La holgazanería como síntoma

Muchos empresarios creen que construir un equipo es su único objetivo. Según las estadísticas, en las empresas con más de 50 personas el 38% del tiempo lo dedican los empleados a sus responsabilidades directas, el 36% a cuestiones relacionadas con el trabajo y el 26% a actividades no definidas.

Estas cifras provienen de los desarrolladores del software de control de empleados CleverControl. Según ellos, la idea del programa surgió de la constatación de que cualquier empresa funciona bien bajo una condición: cuando todos los empleados son honestos y responsables. Dos empresas en el mismo mercado con iguales condiciones iniciales pueden tener resultados dramáticamente diferentes, porque un director comercial fue honesto, y el otro obtuvo ingresos adicionales de los competidores de la empresa.

"We thought about how to give managers a reliable tool for understanding who is who in the team: who is actually working and who just talks about it," says one of the lead developers Mark Masters. Then they realized that it should be a software product, devoid of subjectivity “When we started to introduce our product, it seemed that companies are full of lazy and unscrupulous people,” laughs Mark, “but then we realized that, if employees spend a lot of time on non-business-related websites, or write personal emails this means that some business processes are not properly aligned.”

Por ejemplo, el departamento de marketing, por las razones que sean, ha proporcionado a los vendedores sólo 1.000 contactos, aunque podrían contactar con un número mucho mayor de clientes. El objetivo se ha alcanzado y al mes siguiente se ha fijado exactamente el mismo número, por lo que el equipo de ventas sigue trabajando a media máquina, y el programa puede registrar estos casos.

In other words, not all companies are able to determine the maximum level of results that can be demanded from employees. "Our program should not encourage managers to use punitive measures. Dismissing a person is the easiest thing you can do. Instead we need to figure out the reason of slacking, as experience shows that the majority of people start aimlessly browsing the Internet only when they quickly finish all the tasks at hand or when they do not have clear objectives." Often, there are other situations - in which it is not possible to administer justice without monitoring systems, according to the developer.

"For example, in any company’s sales department there is always an employee who beats the target and one who cannot. But sometimes, surprisingly, it turns the former one spends much time on sites unrelated to work tasks, but the latter does not. In fact, he or she only uses the Internet for work-related browsing. The explanation is simple: the first one works only with old familiar clients who want to renew the contracts, and the second one is left with cold calling new clients."

IT-developers believe that employee monitoring is not a bad thing, but a great opportunity to understand the problem. "I will not say that monitoring never causes a negative reaction. It does and sometimes even leads to employee dismissal, but the program has always been intended as a tool for motivation," says Mark.

According to him today the number one enemy of productivity is non-work-related online resources, such as social networks. Studies show that an employee requires about 23 minutes for re-focusing on his or her task after a distraction. "Another problem is smoking,” says Mark, “it is obvious that people who smoke get distracted more often than non-smokers. And for that our program includes recording of periods of activity and inactivity during the working hours."