boss, you have to manage him or her so you can have a successful career.

Robert C. Pozen, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, is the author of “Extreme Productivity: Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Hours” (HarperCollins).