Chapter 18

Ten Ways to Motivate Your Work Mates

In This Chapter

Being in charge of your job

Avoiding longer working hours

Enjoying your time off

Bosses and trade unions are not the only people who can influence the working arrangements for you and your work colleagues. You can influence them too — individually and as a group.

This chapter looks at the various ways you — as an employee — can research and put together a case to improve working conditions in the place that employs you.

Taking Control of Your Workload

Controlling what you do at work isn’t as tough as it sounds. Sure you have a boss who has the right to make the final decision on what you do. But how and when you fulfil your tasks is largely up to you. Electronic diary planners are now standard in-office systems and can be used to plan your work day. Some simple steps to making your eight hours at work more productive include the points listed on the following page.

Checking email twice a day. Twice a day is the maximum. An entire book could be written about email, but here are a few key tips. Only check your email after 10 am, which gives you at least one hour to work on your top priority for the day before being distracted by ‘who left their green umbrella in reception’ and endless ‘reply all’ emails. After working intently on a big ticket item, book half an hour in the morning to work on your email and another time in the afternoon. Making two separate times enables you to devote your energy to your messages and provides your busy brain with a bit of down time when reading and responding to emails without wasting time throughout the day. Turn off your sound and icon new-mail notifiers so that you’re not tempted to stop what you’re doing and goof off in the inbox.

Embracing online aids. Make your online diary available to everyone in your team and encourage them to do the same. This may take some paper professionals a bit of getting used to, but this is an effective way to prevent being double-booked for meetings and can be a measure of where you spend your time.

Gearing up to goof off. Use your diary to plan your down time from the job as well. Leave a 15-minute gap between meetings to walk back to your office or to take notes or simply wind down. Don’t forget to find some time to stretch or have a coffee break. That doesn’t mean you need to write ‘Coffee break’ in your diary. Use a code word for personal entries (such as Project X) so that you’re not double-booked by someone else who thinks that your break time is free time. When your energy is at its lowest (after 3 pm for me), book time for filing, tidying or meeting up with someone to discuss an issue at their desk. That way the time is still used wisely and is explained, but isn’t as taxing as the 2-hour blocks of focused report writing, for instance.

Knowing thyself. Think about when you’re at your most productive. Is it mid morning after the second cup of coffee has kicked in or do you feel like you’re warming up by mid afternoon? Whatever the time frame, use your ‘on’ time to block out chunks of time (half an hour to two hours) for working on your priority projects or tasks that need your undivided attention.

Refer to Chapter 6 for ways to use your working hours more effectively.

Leaving Work on Time

This can be difficult if you work in a place where leaving at 5 pm is like doing the Walk of Shame as one of the people I interviewed described it.

Here’s where your timesheet and your electronic diary can be very effective. Use your diary to block out time from 4.30 pm. My previous boss had no meetings after 4.30 pm and blocked out the time to prevent being caught up at work beyond 5 pm. This was generally respected and adhered to by the staff.

If you’re required to keep a timesheet, then grit your teeth and smile through the folk glancing down at their watches when you leave at 5 pm and remind yourself that you’ve done your allotted hours. If you’re not required to keep a timesheet, try finding a template on the Internet and using one. Timesheets can be handy to show your manager what hours you’re putting in and make you feel more comfortable about leaving on time.

Other strategies used by people to make sure they leave on time, include

Being part of a car pool that leaves at a pre-scheduled time each day.

Being picked up at an arranged time by their partners.

Belonging to a bike or walking group that walks home at an arranged time.

Having a particular bus or train to catch (or risk waiting another hour).

Loving Your Lunch Break

You would have read on many other occasions that you need to take regular breaks of at least five minutes each to give your brain and eyes a rest from staring at the computer, complex financial reports or report writing. However, staying tied to the desk for much longer periods in the hope that getting it all over and done with is worth it in the end seems easier.

Research shows that working without decent break times means that you actually become far less effective. One recent study suggested that working 12-hour days in the medical arena was equivalent to driving with a blood-alcohol level of more than 0.08. Fatigue can affect decision making, accuracy and productivity and taking ten minutes time to go for a walk around the block or sip a cup of tea is not a huge chunk out of your busy day.

As for lunch, try your best to avoid eating over your keyboard. If you must stay inside, use your lunch break to run errands in cyberspace, such as online banking, grocery shopping, finding gifts, and so on. Chapter 7 has more ideas on how to make the most of your breaks.

Most importantly, get outside and away from the confines of your workplace at lunch time. Eat your sandwiches in a park, go for a walk, meet with a friend, do a five-minute meditation in the sunshine. Chapter 4 has some suggestions on how you can improve your health and why keeping the body as well as the brain in top condition is important.

Walking and Talking

I’m now going to blush and admit that I’ve been guilty of this — sending a work mate, who only sits several metres away, an email instead of walking over and talking with her. Many reasons are given for this strange behaviour that’s developed in offices since emails came into being — you don’t want to disturb your colleague, putting what you want to say in writing is easier, you need to keep a copy of the details in the email, you’ve passed on a problem to them, and so on. Sending emails within an office clogs up your colleague’s inbox and your sent box, and then your inbox when they reply. Sending emails also robs an office of the camaraderie that’s needed for people who work together.

Here’s a challenge for 21st century movers and shakers: How about walking over to your colleague and speaking to them instead of sending an email? I know of several people who set aside one day a week when they don’t check or send emails and instead use the phone or actually meet people in person. Meeting people is a far better way of networking than impersonal emailing. And another challenge: Turn off your mobile phone when you’re walking and talking. Do this and you show the other person that he or she has your undivided attention and that you really value spending some time together. Phone calls can wait. That’s why message services were invented.

Taking Time Off

Repeat after me: ‘I am brilliant at my job and everyone loves me but I am NOT indispensable to the running of the office. I am not a machine; I am a human being who needs to take time off every now and then.’ Got that?

I have no doubt that you have some responsibilities that only you can do well or where you know the full story about that particular customer’s needs and background. But if you don’t go on leave, you’re denying someone else the opportunity to have a go and learn on the job. You could also be sending the message that you don’t trust or value anyone else enough to let go of the reins once in a while.

Time off can be spent at home, away somewhere exciting with your partner and family as a way of re-establishing a connection or even on your own. In this era of changing jobs more frequently than the previous generation, partners may find that they have different amounts of leave. Taking a break on your own can be a better way of recharging and doing something your partner isn’t interested in (fishing, in my case) than hanging around the house, feeling as though you’re letting an opportunity for self development pass you by.

The Australia Institute has reported on how many Australians don’t take their full holiday leave entitlements each year, citing overwork, fear of emergencies occurring in their absence and worry that no-one else can deal with their work as well as they can, as some of the reasons they stay chained to their desks. As with long working hours, working without some time off to rest and recharge is not sustainable. Burned-out employees are likely to wind up producing less quality and quantity of work and suffer more health problems.

I knew it was time for a holiday when I caught myself dialling zero before the phone number at home.

Creating a Brilliant Business Case

If you’re interested in reducing your working hours, or working four longer days for a fifth day off (called compressed hours), or working from home a couple of days a week, or starting earlier and finishing earlier, then tackle your request as you would any other business manoeuvre. Present your request professionally. Find out what your colleagues use in terms of flexible working options and what workers in other departments in your organisation have in place. Look at similar jobs in similar industries. Often, an organisation’s policies and templates can be found on their Web sites, or you can contact human resources (HR) offices.

Collect some relevant case studies on employers and employees accessing the types of working arrangements that interest you. Good places to start include the Web sites of the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Australian Government Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency, the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations and the Diversity Council of Australia. These sites provide good examples of how flexible working can increase productivity and employee morale and also reduce absenteeism and recruitment costs. For coverage of the whole subject of flexible working arrangements, refer to Chapter 8.

Working from Home

Unless you’re like Charlie’s father in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and have to be at the conveyor belt screwing on each and every toothpaste cap, you can find many opportunities to work from home (telecommuting). As with other flexible working options, how you request to work from home depends on your approach and what preparation you make to anticipate objections, produce relevant examples of how telecommuting works in your work situation and guidelines that your manager can feel comfortable using.

The Australian Work and Family Awards are convened by the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations and provide some very useful sources of information about what best-practice employers of all sizes and industry types are doing to provide work-from-home opportunities. You can also find research done by the Australian Telework Advisory Committee (ATAC), which was appointed by the Australian Government to discuss how telecommuting can be used more effectively by Australian employers.

If you have already negotiated a work-from-home arrangement, here are some quick hints to help you make the arrangement work for you and your employer:

Be flexible. By all means let your colleagues know when you’re available to attend meetings in the workplace, but try to accommodate their requests for meetings or out-of-agreed-hours work when you can. Being approachable means that you’re being flexible.

Communicate regularly with your boss. Let your boss know your progress. This can be a brief dot-point email that lists the projects you’re working on, what stages you’re at with each and any key tasks on your ‘to do’ list. This makes your boss feel informed and able to discuss any work issues or changes with you.

Make sure that you’re easily contactable. Be contactable by telephone, mobile and email for any urgent queries that may arise. Return any calls promptly to assure your boss that you’re accessible and following up queries in a timely manner.

Make sure you and your boss agree on what work you’re doing at home. Be very clear about how often you’re working from home, which days you’re out of the office and how your performance is to be measured.

Set specific times for work and stick to them. Do this and you avoid the distractions of being at home, such as doing the housework instead of writing a report, putting on a load of washing to avoid data analysis, cooking several meals for freezing to put off creating the new spreadsheet, and so on. Your work time needs to be as structured at home as it is in the office in order to complete your workload.

Leading by Example

Many workplaces have good work/life balance policies and options for working more flexibly, but still languish under a culture of long working hours and a sign of weakness when you take time off. Sometimes working-hour policies exist but no-one wants to be the first to step out of the crowd and take up the options. You can be the one: Show your leadership qualities by leaving on time and taking your allotted annual leave. And assert yourself by trying the following:

Be green. Become the green god or goddess of your workplace by asking people to recycle discarded printer paper and use the other side for note paper. Put in recycling bins for glass, paper and plastics. Try low-energy light bulbs and move towards greener office products. For many ways you can make a difference, see Sustainable Living For Dummies by Michael Grosvenor.

Have an interest or hobby outside work. Have you ever held a conversation with co-workers more senior than you and discovered that they’ve run the New York marathon three times, or have built their own fishing boat? Often, highly successful people have fulfilling interests outside of work that not only help reduce work stress but also provide some self-development and personal satisfaction. It can also be a way of extending a side of yourself that you rarely get to use in work. Dean is a meteorologist and as such focuses his energies at work on logic, analysis, mathematics, physics and programming. In the evenings, he creates gourmet meals that are delicious to eat, is learning the piano and set up his own gym. He says, ‘These activities help me use some of my untapped creative side and I really look forward to them.’

Have breakfast with your family. Why have a stale muffin and an over-priced coffee over your laptop when you can spend 15 minutes in the morning having breakfast with your kids? Jill and her partner get up earlier and make coffee. ‘That quarter of an hour allows us to plan the rest of the day together before things get really crazy when the kids wake up.’

Outsource to increase your free time. Talk to your work mates and find out how many of the team have help at home. If they spend most of their time in the office doing 10-hour plus stretches, then logic has it that no time’s left for household chores. Cleaners and gardeners come fairly cheap. The difference is that when you hire them to keep your home in shape, you lose all that stress of worrying about when you’re going to have time to do the work. Dozens of franchise industries cater to working people in the fields of ironing, maintenance, dog walking and grooming, pre-cooked healthy meals and personal fitness training.

Men are supposed to enjoy gardening but Kym told me he hated spending half of his weekend in the garden and he and his wife decided paying someone to do the work and then enjoying the ambience of the garden at weekends was worth the cost. ‘It means I get more time with the kids after a busy week at work.’

Ride your bike or walk to work. I know I’ve recommended this before, but riding a bike is so good for you. Your health and fitness benefit, your mental health (nothing like a good half an hour outside in the fresh air to help you solve a nagging problem) improves and the planet has less fumes to deal with (okay, one little bike doesn’t make a difference but it’s the principle that counts). You may find that a work mate who lives near you may also decide to join you.

Value your health. The best times to exercise are first thing in the morning before breakfast, at lunch times or straight after work before going home. Refer to Chapter 4 for more ideas on how to incorporate exercise into your life.

Being Nice

Don’t whinge about what’s wrong at work because that helps make your workplace even more miserable. Be proactive and think up solutions or new ways of doing things instead. Make a time to meet up with your boss and provide some ideas for changes instead of just complaints.

You know that answering the phone with a smile or approaching a client with a smile always works — well, almost always. Psychological studies find that by choosing to approach a task or the day in a positive way, you contribute a great deal to your inner sense of optimism. As you get out of bed in the morning, try asking yourself, ‘Am I going to choose to feel grumpy and sorry for myself or smile and look forward to the good things that can happen today?’ Corny? Yes. True? Yes.

Other tips you can try include

Acknowledging the contributions of others in your projects and tasks. Nothing is sourer than seeing your immediate boss or colleague take the praise or promotion for something without acknowledging your efforts in their work. Make sure you thank and acknowledge the co-workers who help you. Not only is offering credits an important relationship builder but those people are going to be prepared to work with you on future projects.

Avoiding participating in office gossip. You don’t necessarily have to butt in and shut it down, but don’t put in your own ten cents’ worth. It is destructive and unprofessional and rumours can get wildly out of hand and into the wrong ears.

Being an active listener. Don’t fiddle with your SMS screen or tap at emails when someone is talking to you. Turn off your mobile so you can give them your full attention.

Being on time with your work. If you have agreed to produce work by a certain due date, stick to it. You risk letting others down as well as yourself when you don’t fulfil your side of the bargain.

Contributing at team meetings. People who sit in silence during meetings and then gripe later are disconcerting. You don’t have to chat during a meeting when you’ve nothing to offer, but raising an issue that concerns or interests you is important.

Picking your passions. When decisions are made that you disagree with, choose the one or two most important to discuss. When others arise, leave them for another time. When you challenge every decision made at every meeting, you end up being shunned by your team and ignored as a drama queen (men can be drama queens too). Decide which events are going to be catastrophes and which you can live with.

Sharing your ideas. You never know what others can contribute in terms of work or advice until you discuss your work with them. Build up a network in your office and offer suggestions in return for accepting suggestions from your colleagues.

Being a Genuine Team Member

Everyone says in their job interviews that they like working in teams and are team players. The way to prove that you are a team player is to show your support for your colleagues. Being approachable and offering to participate in a group project, or helping complete a priority task before a deadline, is an invaluable way of contributing towards the larger goals and targets of your workplace. This shows the boss that you’re prepared to work hard when it’s required of you.

Being mindful of the needs of new employees with flexible working arrangements or those who return to work after taking time off to raise children is another way to help out. Ask a new colleague whether they would like to shadow you (sit with you and work together) until they’re up to speed on the relevant procedures and computer programs. Help provide on-the-job training to colleagues who need it.

Keep communicating with your team mates. It is very frustrating to miss out on important news or feedback because a colleague hasn’t passed the information on. Keep your workmates informed via a brief email or verbal update on what tasks you have on your plate and where you’re up to on each of them (it also helps them if you have an unplanned absence due to illness or emergency so that they can pick up where you left off).

Other ways to contribute include

Avoiding use of the ‘Reply all’ email or sending unimportant emails to busy team members.

Laughing. Times are when a well-timed joke or a laugh work better than an ‘I told you so’. Laughing decreases stress and tensions in the workplace. Refer to Chapter 3 for more information about using laughter to improve your health.

Offering to mentor a younger colleague.

Setting up a lunch-time walking group or yoga class for interested staff.

Sharing your lists of contacts and networks with your team mates to help them in their work.

Organising team morning teas, lunches and family days.

Volunteering to work on an inter-departmental project or committee to get to know more people outside of your specific unit.