Posts Tagged ‘Motivation’

There is no question; telecommuting offers a host of benefits. There is also no question that it is difficult to implement on a large scale.

Why - mainly because we as a society have a “need” to supervise our employees. It’s almost compulsive. After all, how can I ensure that my employees are giving an honest day’s work if I can’t watch them for every moment of the day?

As I pointed out in my last article on the subject, there are much better ways to motivate employees. In addition, we need to stop thinking about employees as machines. We can not demand maximum efficiency and constant activity from them. To think we can is plain stupid.

One approach to this motivation problem is to change the way we compensate employees. Currently, we mainly compensate based on time.

What if we measured employees’ actual productivity (rather than time sitting in a chair)? Wouldn’t that motivate them – whether they were at an office or at home telecommuting?

For instance, going back to our telecommuting example:

What if a call centre tracked the average time an employee spent talking to customers per day and then used that amount of time as a baseline for salary? Would that be motivating for employees to answer the call – even if they are at home?

Yes, that simplistic model could be abused – it would need some more thought. This is just a starting point for discussion. Keep in mind though, that the current model of hourly wages can also be abused. There are many organizations that have staff that are just putting in hours – even though they are on site.

Let’s start thinking about how we can make telecommuting work – for our organizations, for our staff, and most of all, for our environment.

How do we inspire?

I have been writing a lot about telecommuting this past week. I’ve been talking about the benefits and how we could go about making it work. I’ve also been talking about at least one role within many organizations that could work well.

So the question is…. “Why aren’t we as a society taking advantage of all these benefits?”

I believe that the answer comes down to tradition -nothing more than plain old tradition.

It’s traditional for employees to “go to work”, it’s traditional for them to commute, and most all, its traditional for them to be watched.

Isn’t that really what it’s all about? Most organizations feel that they have to watch their employees constantly in order to make sure that their getting a fair day’s work.

Sorry, but I feel that attitude is just dumb.

Now I admit that there may be a temptation for some employees to take time off when no one is watch – but that can be dealt with.

There are so many better ways to inspire people about their work than just sitting over them and hitting them every time they dare take a moment to breath. People are… well they’re people – they’re not machines. If we want to get the most out of our staff then we need to realize we have to stop treating them like machines.

We need to change our traditions. Remember, by making small changes in how we do things we can not only become more environmentally friendly but also more economically sustainable. Wouldn’t people like to do business with us then?