The need for smarter work practices

In the memorable musical Fiddler On The Roof, the amiable Topol tells his audience in one of his songs: If I were a rich man, I wouldn’t have to work hard. Unfortunately, for most of us, becoming rich will continue to remain just a dream. So, hard work is the only option open to the majority.

But is there a way that we can introduce smarter work practices that will make us more effective in our work without forcing us to work long unsocial hours?

A recent study by flexible workplace provider Regus draws a rather bleak picture of how many hours some Maltese spend at their workplace. Two out of every five employees regularly take work home to finish in the evenings. Perhaps more worrying, 13 per cent of Maltese “regularly work more than 11 hours a day – more than the global average of 10 per cent”.

These statistics do not seem to tally with the stereotyped image that some of us have of our workforce, especially those that work in the public sector.

The question that needs to be asked before giving any interpretation to these work practice statistics is whether so many of those in employment are indeed “super workers”. There is no doubt that a number of employees work long hours out of a sense of commitment to their work duties. But there could be other less laudable reasons behind the fact that so many individuals work such long hours.

One such reason could be that many workers hold two or more jobs to maximise their income and support their lifestyle. Moonlighting is prevalent in most countries, even if in some countries, like Malta, such work usually takes place in the submerged economy. The fact that we have been told that the black economy in this country is among the most active in any EU country seems to confirm this theory.

The Regus study reveals other interesting facts. Apparently, remote and mobile workers put in longer hours but are “systematically happier and more productive than their office-bound colleagues”. The message of this finding is that we need to adopt better work practices if we want employees to be happier and work harder. It is a sad fact that most employers are not prepared to introduce more flexibility in the way their workers go about producing the results that they want.

Rigid sign-in and sign-out times are prevalent in both the public and private sector. Young mothers raising a family find that this strict approach destroys the chances of them balancing their career and family responsibilities. Home working, teleworking and flexitime are a reality in only a few places and this partly explains why some workers, especially women raising a family, just opt out of the labour market for at least a few years.

As rightly remarked by Anna Borg, a labour studies lecturer, employers should adopt practices that measure output rather than time spent in the workplace to monitor their productivity.

Trade unions should get more vociferous in insisting on more flexibility in the working time of employees rather than focus mainly on increased payment for overtime work.

The way ahead to make the workplace more human must surely come from the adoption of smarter work practices based on mutual trust between employers and workers. Bosses also need to have an enlightened understanding of what really motivates people to work harder while, at the same time, be happy.