Harvard Business Publishing

I read this with acknowledgement. There is no where you can observe the "time-based" mentality better than in China. The inefficiency here is astounding. I an an American living in China and for three years was a manager at a Chinese owned language school for over 2 years and saw this everyday. When I spoke to staff about why they were working 10 hour days, yet they had so much time to chat, surf the net, they said because they had to stay 10 hours. They said if their boss knew they finished their work they would be given more work to do, so rather they stretched out their work to fill the hours. They would not be allowed to leave early under any circumstances without their salary being reduced. I had two personal assistants during this time and managed them differently. I gave them freedom to come and go as long as they got the job done. This was so different for them.

I agree - most people spend as much time as you give them on a task - Task A will typically take exactly x hours to complete if an employee if given x hours to complete it. Most people will not complete the task in less time than x because: 1) the manager set the expectation that it should take x hours; 2) they are fearful that they may be given more work.

The time-based work schedule is clearly a vestige of the industrial economy that has little application in the knowledge economy.

"Task-based" work integrates perfectly with a "results-based" performance appraisal/performance management system. There is almost universal agreement that traditional annual performance appraisal systems do not achieve their purpose and, in reality, are probably detrimental to organizational performance. Employees hate to receive them and managers hate to give them but there is, also, almost universal agreement that some form of objective and frank feedback is necessary. Additionally, the "performance appraisal" is used as the justification for many personnel actions: termination, incentive compensation, promotion, etc., and is all but required by the government. I think the solution to this problem is to create position descriptions which focus upon the 4-6 key job deliverables (every position has these and should include both the "ends" and the "means"), create metrics for these and then evaluate employees on these measureable deliverables EACH PAYPERIOD. This should not take a great deal of time each payperiod, would give employees very frequent feedback and eliminate the annual ritual that nobody wants to perform. I expect that the process of creating metrics for some work would be difficult and not all metrics be completely objective but this system would be a good beginning.

I like this concept and I try to employ it with my team. I find it difficult, however, to fully achieve it in a customer-facing role where we are more beholden to the schedules of our clients (and to inter-company interactions) than to tasks. Any examples of how to deploy a task-based arrangement in a customer-facing organization.

What about jobs that require interaction with students or customers or with other employees? This seems fine if tasks are really independent of other people, but many times they are not. The best results on any project that I've seen are when employees work together. I let my employees come in earlier or later as they feel inclined, and stay earlier or later, and some days later than others, but I require all of them to be there between 10-4 for communication's sake, and I require that some come early and some stay late so that customers/students who come in the door at 8am or 5pm find someone there (and someone who can handle the problem, not just a receptionist).

I have been thinking this way for years. I start at 10.00am and avoid the rush hour overcrowding on the London tube and trains.I arrive at work in good form, and relatively stress free. I choose my lunch hour time (late or early) and go home when my tasks are done. Sometimes that can be 8.00pm or later, and other times 5.00pm. I am contracted to do 36 hours a week, and through a variety of working from home sometimes, but by always being in the office for important client/colleague meetings, I find I have more focus and clarity to tackle even the most time consuming tasks.

If you are bound to client timescales, then be there for the client meetings when they occur, but rest of time be contactable by mobile/cell phone or home land line. I am sure the client does not care where you are calling from, home, beach, backgarden, as long as you are providing them with good customer service.