Taking An Entire Staff Hostage

A senior executive with an aging, ailing mother moves closer to her creating and hour and a half commute to the office. Once at the office, he spends the vast majority of his day on-line communicating with his regional managers in their respective territories.

After a few months, he discovers that the hour and a half commute each way still only allows him to manage his managers from a computer terminal. He decides to cut out the wasted three hours each day and communicate with his managers on-line from home. He schedules his in-person meetings two days per week and works from home three days per week. Any senior executive could see the intelligence in that decision.

But what about applying the same rules to general staffers? Are you asking your people to show up to the office and work their whole day on-line because it is necessary or because you don't trust that they're working at all and you feel you need to keep your eye on them? Be careful how you answer that because your Culture will be more aligned with your thoughts than your actions.

Maybe one or two lazy employees are screwing around and not being productive but don't hold a great staff hostage because of one or two idiots. (Why are they still working there if you already know who they are?) What kind of message are you sending? Are you causing your staff to be focused on results or focused on the clock?

The difference is the Culture you create.