Workplace evaluation has shifted from rewarding visible presence to trusting employees to manage their own schedules. The speakers argue for flexible hours like starting at 10 or 11 AM, but say it only works if employees communicate their preferences and negotiate meeting times with their teams.
Chapters
Well, it's a shifting balance, right?
You know, FaceTime used to be a thing where we determined how hard you worked or how devoted you were to the company based on, you know, what time you showed up and what time you left. And yet stories abound of people, you know, who sat at their desks and did nothing. They just needed to have the FaceTime so that their boss saw that they were there, you know, because that was the metric of that company.
So, you know, you have productive and.
Unproductive people at work and not at work. You know, whether that.
And so we just had to shift slightly that, that our ability not to see them.
You know, we have to learn to trust, which is, which is a hard one. One of the things that I find really interesting is I used to be. I've pulled back on, you know, I used to be like, I don't want.
You working on nights and I don't want you working on weekends. I want people to have their time because when we had a traditional 9.
To 5 sort of mentality, I wanted people to let go of work and have personal time. I've actually pulled back from saying those.
Things because now I don't know when.
People want to work.
Maybe they want to wake up late or, you know, go to the gym in the morning and start working at 10 or 11, but then they'll work to 7 or 8 because they're happy to do that. And so now I think we have to learn to allow people to figure out their own schedules. Now the missing pieces is communication. What must happen for any employee who wants to have a schedule that is different or alternative to what the company's.
Expectations are or what the standard is.
Is they have to communicate.
Communication is different than making a demand or just sort of making an announcement.
But rather like, hey, you know, I'm happy to work later.
I really want to have my mornings to get my kids ready to go to school.
Would it be okay if I started work at 11 or 10, which means I just wouldn't, I wouldn't be on any meetings.
Can we push meetings past 10 o'.
Clock and it's a discussion? Because the answer is, yeah, probably. You know, we. Almost all situations, there's a very, very.
Comfortable agreement that everybody can be comfortable with.
I think what both employees and employers get struck by is, is the demand.
And the announcement, like, you will do this. And that goes both ways.
I think we just want to be heard and seen, as I said before. And. But communication has to happen.
There has to be communication. Because like, I said. I think a lot of employees feel embarrassed to ask or afraid to ask. But if you have good leadership and somebody who cares about creating a positive working environment, they should be open to pretty much everything.
