"Only 30% of companies in a McKinsey survey reported offering options for flexible working conditions." If you are an advocate for worker empowerment, those are depressing numbers. 70% of companies are so set in the way they do business that they want employees to conform to uniform start and stop times. It somehow stresses these leaders if an employee contributes the same total number of hours, yet spends extra time in the morning getting their child off to school, but stays later in the day.
It is interesting to look back and determine how we form our own unique leadership philosophies. Years ago I worked in the armpit of America in the bowels of downtown Milwaukee as a drill press operator boring holes in metal. Boring being the operative word here. It required me to perform repetitive, tedious movements. However, it was precision work that would cost the company money if and when I screwed up, so it required great concentration (full disclosure here I have the attention span of a 7-year-old).
And for whatever reason I had to "stand" at the drill press while a perfectly good chair was unused a mere 10 yards away. I'm thinking I'd be more comfortable sitting and better able to perform my job. A win-win for me and the company. So by the afternoon of the first day I can no longer control myself and ask the foreman if he minded if I pulled that chair over and really focused on my "precision" job at hand. He says, "No chairs. All 'our guys' stand at the drill press." I of course ask, "Why?" I'm not making this up. "It looks good," he says with the straightest face I've ever seen.
We discussed his management philosophy a while longer but I lost the debate. Some factory foremen are reticent to embrace the evolving leadership philosophy of a college student. We were so far apart philosophically, that I thought it best I quickly find a new job, which I accomplished in six short weeks that felt like six years (always try and have a new job before you quit your current source of income).
If you can do your job more effectively sitting down it makes no sense to have someone stand just so it looks good. What matters most is performance and profits and giving workers control over their job environment. Let the worker decide if they want to stand or sit so they have ownership in their own performance.
Worker control is critical to the health and happiness of employees. Many companies won't allow employees to put up family pictures in their cubes. If you want people to be responsible for doing a great job give them choice and flexibility in other areas and it will translate to more ownership on the business at hand. Treat them like they can't think for themselves and they most assuredly won't.
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