Much to my horror I found out that my name was in the late comers list in office. I had come in late 4 times in the month. Upon checking my record, (we have an electronic system) I found out that on each of these occasions, I had been late by 2-5 minutes.

Now I am an employee who takes much pride in the work that I do (All HR employees usually say that. Rather we are hired, to keep saying that). So getting to know (in ways which cannot be termed as sweet) that I have been a DEFAULTER, confused me.

I wondered as to what really defines productivity and although I cannot say what does, I did come up with a list of what does not!

The In Time and Out Time

The sight of people waiting since 5:45 to punch their cards at 6:00 is very fascinating. We are still judged by the time we came in and went back home. But can this ever meaure ones productivity at work? Thanks to service industry and with more and more marketing people flouting all rules of In time and Out time, this scenario seems to be changing, albeit for some industries.

Also Indians are obsessed with late sitting, and working on weekends. In most western countries, you will not find anybody in the office at 5 pm on Fridays. Are they not productive?

Time spent at your place/ on the computer:

Now now now… do I need to remind anybody of the “things we do” in our seats? Internal chat, internet, games (I know a few people who still play solitaire and minesweeper!), facebook, watsapp and ……

 Meetings

“I’m in a meeting. Can I call you back later?” a colleague from another location forever seems to be in some meeting or another. On one day I ask him point blank “What was the meeting about?”

“Regular Monday Morning meeting. Thankfully got over in two hours”

“2 hours?”

“Yeahh… One hour we hear about the Weekend Adventures of Amit (his boss) and then get fired for the work we were supposed to do over the weekend”

Management Gurus have since time immemorial, stressed the importance of meetings. But people don’t know how and why to conduct a meeting. Without a fixed agenda, meetings become a place for internal gossip and tea ( with Co. sponsored biscoot)

 No. of Mails you receive

I called up a senior colleague one day to find out why he had not been sending employees from his team for trainings. “I get hundreds of mails each day. Probably I missed yours.” Hundreds of mails? Time for some delegation of work I say! 

I am sure you can come up with so many things on which we judge our employees.. the question then is if not this then what?

For me a productive employee is on who :

• Delivers on time
• With Minimum Revisions required
• With Quality that is appreciated by Internal and External customers.

Whaaadsay???

Abha Deshkar

20th May 2013