Revolutionary 21st Century Thing’s I’d like to see Companies Do

Maybe this should be titled ‘Revolutionary Thing’s I’d like to see a 21st Century Company do’, not sure. Here’s a couple novel ideas that I’d like to see companies adopt sooner rather than later, seeing as we’re almost 1 decade into the 21st century and I have yet to see widespread adoption…

Let’s get rid of the 8 hour work day, actually 9 hours including lunch hour – there’s better ways of being productive in today’s world. You know how the old adage goes, ‘Work expands to fill time available’. I know for a fact that people are more effective at different times of the day, everyone has a favourite time of day when they get most of their work accomplished and where they feel most productive. We might understand it quite clearly but companies certainly don’t. People operate very differently from one another and not everyone is effective throughout the day. Unless your position absolutely requires that you physically be available for 8 or more hours out of the day (think emergency services or similar) I think there’s lots of room for improvement. So it doesn’t apply to everybody but it’s an idea that can certainly be explored.

Eliminate the need to commute everyday, work from home. Aside from the cost savings in transportation and the positive environmental impact that tree-huggers will enjoy this provides an opportunity for people to take advantage of an average extra 2 hours every day. What can you do with an additional 2 hours every day? Sleep in, go shopping, do your laundry? All of the above? Think about it.

Require that employees be at the office for only 3 hours a day and require that they attend meetings. This hands down beats spending the entire day at the office unnecessarily. This minimal requirement isn’t too much too ask and provides people the flexibility to choose what hours they would be most effective in the office.

Let people work anywhere they want to, why constrict them to a cube-with-no-window or a particular part of the building. Why even constrict them to the office, if an employee is being productive, who cares where they do their work from, as long as the results are there. This will require discipline on their part but it’s an idea that can be explored in a way that will positively affect everyone.

Give employees more clustered vacation days or better incentives in time off. The average employee gives 90% of their year to work, the least the company can do to show their appreciation is to give them more vacation days or allow them to take accumulated vacation all at once, don’t force them to split up vacation into puny 1 week segments, do you really think they’re going to be productive when they get back? I found that after taking 1 week of vacation, your body just starts to un-wind and then BAM it’s back at work again. So there’s no real benefit there. Allow those employees to accumulate that vacation, it’s THEIR vacation that they’ve earned, allow them to accumulate as much as they want over as many years as they want. Don’t implement pathetic policies which null-and-void your vacation every year if you havn’t taken it. Is this really the way you want to treat employees?

If you’re not going to let people work from home then at least do this: Build gyms, exercise rooms and silent/quiet rooms in your offices. We’re human beings, not robots, we need rest and relaxation. Studies have proven that taking a 15-20 minute power nap in the middle of the afternoon actually increases your productivity and people are more likely to stay later to complete work. Which company would scoff at the idea of having more productive employees? Well apparently lots because I don’t see this happening everywhere just yet.

Let’s summarise:

• Dump the 8 hour work day
• Allow people to work from home
• Re-think the way we use vacation days
• Treat your employees by implementing lifestyle incentives by allowing exercise or naps

I don’t see every company adopting these ideas, some do, think Google for instance. Unfortunately this goes hand in hand with my revolutionary leaders post as it seems most companies are not in fact lead by these rare-spawn and few and far between people.