How to manage a chaotic workplace

American Demographics, June, 1996 by Diane Crispell

Some people seem to work all the time. They bring home work evenings and on weekends. They work in planes, trains, and automobiles on their way to and from work. For these people, the line between work and home is as fuzzy as a pair of slippers.

An even greater number of people take care of personal business while on the job. They run errands during work hours, ship holiday gifts from the office, and use the phone to call the electrician and make doctors' appointments. They eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at their work stations. The result is a day that mixes paid work and other activities.

The mixed-up work day may be one reason why people today are more likely to feel that they work more hours than they really do. Every year, the Census Bureau asks people to recall the number of hours they worked in the past week. In 1965, 1975, and 1985, researchers at the University of Maryland took separate surveys based on time diaries that asked people to keep track of their actual activities. The gap between self-estimated work hours and work hours logged into a diary grew from one hour a week in 1965 to seven hours in 1985. One possible reason for the growing gap is that more people are taking breaks during work days to attend to personal business, yet report the entire period as work time. For those who work at home, taking a break to load the dishwasher may get lost in the translation when it comes to recollecting how many hours they worked for pay last week.

The gap between work perception and work reality increases with the length of the self-estimated work week. Among those who estimate a work week of 40 to 44 hours, time diaries record 2 fewer actual work hours. Among those who estimate working 50 to 54 hours, diaries record 9 fewer hours. And of those who estimate 75 or more hours of work a week, time diaries record 25 fewer hours. The reason, according to University of Maryland sociologist John Robinson and colleague Ann Bostrom, is "the increase in service jobs with no fixed hourly schedule, the rise in flexible work schedules in general ... and the increasing blending of work and nonwork time."

It's a new work world, and it raises new challenges for supervisors. It's getting harder to insist that all employees be at their posts at a specified time and stay there for a specified length of time. Requests for exceptions, conditions, and special schedules are growing. How do you cope? Consider these five rules.

1. QUALITY COMES FIRST.

The shift from time-based to task-based performance evaluation is occurring fastest in industries that rely most on online communication. That's because workers who use computers can switch from work to play seamlessly--playing games, chatting on bulletin boards, and checking the weather forecast before heading out on vacation. In an environment conducive to even mild levels of "time theft," supervisors are well advised to measure performance in terms of quality and productivity, not in the number of hours worked or when work is performed.

For a big chunk of the labor force, performance will always depend on showing up on time and putting in a solid shift. Retailers, manufacturers, and construction firms may never make the shift from time-based to task-based work. But in financial services, government, and a host of other "information" industries, many workers are already measuring up to quality and productivity standards instead of punching a clock, and the number is certain to grow.

2. APPEARANCES DON'T ALWAYS COUNT.

Dress-down Fridays are just the tip of the iceberg. More and more businesses no longer insist that employees wear ties and jackets or pantyhose and pumps. The reason: in more and more businesses, the way workers look doesn't affect performance. Even the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Justice have relaxed stiff dress codes for the punishing Washington summers.

Rather than applying the same standards of appearance to all workers, managers need to ask how important each employee's appearance is to the company's bottom line. For most retail and service businesses, the appearance of frontline employees is more important than that of behind-the-scenes workers. Salespeople, restaurant servers, bank tellers, and others who deal directly with the public must dress suitably because an unappealing appearance could have a negative impact on sales. But behind the scenes where most executives ply their trade, the quality of work matters much more than the cut of the clothes.

Even for frontline workers whose appearance does count, however, employers need to be flexible about the "uniform" they impose, lest they encounter resistance from individually minded workers. Demanding that women wear high heels in an era of ergonomic correctness and middle-aging back problems is not a good idea. One solution is to offer broad rules about acceptable attire. A restaurant may get no more specific than requiring that waitstaff wear blue pants and white tops. Another option is to offer a large variety of uniforms from which to choose. In the 1970s, McDonald's employees had little choice about what to wear. Today, they can select from a wardrobe of several continually updated styles and colors.