Controlling the Work Environment

8/6/2019 Controlling the Work Environment

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Role of Micromanagement at Workplace

Strong connection exists between micromanagement and allowing employees to act and

look as they please. One thing that most of us can agree on is that micromanagement is not

a good thing, because it leads to a situation where management has to spend too muchtime dealing with employees on issues that the employees should be able to handle

themselves.

While it is important that employees have a say in the decision making process of the

organization, many managers have been reluctant in providing it to them. One reason for

this is because when employees have an appearance which is unprofessional, and act in an

unprofessional manner, it is hard for the manager to trust them.

After all, if something goes wrong due to a mistake made by the employee, it is the

manager, not the employee, who will be hammered by upper level management. In fact, a

manager could lose their job as a result of a mistake which was made by an employee

working in their department.

Having said this, is it any wonder that many managers are reluctant to allow their

employees to be a part of the decision making process? The good news in all of this is that I

believe a balanced medium can be found. However, this will require the organization to

carefully examine their corporate culture.

Once the corporate culture has been reviewed, many companies will find that there are

many changes that will need to be made. And while the employees may not like some of

these changes, it is necessary for the discipline, efficiency, and accountability of the

organization as a whole.

To make the right changes, the company must take control of the work environment. By

taking control over this environment, and placing some level of control over how employees

look and act, organizations can effectively reduce the amount of micromanagement that

they currently face. One thing that I should also emphasize is that there are both physical

and logical ways of altering the work environment.

Controlling the Work Environment


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The physical attributes of any given work environment are things which effect the five

human senses. Of course, we know these five senses to be taste, touch, smell, sight, and

sound. The physical attributes are important because they are responsible for having an

influence on the perception of people.

What this basically means is that management must pay close attention to the room

temperature, lighting, appearance of the employees, and colors. The logical side of

controlling the work environment involves how management operates, and their core

values. This includes motivation, dedication, as well as social interaction.

To increase logical control over the work environment, management will want to pay

attention to things such as empowering workers, delegating tasks, and holding employees

accountable for their actions. In order for management to succeed, they must avoid

micromanagement at all costs.

2) Handling interruptions and time

wasters

Handling Interruptions

Interruptions are a normal part of work life, especially if you are a smart and talented worker or

manager. Its natural for your colleagues and staff to want to talk to you if you can help them

with their work.

Whether you answer difficult questions, provide guidance, or point people in the right direction,helping others can be a valuable service to your team and your company.

That being said, interruptions can also be a tremendous drain and time waster. The key to handle

interruptions effectively is to ensure that you are making the best use of your time in each case.

One approach to eliminate interruptions would be to close your door, unhook your telephone,and get all your work done without any distractions. Having no interruptions would certainly

increase your own personal productivity, but this would be a short-sighted victory.

A key insight that the higher levels of time management provide is that the overall productivity

of your team, your division, and your company is often much more important than your ownpersonal productivity.


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This is especially true if you are a manager or team leader; your true productivity is based on the

output of your entire team, not just your own. As your level of responsibility increases, you have

a much greater impact on the productivity of everyone around you.

With this insight, interruptions take on a whole different light. Instead of always being time

wasters, some of them become opportunities to help increase the productivity and effectivenessof your team.

If spending a few minutes with a colleague allows him or her to continue working productivelyrather than staying stuck on a problem for hours waiting for you to become available, the return

on your small time investment becomes substantial.

The key is to distinguish the important interruptions from the true time wasters and handle each

in an appropriate way.

Determine the Nature of the Interruption

The first thing you must do in order to manage interruptions effectively is to get in the habit ofidentifying the type, importance, and urgency of the interruption as quickly as possible.

Your primary goal should be to find out enough information about the interruption to decide the

best way to handle it. Keep asking questions until you have enough information to decide.

Establish Regular Visiting Hours

Even valuable interruptions have a cost. A typical interruption may take anywhere from five tofifteen minutes to complete, and it may take you another fifteen minutes just to get back on track.

A good strategy to balance the need for uninterrupted time to get your own work done while

remaining available to your teammates and colleagues is to set aside regular 30 to 60 minute

blocks for visits. This is very similar to the way college professors set up regular "office hours"for their students.

Inform your staff that these visiting hours are the best time to get in touch with you for non-

emergency questions, discussions, or problem that are not preventing them from doing

productive work.

Emphasize that if they have a genuine emergency or cant do productive work until the issue is

resolved, they should come talk to you right away, but otherwise they should try to wait until the

regular visiting hours.

It is better to setup two or three small visiting hour blocks each day (one in the morning, oneafter lunch, and one towards the end of the day) rather than a single large one since it reduces the

amount of time people have to wait to get in touch with you.


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Extend Visiting Hours to the Whole Team

You are not the only one affected by interruptions. The productivity of you staff and colleaguesare equally affected by excessive interruptions.

If you have the ability to establish policies for your team or project, a useful practice is to extendthe concept of visiting hours to the whole team. Youll find that most people will gladly

postpone non-urgent interruptions and respect the visiting hours concept if it means that they toowill get uninterrupted time to complete their own work.

The June 2004 issue of Inc. magazine reported on the findings of Harvard University researcher

Leslie Perlow, who did a yearlong survey on a team of software engineers at a high-tech firm.

Perlow found that engineers were frequently interrupted and seldom had more than an hour eachday to concentrate on any one task. As you can imagine, this is not nearly enough time to do

productive work for something as complex as writing software.

Perlow introduced quiet time where no one was allowed to interrupt anyone else from the start

of the workday until noon. The engineers reported a 65% improvement in productivity.

From my experience, small visiting hour blocks three times a day are more effective than asingle large block of quiet time because they provide structure to interruptions throughout the

day and reduce the amount of time people have to wait in order to get an answer or discuss an

issue.

With the quiet time approach, a staff member who discovers an issue or runs into a problem early

in the morning would have to wait until noon to see you, and the afternoon would be an

interruption free-for-all once again.

If you institute a "visiting hours" policy, you should make it clear that interruptions outside ofvisiting hours are not forbidden, but rather discouraged. If a person has an urgent issue or cant

continue productive work, they should interrupt you right away so they can get back to work.

For the most part, this type of policy usually cannot be instituted by the employees individually

but often require the cooperation and involvement of company management or projectleadership.

3) REDUCING E-MAIL DOMINATION

Try these tips to reduce email overload inside your organization.


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Use informative headings

Use an informative text message for the subject line. Your reader doesn't even have to spend

time opening the email. They can read and delete. They get the message and they save time.

Use headings in the body of your email too. Think about reading a newspaper. How often do youjust scan the headlines? The same applies to your email. Structure your email logically, and

provide a heading for each paragraph. Your reader will be able to find key information quickly

by either scanning or searching.

Differentiate between urgent and non-urgent emails

Is your message critical, urgent, or just nice-to-know? Assist staff by flagging emails. Don't

forget that your reader may have a very different idea of what is urgent. Mentally put yourself in

their shoes. Decide how important the email is to them. You can then indicate the level of

urgency in the subject line or by using standard email symbols.

To ensure that staff have received important messages and then track who has read them, you

could use Desktop Alert tool. Alternatively a screen allows the administrator(s) to turn employee

screen savers into a series of dynamic sequencing billboards. This format is ideal for messages

that may not be urgent but are important from an employee 'awareness' perspective.

Employees who are suffering from email overload are unlikely to notice these types of messages

when they are sent as emails. Screens avers however, can act as a subtle but very powerful way

to raise awareness and communicate key themes.

Group your 'internal comms' and send them through at the same time each day

You may be alarmed to know that a study by Scottish universities Glasgow and Paisley revealedthat some staff checked their in-boxes 30-40 times per hour.

It is often more efficient and more productive to deal with emails at set times each day. You can

assist, by sending through internal communications at the same time each day.

An email aggregation tool enables internal email aggregation into a company newsletter. So,rather than IT sending an email update about an outage, marketing sending product information

updates and HR sending their staffing updates out via email, all of these messages can be

consolidated into the same magazine quickly and easily.

Manage group email lists and don't deal in internal spam.

How often do you or your staff open an email and then spend several minutes deciding if you

need to read it or not? What a waste of time and email storage space! Try appointing an email

gatekeeper: someone who knows each email group, what information is relevant to each group,

and what each group needs to know. The gatekeeper ensures each group receives only relevant


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emails. The Gatekeeper could also assist with developing clear email policies and procedures, so

staff know which emails to delete, which to keep on file.

Target your audience and make emails relevant to them.

So when you are writing an email, think about the people who will read it. Then write to them inlanguage they will understand. Make the message relevant to them and their role. Tell them why

you are writing to them and what you want them to know, think or do. Whether you are sending

informative emails or publishing an internal magazine, you need to know your audience.

Use Communications tools that allow you to target communications to specific employee groups.Ensure they have reporting options that allow you to see exactly what people are reading and

what is being ignored.

Keep the content brief.

Use simple language and make use of informative headings. Busy staff don't want to spend timegetting to the message, or working out what the message means. Emails in particular need to be

brief and clear. Think about your reader and what you want your reader to think, know or do. In

other words, what do you want your message to achieve? Decide on a logical order for your

message. Then, keeping your reader in mind, write your message using Plain English.

If you don't have a clear idea of what you want your message to achieve, or if you don't have a

clear understanding of your audience, then stop writing.

Manage your emails and archive them effectively

If your organization does not have clear guidelines for managing emails, you may find that moreand more staff have in-boxes that are groaning under the weight of hundreds of emails. This putspressure on IT capacity, but there is a more sinister problem. Have you or your staff ever failed

to fully digest an important update or new information because your in-box is just too full? It

may be time to look at your email management policy.

You could start with agreeing a folder structure, so that employees know where to save email

and just as importantly, where to find them. Agree on clear rules around which emails should be

kept, how long they should be kept, when and if they should be archived and which emails

should be deleted once they have been read.

Once you have developed clear email polices you could use staff quizzes, posters and screensavers to reinforce and test your staff's knowledge and understanding of your organization's

email policies.

Before you email, ask yourself 'Is email the best way to communicate this message?'

Email is used at times to convey sensitive or even unpleasant messages, but this is simply notgood practice. Examine and promote alternative ways of conveying the message. Why not use a


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staff meeting to think about all the different communications channels? You can involve staff by

asking them to discuss the benefits and drawbacks of each option.

Try a 'no email' day

How often do your staff send email to people sitting right next to them? How often do you sendan email when a face-to-face meeting or a phone call would have been more effective?

A No Email Day may seem extreme to some people, but with so many available communication

channels, including having your coffee break with a group that you need to relay information to,

you shouldn't find an email-free zone too difficult to manage. It is good idea to encourage staff tothink about alternative and more effective ways of communicating information.

Think outside the square.

How else can you get your message across? Why not list all the communications channels open

to your organization and think about the benefits and drawbacks of each. Examine the typicaltypes of information that staff in your organization regularly send and receive.

Think too, about the requirements each type of message may need to have in order to be

communicated successfully. Ask yourself, for example, do you need visual or voice cues? Or is

the information confidential or sensitive? Or do I need additional information? Or is the messageurgent? Involve staff in this process, as it will help them improve their communication, by

helping them select the most effective communication channel. It will also remind them that

some messages, especially those dealing with sensitive issues, are not suitable for delivery viaemail.

You may think that phone calls and face-to-face meetings take more time, but one company thatimplemented email free days, noted that making a real effort to reduce email overload resulted in

better teamwork, happier customers, and quicker problem solving.

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Controlling the Work Environment