I am writing this opinion piece in the backdrop of a raging debate about employees’ work-life balance in the wake of their long working hours way more than their contractual work hours, be it remote or office. It is a fair argument, and I fully support bringing some semblance to it. However, from the employer’s perspective, the Employees also have to deliver quantum and quality work as per their agreed performance criteria between them and the organization. The problem lies in how the organization provides for the cost of residual work left uncompleted due to quality or productivity issues when certain employees fail to deliver. In a world where market forces are posing formidable challenges for businesses to transform demanding efficiencies and scale efficiently, where do companies manage these residual costs other than expecting those employees to work in tandem with additional resources to reduce these pressures? How to manage this mammoth challenge as the labour laws are inflexible and do not address evolving workplace complexities. The current rules are not enough to protect companies from dealing with such situations.
In most cases, any non-performance-related issues are either lost in the process jurisprudence or companies are shown the door by officials citing infringements with individual rights. Therefore, companies must build more robust and innovative employee engagement policies to tackle non-performance issues. In addition, companies need to develop strategic initiatives and mechanisms to provide for employee productivity losses by roping in willing employees to come with additional quality output or work hours. These must be made aware of the accrued benefits they will receive in due course as a part of their performance evaluation reviews.
To bolster these objectives and ensure fair play, companies must be mindful of their contractual hour’s agreement. They must not deviate by imposing any conditions that violate their spirit. However, when it comes to annual salary reviews and bonuses, it should not be on blanket application to all but be tied to company and divisional performance and individual KPIs. Those wanting the company to stick to its obligation of contractual hours and not beyond should then be content that the company is within its right to review their annual pay purely based on performance, where extra efforts and quality output are factors to reckon. Companies aim to compensate the performing employees over those who may not have met the minimum threshold for annual raises or bonus reviews. Some may argue that this may lead to certain employees at a disadvantage over the overzealous ones as these are likely to put just contractual hours as a way to seek work-life balance. However, this is incorrect as the company must work on smart KPIs to assimilate data to ensure that performance merits are followed with regards to all employees, and it is the KPIs, not the extra hours spent, that is considered. It is complex and is a burning issue to address as still subjectivity rules.
Companies continue to cope with this challenge on what best way to compensate their employees and ensure a fair mechanism to evaluate individual performance. Indeed, KPIs can map employee contribution, but there is no 100% formula ruling out subjectivity. Especially when it comes to high performing staff, there are often some misgivings, either it is about not being adequately compensated or others getting preferential treatments. Although the concept of objective KPIs stands to rule out such abnormalities. However, the bigger question is how to manage employee expectations between the mediocre and the performing employee. It is commonly believed that that organization results be the sole basis for deciding on employee’s compensations, but this is not a fair conclusion as we must look at individual KPIs that must touch upon the holistic aspect, including time, quality of performance and different initiatives. Those not aligned to these criteria must not have any grievance, especially in context to evolving work-life balance frameworks where organizations have to provide ecosystem and complied policies to deal with employees wanting to work on the 40 hours weekly schedule. In that case, those staff who choose to work for longer hours or make extra efforts is bound for extra bounty. The issue is the bell curve to be revisited based on definitive criteria where performance goals are on individual productivity output and different initiatives. Very likely, some may resist this indirectly to coax employees into extra working hours, although it has its own merits. Still, these must not object to those working on additional hours and compensated or rated high in their annual performance reviews. I do not advocate that extra working hours are the only basis for high KPIs.
Nevertheless, leaving this critical input in the performance reviews would be fair. Indeed, we face long work hours as a work culture tag with certain companies, especially regarding high-performance companies earning this tag. This must not be a cultural issue, and organizations need to put enough checks and balances to avoid this distinction. Additional hours at work must be purely self-owned as an individual choice but not as pressure or driven by ruthless timelines or ambitious managers ignoring the fundamental mind and body sustainability.
In the current context, businesses are faced with many problems, and under severe pressure of lower margins, these have to find avenues of cost savings and efficiencies. Here is where higher productivity matters, and this is where qualitative work hours are a must. However, not all employees can contribute in the most optimum manner in a true sense. Each employee sits on varying performance levels of the company’s bell curve, where employees are compensated every year following their performance. A minimal optimal level can be devised as the base to ensure efficient productivity, and a minimum of 50% of the workforce must be within this criterion. Assuming there is always about ten per cent of employees under the improvisation program, there are about 20% employees in 70% to 80% scale in high performers and the rest of 10% as exceptional. These assumptions ultimately provide an organizational bell curve index of a minimum of 70% that, in all contexts, is a doable and sustainable target to achieve a good performance and work-life balance for most.