Watch Jason Fried\'s Ted Talk \"Why Work Doesn\'t Happen at Work\" and then answ
ID: 343287 • Letter: W
Question
Watch Jason Fried's Ted Talk "Why Work Doesn't Happen at Work" and then answer the following questions. Answers must be grammatically correct and contain enough support and content to show the instructor what you have learned about the important concepts in this Ted Talk as they apply to today's workplace.
What behaviors do some managers have that distract employees from getting work done? Discuss at least 2 remedies for changing those behaviors and possible outcomes that could be reached as a result of the proposed remedies.
Explanation / Answer
What behaviors do some managers have that distract employees from getting work done?
1. Checking the Progress of Work:
Some managers have the tendency to constantly follow up on the work that has been given to be completed. In that process they constantly keep on checking on employees personally. Here, managers would come to the employees desk and check on progress of the work. This process really distracts the person, who is working on the task as he has to leave all the work and pay all his attention to the manager in explaining how much of the work is completed. This also wastes a lot of time and interrupts the thought process of the employee as he now has to start over again after the interruption.
2. Scheduling Meeting:
In order to check the status of the work or future task that employees would achieve, most managers schedule meetings. Now these meeting are very disruptive and also most of the employees may not participate in the meeting, they are just attending because their managers have scheduled the meeting and cannot reject it and they are force to attend it at the expense of time and work.
3. Not allowing work from home:
Some managers do have the tendency to not allow the employees to work from home as they think they need to see the person when he is working and also at home he would be distracted with other things. That’s the primary reason why some organizations ban Facebook, Twitter or YouTube because according to them these are distractions.
Discuss at least 2 remedies for changing those behaviors and possible outcomes that could be reached as a result of the proposed remedies.
1. Develop a culture, where once in a month there are no meetings and employees are not allowed to talk to each other. These remedy would definitely help as without any meeting and any other disturbances, employees would just focus on work and would get that long hour of uninterrupted work hour instead of worrying about meetings and talking to anyone else. These would increase the productivity and employees would get the long uninterrupted work hour to finish their task.
2. Use of passive communication instead of active communication. Instead of participating in meetings or managers checking personally with employees to check their progress, organization should allow use of emails and IM for these things. These would help employees not to get interrupted and leave their work in-between and they could respond to emails and IM based on their convenience and also communication and progress of the work/future task could be communicated effectively via email or IM. Thus everyone is aware of the progress and Employees also get that long uninterrupted work hours to finish their task.
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