Day Off

Today the my team had a day off. I cannot stress the need for days like this to happen in order to maintain high levels of productivity. About a year ago I was in a completely different role which required me to work about 70 hours a week. For some reason I really enjoyed this stress and it pushed me in ways I would otherwise have not tried. However one thing I would not do is let my team do this. For certain people this is an acceptable life style however the majority of people would not choose this approach. After working all of these hours I began to think of a question.....Is it better to give 100% for 40 hours or 75% for 60 hours?

I would argue that if an employee is disciplined, highly effective with time management, and task oriented it is possible to be more effective in 40 hours at 100%. The problem that arises is most people are not this disciplined and causes slow downs in production. In the course of my career I have always taught sales people to make one additional call. This means that no matter what they are going to do make one extra call, restroom, water, lunch, or leaving for the day. If every sales person would do this it would result in 10 more calls a day or 50 more a week. Seems like a simple thought process but very few can grasp the concept. The other area that I preach is removing the non-value added items. These would be items that are holding you back from generating business. Certainly it is impossible to eliminate all of these the but the fewer you have the more productive you will be.

Another thing to remember is once you see someone burning out give them some time off. Even if it is just a Friday afternoon this will help refresh and rebuild. After all it does not help if they are not productive as this usually results into negativity. 40 hours or 60 hours the choice is yours!