症状としての「たるみ

多くの雇用主は、チーム作りが唯一の目的だと考えている。統計によると、50人以上の企業では、従業員の時間の38％が直接の責任に、36％が仕事に関連する問題に、26％が定義できない活動に費やされているそうです。

この数字は、従業員監視ソフトウェアCleverControlの開発者が発表したものです。彼らによると、このプログラムのアイデアは、すべての従業員が正直で責任感がある場合、どんなビジネスも一つの条件の下でうまく回っているという認識から生まれました。同じ市場にある同じ初期条件の2つの会社が、1人のコマーシャル・ディレクターが正直で、もう1人が会社の競合相手から副収入を得ていたために、結果が劇的に異なることがあるのです。

"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.”

例えば、マーケティング部門は、何らかの理由で、営業担当者に、もっと多くの顧客とコンタクトできるにもかかわらず、1000件のコンタクトしか提供しなかったとする。そのため、営業チームは半分の力で働き続けることになり、プログラムにはそのようなケースが登録されます。

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."