Do we really believe that most employees in any organisation are naturally lazy? Many workforce management (WFM) technologies are certainly sold on this line.
Their premise often emphasises how, if left to their own devices, staff will quickly start using Facebook, eBay and Netflix, wasting hours of company time unless they are closely supervised and every key stroke is recorded. The publicity plays on the mutual suspicions that can arise between management and employees and exploits the divisions that if unchecked, can develop within any organisation.
Yet when these WFM firms suggest that only their technology can keep a business on track and its workforce on-task and working hard, they are actually doing their potential clients a major disservice. They are missing the point and misrepresenting the value of data in operations. Instead of being a tool that sows division, the use of technological monitoring and the data-collection behind it, should engage, motivate and bring focus to the development of staff as valued individuals. Its purpose should not be to act as an oppressive surveillance mechanism that imposes penalties and punishments whenever staff stray ever-so-slightly away from the rules.
It may be tempting to address the whole question in terms of “information is power” or “if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it” but doing so can quickly create a downward spiral of mistrust. Resentful employees reward their managers by trying to cheat the system – leading in turn, to greater mistrust between workforce and management. The better and more productive alternative is to start by recognising that most people will take pride in their work and do a good job if given the opportunity. The belief that staff are by nature indolent is a self-fulfilling prophecy that is a symptom of lazy leadership.
Once this has been understood, an organisation collecting data must use it to engage staff. Frontline employees need to see how the systematic accumulation of data is about helping plan their work so their environment becomes less stressful and more controlled and they can deliver a better level of service to customers. Having seen the bigger picture, employees will feel more invested in the quality of the data and take direct interest in its accuracy. By these means it is possible to avoid the creation of an arms race between staff manipulating the management information and managers policing that manipulation. Instead, obtaining accurate and useful data becomes a joint enterprise in which everyone has a stake.
Helping staff to stay genuinely busy will also bring out the best in them. Just as in the sporting world, people work best when they are “in the zone” – when the task before them is sufficiently challenging and they believe they have the skills to complete it. Then they will raise their game, remain focused and look forward to the sense of achievement when the task is accomplished. This is a level of engagement that cannot be imposed. In fact engagement is something that has to be nurtured right across an organisation and can only come from effective leadership. When leaders – be it a team leader or chief operating officer – are actively engaging everyone in the operation in the task of delivering excellence to customers, then the majority of staff, most of the time, will do excellent work.
By contrast, if employees are spending time on Facebook or buying and selling on eBay – as suggested by some of the big WFM firms – this says more about the leadership skills within an organisation than it does about technology. The management guru W Edwards Deming once said, when criticising a simplistic and lazy management technique, that we should do away with quotas and management by objectives and in their place substitute leadership. If we were to update this dictum, perhaps we should suggest doing away with intrusive monitoring, too. It is important for everyone to recognise that the better organisations can help their staff manage their own performance, the greater the rewards for both employer and employees. If you work in the kind of company where staff spend a lot of time on Facebook or Instagram then you need better leadership, not better desktop analytics.
