🔎 Are your knowledge workers required to track working time?
🔎 Do your computer systems and offices (e.g., card or other identification to enter/exit) track who’s “in” and who’s “out”?
🔎 Do leaders have access to the above or other monitoring information on workers, but workers don’t have access to similar information about leaders?
If the answer to the last question is “yes,” then those monitoring systems are effectively 1-way surveillance systems.
This usually sets up a downward trend in productivity and innovation:
👁 One-way transparency = surveillance
☁ Surveillance ≠ “openness”
🤨 Lack of openness ➡ decrease in worker trust
🤐 Decrease in worker trust ➡ less worker proactive behavior, lower productivity
🙇♂️ Less worker proactive behavior ➡ need for increased “command and control,” task management, checklists, etc. (micromanagement) to keep things moving
🐑 workers realize safest path is reactive compliance – do as told and nothing more – increasing need for/scope of micromanagement
Now there’s a downward spiral, where people who don’t want to be micromanaged leave, and new hires that stay fit the “just do as told and nothing more” mold … over time creating a workforce who prefer being treated like 🐑 and do the minimum for the $.
Middle leaders are also “infected” over time, as their leaders will tend to treat them the same way as workers.
This situation may be OK for a while if the market/environment/sales are stable, there is no need for improvement/innovation, and workers are willing to stay … big trouble if not.
The descent to a “compliance only” workplace isn’t that hard, but the recovery usually is. And takes more time to recover than it took to get there.
Stop and recover before you get to the bottom.
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