Prioritize Outcomes vs. Work Hours

A lot of leaders demand that their staff spend a certain amount of hours in the office no matter what and will even punish them if they don’t work the exact time they want them to. This is a guaranteed way to make employees feel unvalued and unmotivated and build a terrible workplace culture.

A far more supportive and nurturing approach is to let employees do their thing and simply work the hours they need to to get results—prioritizing outcomes rather than time spent. In reality, one person can accomplish as much work in an hour as another can in eight; in either case the same amount of work gets done.

True productivity means that people get work done, not that they spend a mandatory amount of hours at their desks. When leaders measure productivity based on whether someone is in the office, they are forgetting that what really matters is outcomes.

The reason I know that outcomes are more important than having people physically in the office is that, throughout the course of my consulting career, I’ve noticed that organizations that prioritize results over hours build healthier and more productive workplaces.

Let’s work together to foster a supportive and nurturing workplace culture in your organization.