A new year brings some new rules at Shopify. according to a leaked internal note, the Canadian e-commerce giant told its employees last week that it is implementing measures to address meeting overload and ostensibly increase productivity. The company, which laid off some 10 percent of your staff in 2022 amid a widespread industry tightening, said all previously scheduled recurring meetings involving three or more people:almost 10,000 events— were being removed from their scheduling system, and for the next two weeks there will be a “cooling off period” before any of those meetings can be added back to the calendars. Any meeting with more than 50 people can only be held on Thursdays, and the company reloaded his Wednesday without meetings rule. Leaders also discouraged the use of Slack, saying the app is “bloated, loud and distracting,” and urged employees to leave any large chat groups.
Shopify is the latest company to implement extreme restrictions in an effort to increase productivity. During the pandemic, several companies were terrified that working from home would mean workers doing less, so they went Big Brother, tracking software installation on employees’ computers to monitor how they spent every second of every work day. Most recently, in December, Twitter employees allegedly arrived at the San Francisco location to find rooms with mattresses installed in case they need to work late into the night. However, these harsh moves are often ineffective, according to workplace experts. They don’t address the root issues that cause productivity problems, and often don’t take into account the actual inputs of employees, resulting in policies that actually end up making them less productive, not more. And probably very, very annoying.
“Meetings in themselves are not inherently bad”
Take Shopify’s meeting ban, for example. rodney schmaltz, associate professor in the department of psychology at MacEwan University, says: “Meetings in themselves are not inherently bad; the problem is that meetings are often not run as efficiently as possible.” Studies show that poorly organized meetings (thinking too much with too many people) can hurt productivity, while clear agendas and concise messages can make meetings effective. General cancellation meetings are not effective because meetings are opportunities to share key decisions and project updates, or solicit broader company feedback. Giving employees the tools to run more effective meetings is what can help increase productivity. Schmaltz uses PowerPoint as an example. companies like Amazon He banned PowerPoint presentations to avoid the tedium of listening to someone rattle off list after bulleted list of his slides. “But PowerPoint can be used effectively if the slides are created to highlight graphic data or images,” says Schmaltz. “It would be more effective to train employees in What to present information effectively.
Twitter CEO Elon Musk told employees in November that they should accept long hours or quit is a good example of what most companies shouldn’t do, according to Greg Chung Yan, associate professor of industrial-organizational psychology at the University of Windsor. “He made the decision (apparently) unilaterally, without consulting, and it came as a surprise to everyone,” Chung-Yan says. “Even people who agreed with him could have left just because of the way he chose to communicate with employees.” He adds that any changes must take into account specific organizational practices and be accompanied by good communication and transparency so that employees understand why the changes are taking place.
The need for employee participation to increase productivity.
Most importantly, employees should be consulted on any extreme policy changes, Chung-Yan says: “Ultimately, it’s the people who actually do the work who know what can and can’t be changed, what would increase efficiency or impede it. The success of organizational change has as much to do with implementation as with the change itself.
For example, some companies moved to a hybrid hot desking setup when welcoming staff into the office, only to find that their habitual employees sit in the exact same place every day anyway, making it hard for them. workers feel upset. they erupt into a white-hot fury when they discover that a stranger from another department has taken “their” place. So many things in modern workplaces are apparently done for the benefit of the worker, but in reality only annoy or disturb them.
Sweeping reforms that are not informed by employee wishes or input can also unbalance workflows and structure. “We have to take the sociotechnical system into account every time an intervention is introduced,” he says. Tom O’Neill, professor of industrial and organizational psychology at the University of Calgary. “How well do the policies interact with the employee’s job duties, communication and collaboration requirements, tools and technology, and the social context?”
At Shopify, for example, the next two weeks without meetings will likely see employees suffocate in a deluge of Teams pings and emails until they riot and resort to clandestine meetings by the coffee machine to work out the details of that report. of T.P.S. “I think guiding principles rather than rigid one-size-fits-all rules and regulations is the way to go,” says O’Neill.
How to better increase productivity
If workplaces are going to try to help employees be more productive, the most important thing they can do is ask for How can you support them? So, they should create a poll to poll the masses, host a town hall (Uh-oh, another meeting!), or hold workshops to gather feedback. organizational consultant graham loweemeritus professor of sociology at the University of Alberta and author of Create healthier organizations, suggests that workplaces consider the retention, hiring and engagement implications of any policy changes. “I see the increased focus on ‘quitting quietly’ in the business media, which should be a concern for Shopify,” she says.
“What is most consistently seen to have a positive impact on productivity, satisfaction and balance is the flexibility that an employer can offer”
Lowe recently conducted a survey, Shaping the future of work in Canada, saying the findings emphasize that employers must give all employees a meaningful voice in post-pandemic work arrangements, including potential productivity improvements. “These two-way queries could easily tap into suggestions from employees about how, based on their experiences during the pandemic, they could be more productive. The result will be a more engaged workforce,” she says.
However, only half of the homeworkers surveyed had been asked about their future work arrangements, and less than half were satisfied with their level of information. This is unfortunate, considering Lowe says his results also “clearly show that when employers engage their workforce in meaningful consultation about future employment arrangements, they will be rewarded with much higher job satisfaction, lower turnover, and greater loyalty.”
Too busy for surveys? There is one more popular “extreme” workplace policy that companies could try to implement: true flexibility. “What is most consistently seen to have a positive impact on productivity, satisfaction and balance is the flexibility that an employer can offer,” he says. Marie-Hélène Pelletier, Vancouver-based occupational psychologist and an expert in resilience and mental health in the workplace. “The more control and influence that can be shared, the better.” The productivity collapse employers feared would occur during the pandemic never really materialized—because working from home was (forks) something that many employees wanted. For the most part, it was business as usual, with the nice bonus of many more satisfied employees, happily de-stressed by commuting or missing daycare pickup.
So instead of things like bans or office beds, what about a four-day work week, which has been shown to have positive impacts on productivity? Unlimited sick leave and mental health days? Better childcare support? The freedom to work from home, or in office, whenever you want? A happy employee is a productive employee. If workers don’t resent your company for overworking them or forcing them to meet in the cafeteria to discuss the TPS report, they’re more likely to produce those products with a smile.
Also, in the current fight for talent, having things like paid volunteer days, subsidized apprenticeship opportunities, or free meals should help make employers much more attractive to potential candidates than extreme and ill-informed policies like a blanket ban. of meetings. The more employers institute favorable employee benefits that encourage flexibility, the more employees will be motivated to do a good job, without the need for extreme productivity policies.