Are you a bad or a good staff to work with? Employees can make or break a company.
Read to find out (productivity killers)
- Overuse of one’s a mobile phone for private chats and errands while at work.
- Reporting late at the workplace.
- Unproductive groups.
- Being ignorant about how the company creates and delivers value.
Some organizations like government entities may survive despite bad employees because they do not have revenue generation pressures. Even if the entire team came late at work, the money will be on the account as taxpayers will foot the bill. The only challenge such a government entity may experience is returning money back to Treasury because it could not be spent during the year.
The pressure in a private sector company is different. You must make money before you spent it out. That is why any staff you bring on the table must be able to add value. If any staff fails to do so, you will start carrying weight due to your staff’s inefficiency.
Some staff’s behaviors are a cause of corporate fat and weak performance. Poor work ethic kills companies. Wrong staff on the team may kill the morale and focus of other staff. Just one wrong character may be enough to suck all the energy out of your team! No leader or manager would like to work with any staff that is like a dead weight in a boat.
The common behaviors that kill productivity are:
- Overuse of one’s a mobile phone for private chats and errands while at work.
Someone is busy at work but the constant beeps and blimps on the phone are major distractors and time wasters. In today’s open office environment, just one person with a phone in vibration or loud mode will leave all workmates without concentration and focus. As you try to think, a WhatsApp message arrives ‘beep’, then a Skype one. And then a twitter one. Facebook ones are multiple. It is easy for someone to end up being like a zombie – looking on the phone and then computer screen and then phone. Before you know it, the day is coming to an end and there are no results to show for it.
The catch is that someone will look as if they have been working hard and are tired. Yet they wasted time by spending the whole day attending to private messages on their phones with no value to the business!
If you want to be useful at the workplace, disable all unnecessary notifications. And if your work is not social media monitoring, keep your phone in silent, silent mode!
It is good and commendable to leave work late. However, the admired work culture is one of reporting early at the workplace! In the morning, one is fresh and active. Every leader would love to see the best team focusing on the business early in the day. A culture of reporting to work early is excellent. It is usually a recommended practice in private companies to focus on external the revenue side (top line) in the morning and middle lines (operating expenses) in the afternoon and the bottom line (profits after-tax) in the evening. Marketing, networking, business development, and all similar outreach effort should be done early in the morning.
If you are a Flexi employee, make sure your colleagues know about your arrangement. When you come to work anytime you feel like and leave early, some staff may emulate your behavior yet it is toxic. Before you know it, a bad work culture will be the result. It is difficult to change. You will then have some staff signing in at work at 9:30 am or 10 am! Such a culture may lead to being late at meetings. If a client sets a 7 am an appointment, such staff of yours will be quick to request a change to sometime later at 9 or 11 am which could lead to loss of a deal.
If you are unable to make it at work earlier than 7:30 am or thereabout, inform your colleagues (within your unit) via your Skype or WhatsApp group. That team accountability is one of the best practices and culture. It is not good to only inform your supervisor. First, inform your colleague to stand in for you.
- Unproductive groups.
Some staff only bring negative energy on the table. They will move in a group at lunchtime, or after work and all they talk about are unproductive gossip intended to reduce motivation and work focus. Like weeds in a farmer’s garden, such staff requires a system that easily identifies them and removes them from the company.
- Being ignorant about how the company creates and delivers value.
In the private sector where you must first make money before you spend it, every CEO or leader wants to be with staff who understand how money is created. You must develop quality products and sell them, and when you get a customer, you must provide quality services for repeat business.
The good staff does not sleep on the job. They don’t wait for reminders from their supervisors. The staff proactively seeks help and support to get the job completed in a short time. Understanding how money comes in and how money goes out makes someone instantly relevant and perceived as mature. That is how some people easily get promoted to senior roles regardless of age because they demonstrate an understanding of the business.
If you think like a leader, help his or her make the work lighter, the leader will bring you close to the high table. It is that easy!
Are you a good employee or a bad employee?
To be continued
Copyright Mustapha B. Mugisa, 2019. All rights reserved.
