Trust Your People
It seems there is a whole new movement in the for-profit world related to checking up on employees. As a certain sector of the workforce makes choices about at home, in-office or hybrid work, employers are investing in tracking and other software that monitors workers time-on-task. The concern that because we cannot see them working and therefore how do we know if they are, is driving employers to create a lack of trust, which surely will erode the mutual respect workers need to do their best work.
Exempt professionals who are not used to “checking in” or sticking to an 8-hour day will surely baulk at these measures. These employees are frequently “knowledge workers”; people prized for their creative thinking, easy strategizing and ability to use their high-level skills to benefit the future of their organizations. A future that keeps organizations on the leading edge. Having “big brother” check up on what they are doing through some kind of daily surveillance, rather than by seeing the quality of their product, will surely diminish the respect of these skilled professionals for their employer. In addition, checking up on them might backfire and have them work only the 8-hour day, instead of their typical 10 hours and occasional weekends to get the work done.
As the former head of an independent school and now a consultant who collaborates with many school leaders, I pay attention to how changes in the world of work, in the corporate and not-for-profit world, might predict and support changes for schools—and vice versa. SmarterWisdom readers know that we are especially interested in how we might help school (and other) leaders know about how to apply broad changes to the education industry, while building on the expertise inherent in the culture of schools. So how might this new era of checking up affect teachers—and more importantly might the necessary confidence in the self-directed work of teachers inform other organizations on how to trust their employees?
Teachers of course have always worked in part from home—without preparation, research and grading papers, for example, all done away from their classrooms, they could never be the generative, keenly-focused professionals they need to be in the classroom. Teaching has always struck me as a bit like acting on the stage—the audience sees the performance, the action, they know very little about all the necessary work that happens in the background, on the “off hours, “ such as, preparation, practice and research. Teachers are in fact the archetypal knowledge workers: fluid in their subject areas, deeply understanding of child development and fully part of participating in the strategic direction of their school. And as such, their independent, often unseen work, is vital to the success of educational organizations.
While knowledge workers in the corporate world have typically, at least pre-pandemic, done most of their work in the office, the ways in which they were held accountable for their tasks and projects was through a combination of respect and the completion of projects. Now it seems it is through monitoring keystrokes on their laptops or viewing their time on task through a camera. This shift to a version of micromanaging diminishes their professionalism and, I argue, contributes potentially to the “quiet quitting” we are currently observing throughout the world of work.
So are there new ways to ensure accountability? Or are these new practices of checking up on people somehow part of the changed culture of work brought on by the pandemic? Surely in both the school and the corporate setting, there are other ways to ensure trust between and among team members? Employees crave feedback of all kinds, isn’t pride in the work you do and guaranteeing you meet deadlines a ripe area for frequent feedback? If supervisors are in regular contact with their team members, whether they are in the office or not, won't that guarantee awareness of whether or not employees are meeting the goals set for them? Let’s not turn back the clock and have the boss create restrictive, one-size-fits-all rules about attendance that work for no one. How can we ignore what we learned about work-from-home—it was an overall success and employee satisfaction was up.
So, dear corporate world, please look to schools and teachers as examples of where independent efforts work. Where professionals are trusted and allowed, within certain parameters, to do what they do best—serve students and families. And dear education world, please don’t fail to see this culture of (semi-) freedom as a plus, and support those teachers in their efforts to live their lives and serve their profession.