Spending Less Time at Work Leads to Higher Productivity

According to payscale.com, we spend approximately 13 years and two months of our lives at
work (14 years, 4 months if you put in overtime).

Here we form many meaningful relationships with people who see us through life. Having this information puts into perspective the fact that we simply cannot afford to place our wellbeing (emotional, physical, psychological etc) second to our work because one is the life blood of the other. Happy employees make for productive employees.

All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy

In Norway, the employees are expected to work 27 hours a week, one of the shortest in the world. And they still rank the second most productive in the world by surveys. They manage to yield a productivity sum of 39.72 GBP per person per hour worked. Most of this is attributed to their cultural shift that “what you can get done in a shorter space of time, and a focus on focusing and delivering while at work and then having more time away from the office to reboot in between” said Adelle Kehoe, leader researcher at Expert Market.

‘Kazi ili mradi kazi’ mentality

Many company cultures hold bad values like those that encourage employees to overwork themselves, disregarding everything in order to be seen as dedicated and loyal. This will always yield negative results and discourages productivity. Employees feel the pressure to focus so much on work to impress their bosses, with little regard for work-life balance. All their frustrations are taken out on those closest i.e. colleagues. Because employees are not encouraged to be productive and happy especially outside their work, they burn out. All this contributes to employee burnout and creates a toxic culture. According to a survey by Culture Studies commissioned by the Workforce Institute at Kronos, the top reasons for employee burnout include unreasonable workload (25%) and negative workplace culture/toxic team (24%).

The top reasons for employee burnout include unreasonable workload (25%) and negative workplace culture/toxic team (24%).

The average employee in Tanzania will work 40 hours a week, minimum. How much time is used to encourage productivity and yielding of positive results? Do we encourage employees to be happy outside of work as well? In my experience, employees would prefer a happy, healthy environment than a well paying job in a toxic environment a thousand times over. And research data agrees.

No matter how much good we put in to a bad situation, the results will be poor. Just like Norway, we need a cultural shift. We need to define our company values and through this develop better, more positive results. A toxic company culture cripples an organization’s growth. Therefore leaders must be actively addressing the problem of workplace toxicity. You may want to retain workers and keep them happy but if you do not rectify it even the best will leave. People don’t leave jobs. They leave bad managers and toxic work cultures.

Like Norway, we need a cultural shift where values are defined so results can be developed.

Indicators for a toxic work culture:

• Team sabotage
• Humiliation
• Disregard for values
• Commanding leadership style
• Little and strained communication between employee and management
• Micromanaging
• Excessive absenteeism, illness, fatigue and high turnover
• Favouritism and office politics
• Gossiping and/or social cliques
• Unrealistic workloads or deadlines
• Unsafe or morally questionable working conditions.
• Overworking
• Disregard for employees’ opinions

These tendencies will result in:

• Discriminatory beliefs
• Treating employees as machines rather than people
• Information guarding (poor communication/unclear expectations)
• Belief that employees are lazy, stupid and/or expendable
• Blame game
• Resentment of authority
• Lack of accountability
• Lack of appreciation for good work

How to rectify the situation:

• Constant engagement between leadership and employees.
• Strengthen relationship beyond work
• Accept responsibilities
• Restore psychological safety 
• Structured work approach 
• Clarity in communication
• Catch people doing the right things, even small performance outcomes
• Be fair
• Foster relations.