January 19, 2021
Reader question: “What if my employees WANT to track their time?” PART 3
A fellow list member wrote in with this insight in response to a couple of my recent messages (shared with permission, name withheld by request):
Just my two cents: you honor what you celebrate. And by that I mean, if it’s hours you celebrate (who has the most), that is what you will see people compete on. If it’s being better, you will compete on that.
I’m in a group where income and hours are what status is derived from. So the competition between people is on hours. Which also means the culture is to try to take those zero-sum hours from lower status people to keep a high status. It’s pretty awful culture.
It’s not my favorite playground, but it’s the one I am in for now. I hope to change that.
Thanks for all your thoughtful emails!
This message supports what I wrote in my previous messages on this subject:
If employees track their hours (even if you don’t bill hourly), the culture will eventually end up revolving around hours instead of something meaningful.
Yours,
—J