Leaders, Don’t Nickel and Dime Your People

It’s incredible to me how many leaders focus on the wrong things sometimes. No wonder employee engagement scores are so low across many organizations and industries. Employee engagement is about unlocking discretionary effort. I’m not shocked that some leaders struggle with unlocking that additional effort. There is an epidemic plaguing many businesses. Too many leaders focus too much of their attention nickeling and diming their people’s schedule and time. When leaders nickel and dime with their employee’s time often, it leads to poorer engagement and the same behaviors reversed.

What is nickel and diming?

The process of nickel and diming employees is when an employer refuses to be flexible with scheduling and time. Yes, it is essential that everyone shows up on time for work. What happens when people inevitably stay late sometimes? Great leaders will show flexibility and acknowledge the extra effort. Bad leaders will turn a blind eye, citing staying late as an expectation. Unfortunately, showing up one or two minutes late can be considered an egregious sin perpetrated by employees. However, staying late to get the job done, helping a customer or employee is rarely met with the same disdain.

What happens if you nickel and dime?

Two can play that game. If as a leader, you don’t show flexibility, neither will your employees. The less flexible the environment, the more that you will have a culture of clock watchers, eagerly waiting and counting down, the literal seconds, to the end of their shifts. For the disengaged, you will even find that those employees will steal time becoming even less productive or efficient overall.

Getting real

Look, I have managed contact center employees, a team responsible for scheduling and forecasting to the minute, and retail operations supporting customers, so I get it – people need to show up for work on time. Most of the time, they do. The 5% of the time they don’t, I suggest being flexible, not making a big deal of it, unless it is a trend. I guarantee you; most employees spend more than 5% of their time doing work that is unpaid or unaccounted for after hours. If someone needs to come in a couple of minutes late and it doesn’t negatively impact customers, that is fine. There must be some give and take on both sides of the employer/employee relationship sometimes.

Salary / Hourly Considerations

Hourly workers, it is what it is, time clocked in and clocked out equals what you are paid for. For salary workers, many organizations have it wrong; in my opinion, treating you like you are hourly. Expecting you to work 40+ hours, staying from the beginning of your shift to the end, even when the work may be done is so old school. To create a culture where people are productive, instead of just being busy, how about allowing salary workers to develop their schedules, working to accomplish their responsibilities how and when they choose. There must be a certain degree of accountability with salary employees that dictates that if their work goals and tasks are met, how many or how little hours worked, shouldn’t be a big deal.

Leaders, don’t nickel and dime these salary workers and you will unlock boatloads of discretionary effort, helping your engagement leap to unparalleled levels of success.

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