How long can you last?

In one position I would jingle my car keys at about 7:00 p.m. letting my manager know I was finally leaving after working for twelve hours. At another company I would see people sitting at their desk playing on the internet to look like they were working - staying as long as they could for political reasons. I heard employees arguing about how early they came in and that they stayed later than everyone else, but yet they still had nothing to do. Why is it in some corporate cultures sitting in your seat at your desk doing absolutely nothing is more valuable than an incredibly productive, dedicated, and passionate employee getting the job done in 8 or even 6 hours?

Luckily I don't work for an organization like that right now and nor will I ever do that again in the future. I've added that "work life balance" question for any future interview meetings. I personally want an organization that values the work I do and not how long I can sit in one spot. NO thanks!

Do any of you have success in turning an organization around from that type of mentality or is it a culture that's unbreakable?

Comment by Dan Nuroo on May 23, 2009 at 9:58am: Definitely not unbreakable. However the challenge is to ensure that the people you may be "liberating" don't start taking advantage of you. Metrics are the key

Comment by Rami Madi on May 26, 2009 at 4:22am: organization culture is hard to change, I believe in work-life balance and it's more important what you do and not how long you stay at work, but frankly I am a manager now and some employees abuse this concept so sometimes for managers how long you stay at work is easier to manage and control since the quality of work is relative and hard to measure!

Comment by Maureen Sharib on May 26, 2009 at 6:39am: Rami - can you site instances of abuse and what do you do about them when you discover them?

Comment by Rami Madi on May 28, 2009 at 4:55am: Maureen- abuse as coming late to work, leaving early, and long personal phone calls during working hours and when you discuss this with them they argue that it's more important what they do and not how long they stay at work, for most of them this is true and I’m happy with this setting but some of them they are not performing effectively as others, so it is easier for me to set one rule and to have fixed working hours. Anyway, this may vary according to the type of work, if you can measure the effectiveness of each employee then flexible working hours might work fine.

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