As a creative type, I have to be in the right mood to write and create. If things aren’t right, words grind on to the page slowly with too much effort. When I am at my best, I feel the words flow on to the page with greater ease and the final product is better. So for me, having a little flexibility in my schedule is key as I can write/create when the words flow best, which is usually later in the day or into the night.
This is why I enjoyed reading and fully endorse this week’s Inc. column by Margaret Heffernan — “Why Flexible Hours Inspire Performance” — in which she argues that employers are wasting their time tracking employee hours and are better off focusing on results rather than what time people come and go. In other words, treating employees like adults.
Yes, employees have to be accountable by showing up on time for meetings and getting their work done in a timely fashion. In other words, the employee has to act like an adult, too. Heffernan cites an example from early in her career when she worked in broadcasting.
They didn’t care about hours either. They trusted that, with a broadcast date in the schedule, any producer would work their socks off to make the best program on time — because that’s how you advanced your career. Nobody ever said, “Wonderful timekeeping, shame about the show!”
What do employers want most: Content and products that help drive revenue or people chained to their desks from exactly 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.? I would think driving revenue trumps all.
Obviously, flexible schedules do not work for all industries as retailers have to cover store hours and assembly lines have to keep moving, but for individual contributors be they content creators or coders, a little flexibility might actually increase productivity.
You may be wondering what schedule flexibility have to do with sleepiness and alcohol. A new study out of Albion College found that students that were a little sleepy or buzzed from couple drinks did better solving creative puzzles than they were at their most wide awake and sober moments. The study found that being tired or influenced by alcohol impairs the frontal lobe of the brain, impairing a person’s ability to focus. For creativity, this turns out to be a good thing as your brain starts using associations that it would normally ignore, helping derive answers more quickly.
I’ve seen this in action. For my wife, math was never a strong suit. One early morning on our honeymoon, we were sitting on a small tour bus to take us on Maui’s Road to Hana when the driver was trying to figure out individual fares for a party of five. All he knew was the total that needed to be collected, but the passengers wanted to pay individually. He though out loud, “What’s $487.50 divided by 5?” My wife immediately blurted out the correct answer: $97.50. The early morning tiredness converted her into a math savant.
For me personally, if I am working on a writing project at night and the words are not flowing, a nice adult beverage is the perfect medicine for writer’s block. Not too many though, or else my work might be rife with typos and incomplete sentences. And never during the day or I’ll be asleep by 7.
If you employ problem solvers and creative types, let off the leash when it comes to the 9-to-5 routine and allow employees to be at their creative best and worry more about getting the job done right.
What works best for you: A flexible schedule or someone cracking the whip on the timesheet? Leave a comment or tweet your answer to @jmeserve.
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