Tag Archives: Employee engagement

Being bored (and zoning out) at work can make us more creative?

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English: A bored person

English: A bored person (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Having written about the problem of boredom at work (where an individual’s skill level surpasses the challenge of the tasks), lets turn now to one of the possible benefits of boredom… creativity! The following article was very interesting indeed: Being bored at work can make us more creative. Some excerpts follow:

Most of us think of being bored at work as a negative experience, but a new study suggests it can have positive results including an increase in creativity because it gives us time to daydream.

I do find that daydreaming fuels my creativity, although I can imagine this generally being a tough sell to employers. Also, it turns out that zoning out can also help boost creative problem-solving (see More Than Just ‘Zoning Out’: Exploring the Cognitive Processes Behind Mind Wandering). Even better huh? Continuing on with the article:

…more passive boring activities, like reading or perhaps attending meetings, can lead to more creativity — whereas writing, by reducing the scope for daydreaming, reduces the creativity-enhancing effects of boredom.

This account of differences between activities that require less focus with those that require more for inducing boredom sounds right on target. Few things can be more boring than meeting overkill I say!

Dr Mann says: “Boredom at work has always been seen as something to be eliminated, but perhaps we should be embracing it in order to enhance our creativity. What we want to do next is to see what the practical implications of this finding are. Do people who are bored at work become more creative in other areas of their work — or do they go home and write novels?”

The question of whether or not bored workers generally become creative in such a way that benefits their employer is a good question. I believe there’s plenty of evidence that resultant creativity can also be expressed in a counterproductive manner (such as pretending to work perhaps?), and this is an issue that needs to be considered. For more details on this problem, see When the Bored Behave Badly: An Interest Enhancement Model of Counterproductive Work Behavior (Skoronski, 2008).

Finally, here is a video by Thriveworks which contrasts short-term boredom with long-term boredom (a significant distinction that needs to be made as the latter is the problem – consider Workplace Boredom: The Silent Killer of Employee Morale). The video also sums up the upside of boredom quite nicely:

So what do you say? Have you experienced a bout of creativity that you can attribute to a preceding period of boredom or zoning out? Please share!

See also

Coming soon: News about the upcoming Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013 video conference on enhancing collaboration of virtual teams!

These educational video conference series are geared towards organizational leaders wishing to learn more about improving collaboration and productivity through the use of online tools. Visit the Better Collaboration website or the Better Collaboration meetup page for more information! On LinkedIn? Join us at the Better Collaboration LinkedIn group, a group is for innovative managers, HR professionals, collaboration consultants and solution providers who are interested in sharing and learning about best practices and technologies that help dispersed teams collaborate better!

Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix it

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Conventional wisdom posits that the needs of employees and their employer are at odds with each other, however this assumption is not necessarily true. A mutually symbiotic relationship granting employees freedom and flexibility while increasing engagement and, hence, productivity is achievable! Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix it: A Results-Only Guide to Taking Control of Work, Not People will force you to examine how you think about work as well as how we unknowingly support the current, conventional view of work through the establishment and use of flexible work arrangements. Conventional flexible work arrangements, by the way, can’t achieve what a results-only work environment (ROWE) can.

In this book, authors Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson make a solid case for prioritizing and measuring results, creating a culture of transparency, trust, and accountability in the process. This means tossing out the misinformed notion that employees’ productivity is somehow correlated with the hours they put in. How is this misinformed? Just think about all the possible ways to stretch out work assignments or subtly fill in some of that time at the office with non-work related activities. Wonder no more about how workers in an entire nation can come to be known for pulling long hours and yet not be all that productive!

Indeed, Ressler and Thompson recount how naturally competition on the basis of being physically present for long hours emerges when managers don’t make results their one and only measure of productivity. The message: Treat employees like the adults that they are and allow them to own the work as well as the process through which they perform it. It doesn’t matter when, where, or how the work is performed as long as the agreed upon outcome is achieved on time.

Ressler and Thompson walk you through real case studies, providing a clear understanding of how their trainers facilitate the necessary culture change within the organization. For example, they explain why it is critical to:

  • Rethink and reestablish how everyone in the organization perceives and talks about when and where employees work (i.e, disregard whether an employee is putting in long hours or not, is physically present or absent, and early or late).
  • Leave it up to employees to decide when they take time off, which means allowing unlimited vacation and sick days (as formal vacation and sick day policies must be managed and having a ROWE means that only the work is managed, not the employees).
  • Ensure meetings are absolutely necessary as unproductive meetings are one of the biggest time wasters (practical guidelines are provided in the book), and make all meetings optional.

Finally, Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix it shows how a ROWE is compatible with all kinds of jobs that’re commonly cited as being incompatible with a ROWE. This is my absolute favorite part of the book. For instance, they describe how a ROWE can be established for non-exempt employees (while staying in compliance of regulations that have been considered obstacles). Ressler and Thompson also describe how their trainers facilitated transition to a ROWE for an organization in the field of education as well as a public sector organization.

In a previous post, I’ve acknowledged individuals who stated their preference for the conventional, Industrial Age system of work and accepted their own self-assessment about their abilities and desire not to work under a new system. However, it is my hope that even some of the most reluctant among us will, at some point, choose to take the plunge and find out that the water is just fine! Ressler and Thompson’s thoughts on the human need for self-determination as well as their optimistic view that so many of us can come to enjoy working under a ROWE inspires this hope. Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix it is a refreshing, practical guide that will show you how all of this is possible.

Surveillance at Work: Issues and Recommendations

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The possibility of employers checking potential hires’ social networking sites to attain a more in-depth look at what candidates might really be like is now common knowledge. Likewise, most people also know that employers are increasingly monitoring their computer activities at work and that this can come in the form of programs that track time spent on work related and non-work related software as well as the types of websites you visit. These have become part of a “new normal.” However, surveillance can be more invasive and extend beyond the workplace itself. It can come in the form of tracking, through GPS, where you drive the company vehicle or employers’ hiring private investigators to verify health or injury claims as the following video shows:

Global Interviews: Vancouver Private Investigator on Employee Surveillance

We are still currently working out the conflict between employees’ right to privacy and employers’ rights to verify the truth of the information you submit for employment or other claims, ensure a fair exchange of labor for compensation per the employment contract, and maintain security of sensitive company related information. In the meantime, job applicants and employees who have information on the Internet that casts an unfavorable light on themselves must engage in some impression management. Here are a few recommendations:

  • Google your own name every now and then to see what kind of information is associated with you
  • Look into setting your social networking profile on “private” and think about what you post
  • If you are on the job, you can keep your non-work and work related activities separate by confining non-work related communications to your own device – yes, you can still watch cat videos!

The following video provides more information on employees’ and employers’ rights along with best practice recommendations for employees:

Computer Privacy in the Workplace
Featuring Attorney Wendi Lazar of Outten and Golden, LLP in New York

Many of us know intuitively that electronic surveillance of our computer and Internet activity at work isn’t going to do wonders for employee satisfaction and engagement. People like to maintain some degree of personal space and privacy. If you just take a moment to think about this, chances are you can probably recall some instance when you felt a visceral discomfort in reaction to being closely scrutinized. It hardly matters where the scrutiny is coming from (i.e., an employer, the government, or some stranger), whether or not you were following the rules or not at the time, or whether or not it is “for your own good.” Some of us want more “space” and privacy than others but I have yet to encounter one person who likes to be monitored all the time.

Electronic surveillance isn’t a foolproof solution when it comes to keeping employees on task either. Mixing of work and non-work related activities occurs anyway with the introduction of today’s sophisticated, portable devices (complete with fun features and games). My own 5-year old iPhone, for instance, gives me access to all the old Nintendo games I had known and loved so many years ago, but I digress. I believe that implementing a results-only-work-environment (ROWE) would be a better way to motivate and keep employees on task. From a behavioral psychology standpoint, what can be better than building a positive association with task completion? Implementing ROWE is easier for some jobs than others of course, however I’m considering knowledge work that is compatible with a ROWE system. A lot of headway can be made in this direction and it can all begin with a small pilot test within the organization.

Finally, here are a couple of articles for those who are interested in understanding what employers may be looking for when they come across your social networking profile:

A Looking Busy Coach! Plus, Who Pretends to Work and Why?

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Still not convinced that there is a pretending-to-work phenomenon? To follow-up on my previous post, They need to see you there to know that you are working… Not!,  this post explores answers to who is likely to pretend to work and why. After digging deeper on the Internet for more information on this topic, I discovered a unique coaching service catering to employees at the website Looking Busy: 50 Ways to Look Busy at Work Even When You’re Not.

According to this website, Looking Busy coach, Jay Schorr has over 15 years of experience looking busy at work and is in demand by both employees interested in learning how to look busy and by managers interested in identifying “looking busy” behavior. Now curious, I emailed him to inquire if he is currently coaching and asked how he came to the realization that his service would be helpful to many people. The answer is, yes, he is currently coaching. Moreover, Jay Schorr’s response addresses why it behooves employees to act busy:

In a tough economy, jobs are not only hard to come by, they are hard to keep.  Layoffs, cutbacks and outsourcing all have made it imperative for workers to do everything they can to make it look like they’re invaluable to their employers.  That means going to extraordinary lengths to maximize productivity (or at least to look like you’re maximizing productivity!) every minute in the workplace.  And that’s not always easy when there’s the inevitable idle or down time.

As America’s Looking Busy Coach, it is my job to help Americans keep their jobs by looking busy at work … even when they’re not.  Bosses like nothing better than to see their workers hard at work, or at least appear to be hard at work.

Here is Looking Busy coach, Drew Sattee, demonstrating this coaching service to CBS Sunday morning news viewers:
What I extrapolated from this is that, as long as managers manage more by sight than by results (hence emphasizing employees’ physical presence and appearances), it is advantageous for employees to act busy regardless of whether or not they are busy. Those of us who are genuinely busy but less expressive, calm, and unflappable should take note!

To my surprise, I have a hard time convincing people that a good contingent of the workforce 1) pretends to work and 2) are disengaged. Employee engagement reports show considerable variation with regard to the proportion of engaged versus disengaged workers. However, it seems safe to say that about two-thirds of the workforce is not engaged. According to the June 2009 issue of Research Works: Partnership for Workplace Mental Health, only 1 out of 5 employees are highly engaged. The international trends are, by the way, quite interesting (p. 4): Mexico (40%) and Brazil (31%) had the highest percentage of their workforce who were highly engaged, followed by the United States (21%) and Canada (17%), with Europe (11%) and Asia (7%) having the lowest levels of employee engagement. However, this Right Management report puts it at 1 out of every 3 workers being engaged (with a graph of country differences on page 5) and this 2012 Global Workforce Study by Towers Watson agrees, stating that 35% of the workforce is highly engaged.

Although there very well may be situations where engaged employees need to resort to looking busy during down times, my personal experience leads me to think that engaged employees are more apt to try coming up with activities that add value to their organization in their down time when compared to disengaged employees. Thus, I suspect that there is overlap between the pretending-to-work and employee disengagement phenomena. Now, I do believe disengaged employees are trying to hang on to their jobs as well, otherwise why even pretend to work?

What leads to disengagement in the first place, however, is a mismatch between the employee and various aspects of the job (e.g., the employees’ role, tasks, working conditions, or values). So under this condition, trying to power through at a job that is ill-suited for a person leads to burnout and, hence, disengagement. This is something that I think most people can understand. Just take some time to think about what kind of work energizes you and what kind of work drains you. Also think about people you know who would love to do something that you hate to do and vice versa. For myself, I enjoy researching as well as thinking in-depth and writing about issues I find interesting, but I hate mundane housework type tasks (e.g. it looks like I’m playing Jenga with dishes in my kitchen sink).

Finally, managers who discover “looking busy” behavior and find out that an employee is disengaged should first check and see if the employee can be re-engaged. Strike up a conversation to see if there is a way to adjust the work situation to be more suitable and motivating. This could involve redesigning the job to whatever extent possible. If the problem can be fixed, it will save the organization the expense of recruiting, hiring, and training another. Here is an example of the type of conversation a manager may want to have with the employee:

When Email is Better than Skype and Face-to-Face Communication

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As mentioned in a previous post, I’m going to share my own personal experience with a cross-cultural communication problem that only reared its ugly head when visual cues were available. Thus, this post may substantially depart from my usual writing style.

I hired a career coach and began working with him in September 2012.  Note that this fellow has close to 20 years of experience as a career coach and has been a longtime resident of California’s Bay Area, an area renown for its racial and cultural diversity. Also note that he’s a Caucasian-American dealing with me, an Asian-American (though something like this can happen even when there is a shared cultural or racial heritage given enough difference in personality). In my situation, this meant that there are body language dynamics that are vastly different in meaning (e.g., maintaining eye contact with your conversation partner). By the way, I live in California also, but we agreed to handle my case using technology to save me from having to make long drives.

He and I seemed to be communicating well and getting along swimmingly as we emailed back and forth. Trouble began when we started conversing on Skype. I began discussing my interest in workplace boredom and employee engagement consulting, and I tried to share some information with him. He did not believe that a workplace boredom phenomenon exists. He could see people being stressed, but not bored. This phenomenon is really quite easy to understand however. Here you go:

Satisfaction From Work

He also kept reiterating that consulting businesses that serve employers needs do not exist. He also believed that telework is a theoretical concept as no one in his social network was working this way. Words began to fail me as I saw that he was just hellbent on keeping information to the contrary away.

Noticing that I could barely form words at this point, he leaned a little forward into the webcam as he inspected my body language and said, “You’re nervous!” and then continued, “You’re intimidated by me!” Actually, I was exasperated and now so stunned at his  confidence in his body language reading skills that I didn’t know what to say. He continued making other body language reading mistakes. This was going off about as well as a dog trying to read a cat’s behavior. I corrected him on his westernized assumptions about how friendships are formed when we discussed why I neither love nor engage in social chatter about various topics that tend to happen in the office scene. To that, he replied, “So you think you’re more Thai then?” “Well, geez,” I should’ve replied, “Do I look white to you???” I wish I was able to correct him at every instance in which he made mistakes but there were just too many. Also, as introverted as I am, my mind tends to be processing things so deeply that I remain a step behind during fast-paced conversations. Don’t you hate it when the clever retorts come to you after the situation has passed? I could have played this little game right along with him, leaned into my webcam and said, “You’re presumptuous!” “You jump to conclusions!” “You’re an obnoxious fool!”

The moral of the story: Ask, don’t assume. If you want to know how I feel then ask, don’t assume. If you want to know what my state of mind is then ask, don’t assume.

Had this guy been dealing with people overseas, he would have lost so many clients and offended so many people. I’m bringing this subject to attention because I’ve come across so many of these instances where someone assumed more similarity than there really is. This doesn’t just happen with people who have been “living under a rock” but with people who really should know better as well. People can still make assumptions about others based on the way they write. Also note that I am NOT discounting the conditions under which being able to read body language is beneficial. However, I have to laud communication methods without visuals for this one reason: It inhibits deeply ingrained assumptions that people often make because of the way someone looks or behaves.

He and I never interacted face-to-face but, somehow, I don’t think doing so would have prevented him from depending so much on his body language reading skills and cultural knowledge that only pertains to people similar to himself. Even worse, I would have had to resist recurring thoughts telling me to reach over and strangle him.

The Engagement Equation: Leadership Strategies for an Inspired Workforce

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In The Engagement Equation: Leadership Strategies for an Inspired Workforce, authors Christopher Rice, Fraser Marlow, and Mary Ann Masarech provide a thorough guide for organizational leaders interested in improving work engagement. At the outset, they establish that engagement is a unique construct that is distinguishable from satisfaction, motivation, and commitment. Furthermore, employee engagement is an individualized equation expressed as the combination of maximum satisfaction for the individual and maximum contribution for the organization. From there, they discuss particular industries (e.g., where there is a high degree of interaction with customers) in which employee engagement particularly impacts results. Additionally, the authors caution against assuming measures that have increased engagement in one geographic region would similarly increase engagement in another.

A discussion about building a culture that supports engagement follows. The importance of helping employees identify their strengths, weaknesses, and needs in order to ensure job-fit, culture-fit, and suitable working conditions is highlighted.  Providing career coaching and development services also goes a long way to help employees envision a career that mutually addresses the needs of both individuals and the organization.

Finally, The Engagement Equation covers possible pitfalls of implementing strategies to increase engagement. First, the authors warn that maintaining a high engagement culture is an ongoing effort. In other words, sporadic interventions here and there will not create the results desired. Secondly, organizational leaders, managers, down to everyone in the organization must be on board and responsible for their own engagement level. It takes engaged individuals to foster a culture of engagement. Finally, leaders must be prepared to follow through with an action plan in a timely manner once the initial engagement level assessment is taken. The authors caution against utilizing an engagement survey and not following-up with action as the interest in increasing engagement may then come across as disingenuous leading to even higher levels of employee disengagement. Alternative means of making the initial engagement assessment are provided.

It is difficult to provide an adequate summary of all the useful points made in this book. It provides a clear, comprehensive, and practical guideline for beginning and continuing an action plan to foster a culture of engagement. Furthermore, it will dispel some preconceived notions of how implementation of such a program should proceed (e.g., the assumption that it is most beneficial to start assessment with an employee engagement survey).