New research shows that more freedom leads to longer hours.
If you want your people to put in more hours, you can go the
Google route and offer everything from free burritos to onsite
haircuts to keep them at the office longer. But these sort of
perks are obviously expensive and probably won’t work
anyway if your employees don’t already like their jobs. But
what if I told you there’s a far cheaper way to convince your
team to dedicate more time to work? In fact, there is such a
way, new research suggests, and, better yet, it’s both free
and makes management’s job easier. What is it? Just let you
employees set their own schedules.
Google route and offer everything from free burritos to onsite
haircuts to keep them at the office longer. But these sort of
perks are obviously expensive and probably won’t work
anyway if your employees don’t already like their jobs. But
what if I told you there’s a far cheaper way to convince your
team to dedicate more time to work? In fact, there is such a
way, new research suggests, and, better yet, it’s both free
and makes management’s job easier. What is it? Just let you
employees set their own schedules.
Less clock watching means
greater productivity.
That’s the conclusion of a new working paper from three
European professors that analyzes a large German data set,
looking to see how the type of schedule an employee works
affects his or her level of effort. The authors compare how
many hours workers put into their jobs with the number of
hours they’re contractually obligated to perform for a variety
of scheduling arrangements. It turns out that it’s not those with
clock-watching bosses who spend the longest hours on office-
related matters. In fact, when management doesn’t record hours
worked at all, letting employees set their own start and finish
times and control their time off, workers put in an additional
7.4 hours a week above and beyond what they're obligated to
do. Some of that’s down to demographic factors (more senior
people are more likely to have this freedom and more likely to
go the extra mile, for instance), but not all of it, the researchers
conclude.
European professors that analyzes a large German data set,
looking to see how the type of schedule an employee works
affects his or her level of effort. The authors compare how
many hours workers put into their jobs with the number of
hours they’re contractually obligated to perform for a variety
of scheduling arrangements. It turns out that it’s not those with
clock-watching bosses who spend the longest hours on office-
related matters. In fact, when management doesn’t record hours
worked at all, letting employees set their own start and finish
times and control their time off, workers put in an additional
7.4 hours a week above and beyond what they're obligated to
do. Some of that’s down to demographic factors (more senior
people are more likely to have this freedom and more likely to
go the extra mile, for instance), but not all of it, the researchers
conclude.
What happens when you treat
adults like adults.
MORE:
What’s the explanation for this phenomenon? It seems that–
surprise! surprise!–treating your team like actual adults boosts
intrinsic motivation, leading them to put in a greater effort on
your company’s behalf. Take an already dedicated employee
and offer her freedom from time monitoring and she’ll likely
put in 75 more minutes of work a week than if you had continued
to dictate her hours, the authors’ calculations indicate. This is
not too shocking for veteran freelancers, many of whom will
tell you (myself included) that they put in many more hours
when they were freed from the nine-to-five grind. Some of that’s
down to the economics of being your own boss demanding longer
days, but some of it, I find at least, is simply a byproduct of losing
yourself in work you feel intrinsically motivated to do well. It’s
a pretty open-and-shut case from the employer’s perspective.
Sure, if you run a retail or service business, there’s no way to
chuck employee schedules, but if your team is doing office-based
work, you might consider tossing your set hours and letting your
people come and go as they please. The most likely downside to
monitor won’t be less hours spent at work, but the opposite problem
of always-on burnout (experience shows this is an issue with
unlimited vacation policies in particular).
surprise! surprise!–treating your team like actual adults boosts
intrinsic motivation, leading them to put in a greater effort on
your company’s behalf. Take an already dedicated employee
and offer her freedom from time monitoring and she’ll likely
put in 75 more minutes of work a week than if you had continued
to dictate her hours, the authors’ calculations indicate. This is
not too shocking for veteran freelancers, many of whom will
tell you (myself included) that they put in many more hours
when they were freed from the nine-to-five grind. Some of that’s
down to the economics of being your own boss demanding longer
days, but some of it, I find at least, is simply a byproduct of losing
yourself in work you feel intrinsically motivated to do well. It’s
a pretty open-and-shut case from the employer’s perspective.
Sure, if you run a retail or service business, there’s no way to
chuck employee schedules, but if your team is doing office-based
work, you might consider tossing your set hours and letting your
people come and go as they please. The most likely downside to
monitor won’t be less hours spent at work, but the opposite problem
of always-on burnout (experience shows this is an issue with
unlimited vacation policies in particular).
