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Newsletter nr. 20 - november 2009 |
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FROM OUR EXPERIENCE - Militant manifesto for employee efficiency - Analysis |
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What do you think is the degree to which a manager's attitudes, actions and behaviors influence the personal efficiency of employees?
I choose this title for my article because I like to think that the language, attitude and point of view that you will find in it bring forth a serious dose of activism. So that we can start with a common understanding, "activism" is a form of manifestation whose intent is to bring about change.
My proposition to you is to shift your focus from your subordinates to yourself, your work as a manager - because through your actions you can influence the personal efficiency of your employees to a very high degree.
What are a manager's priorities and what should he do in order to bolster employee efficiency?
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After a Time Management course developed in 2008 - Priorities Matter! ® - this autumn my focus is on developing higher impact solutions for personal efficiency. More precisely, if up till now most of the information provided in the session was directed towards "how can I ensure efficiency in reaching my objectives", the new key idea is "how can I ensure, as a manager, the personal efficiency of my employees".
To my surprise I discover that most of the sessions, manuals and articles about time management are generally oriented towards "how can I be more organized", "how can I keep my desk clean", "how do I keep my inbox in order" etc - methods that are too mechanical and encourage people to assimilate rigid reference frames despite the fact that we live in an organic and effervescent environment.
All these take place, in an environment characterized by intense pressure on obtaining results, lack of clarity for both the medium and long term in most of the areas of the market, frequent changes that impact every individual, constantly diminished resources and an imperative need for adaptability and flexibility.
The reality painted in the former paragraph sends very clear signals to Romanian managers that there is a substantial need for increasing the expertise and autonomy of employees, collaborative behaviors, sharing of resources, increasing the speed with which operational decisions are taken and transparency of organizational/ departmental/ team strategic priorities.
These are obvious signals, recognized and confirmed through discussions with a lot of Romanian managers.
The paradox is that in many of today's organizations things are done exactly the opposite! There are no visible management efforts to develop employee expertise and autonomy; there is no encouragement of employee collaboration, you have difficult access to resources, blunted information that is passed along, operational decisions that are delayed without any reason, employees that are rowing in several directions without having a clear understanding as to why are they doing it and where they are going.
I won't start to mention an entire set of solutions, however I will focus on the attitudes and behaviors managers should have in order to support a working climate focused on efficiency.
In order to back up what I've said so far I'd like to remind you the definition of a working climate: the sum of individual perceptions regarding the characteristics of the organization and behaviors that are noticed (James, Hater, Jent & Bruni - 1978). Or more simply put "the personality of the working environment" (Rudolf Moos - 1973).
Regarding the working climate, 2009 showed me that people are truly worried about:
• the lack of clarity concerning strategic objectives and operational priorities;
• unrealistic objectives that can't be achieved with the resources that are put at your disposal;
• a lack of correlation between agreed objectives and day to day tasks;
• a high working load;
• tasks for which they don't have the necessary expertise
• managers that are involved in the work of employees that are 2 to 3 levels down
• difficult access to information
The working environment can be compared with the role yeast has in making the bread grow better. It is a necessary ingredient that helps an organization maximize its resources in terms of effort, time and money.
From this point of view there are extensive studies at an organizational level that lead to the same conclusion: a healthy working climate is associated with a high degree of professional satisfaction, increased performance, comfort, better capacity to problem solve and ease in overtaking limitations.
How can a manager ensure a healthy working climate, focused on individual efficiency? What can he do in order to eliminate these harmful perceptions that we've covered earlier?
Before going into more details - in a future article - here are a few areas of interest to which we should pay more attention:
1. Aligning employee perceptions with your own understanding (as a manager) about how things are
2. Ensuring that performance objectives and the consequences of their being reached or not are clear
3. The availability to listen and counsel an employee when he encounters difficulties in managing resources or prioritizing his tasks
4. Consciously allocating time and energy to monitor, asses, give feedback, correct, instruct, encourage or praise the activity of your employees
5. Delegating tasks while considering two consequences
a. Giving some tasks away, tasks that can be done just as well by others or are linked to the responsibilities they have
b. Encouraging your employees to increase their expertise and diversity of abilities
6. Encouraging and supporting autonomy in decision making for as many tasks or projects your employees are responsible for. Be careful! This sort of autonomy doesn't mean that you are completely disconnected as a manager, but refers to a consistent process of monitoring and encouraging the competence of your employees to make decisions
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