What I have observed over a period of time is that a lot of bosses think that the number of hours you spend in office is proportional to your performance. I have heard, that a manager virtually told a colleague of mine from my last organization that , “We (managers) feel good when we see people sitting in their seats at 900 PM in the Night” … can you imagine how sadistically moronotic statement is that. 🙂
I don’t know how this notion even crops up in the mind of moronic manager. My personal take is that the quality of work is directly proportional to the effort you put in and not the number of hours you spend in office, a person X can give the same output in 8 -9 hours while another person Y might need to work 12 hours just to match X’s 8 hours of work. I am not implicating here that the person Y is dumb (while in some cases this might be true…:) ) , its just the difference in the working style can also explain the anomaly.
My personal working style is the former , I prefer to come early to office and leave on time after finishing my work and if its the need of the hour or demand of the project, I am least hesitant to stay late or work from home till late hours. But this is not true for everyday or every weekend or every hour. I was told one fine day that ,”You need to spend more time in office.” , I asked “Why? I do all my work and that also before deadlines…” ..pat comes the answer.. “Because I want you to…” …I say in my mind …”WTF? ..is this guy out of bloody mind?”. When managers try and force things on people the result is negativity and low productivity instead of the intended work machines and above all the manager loses the respect and the faith of the subordinate. The more you follow the hitting with the stick approach , the more dissatisfied and angry your employees become and the more they don’t want to work. We are humans and not robotic assembly lines, where production can go on for 24 hours. There are some labor laws too, for god’s sake, atleast follow those. Dominating managers are like …”I feel good, when I see blood” and they want everybody to bloody work on weekends, after office and stay late in office too. 🙂 without the slightest considerations for people’s personal times.
I think the best managers are those who give the right to work and the freedom to work independently without unnecessary pressures and strings attached. I have seen that the people are most productive and creative when they are let alone to decide , how they want to do things and in how much time they want to do the thing, until of course they are meeting deadlines. It would amuse me to find a person not happy with his manager and at the same time be more committed to his work if he is given work freedom. The managers should learn to trust the ability of their underlings and not hover like a humming bird over their heads, just noting down how much time they spend in the office. I don’t mean to imply that people start spending 2 hours in office , but yes , if they are spending the minimum quota and are taking good care of their assignments, just let go of all your doubts and trust them blindly, they will be more productive than they would be otherwise. They would themselves want to sit late or work from home to complete their assigned tasks before time and that too with the best possible quality.
Hence Quality is proportional to the trust and the freedom to work and not the number of hours of forced labor.
