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 ‘Thursday is the new Friday’ was the explanation given to me last week when we were out drinking in Central London and yet another cocktail was being pushed into my hand. And he went on ‘if you’re going to have a hangover, why let it ruin the weekend when you can have it at work on a Friday instead!’
It is of course not the first time I have heard people talk about Thursday being the new ‘drinking night’ and no doubt, not the last, but what is the impact on productivity when people’s work life balance has swung so far that they feel their employers should bear the brunt of their early weekend excesses? On top of which, I read a report this morning that says that on average staff work only 3.5 hours on a Monday, (on which day 50% of employees also turn up late to work and manage to smile for the first time only after 11.16 am). So if Monday and Friday are poor working days, where does that leave good old fashioned work ethic?
Or perhaps you think that whilst a few have poor work ethic, the reality is that most have great work ethic? Are there enormous variations from business to business? In which case does this need to be an area of focus in some businesses for the coming year? Perhaps revisiting your values, or taking time to review your induction procedure to ensure it includes a section on expected work ethic?
I had an interesting conversation with someone around 6 years out of university last week as well. He said that I should not be focussing on old fashioned views of work ethic and should instead concern myself more with each individual’s productivity and if someone could do their job in 20 hours whilst others still took 37, as long as they were both doing their jobs, then I should feel comfortable with that.
But I don’t. How can anyone manage employee relations in a team if people turn up when they like, don’t make themselves fit for work (e.g. by drinking to excess the night before), work at the speed that suits them not the speed that suits the business, and who don’t see the whole business endeavour as a team operation where the needs of the team need to be met just as much as the needs of each individual within it?
Can anyone help me out here? What work ethic should we expect in the modern day workplace?
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