Your Employees Aren’t Committed Unless They Work Overtime

And eat lunch at their desks.

If you own a company, or are the president of a company, stop what you’re doing right now and write a piece for your company’s blog about how exceptional your company culture is.

And if your company is high-profile enough—and perhaps you’ve written a book or two, that would help—maybe you can even get that piece published in Forbes or Inc. or Fast Company or Harvard Business Review… depending on which one makes you feel most validated (or wherever your PR person has the most pliable contact.)

I’ve put together a quick template for you, because, hello, I know you’re busy.

***

You started your company because (hole in the industry, need to do things differently, something something). In the beginning, you (worked all day and night, forgot to eat, nearly starved your cat because you forgot to go home, didn’t talk to your family for a year because you didn’t have time, forgot to pay the power bill because you were so focused).

Now the company that started in (a small space of some sort, like a garage or a janitor’s closet or a New York apartment) is (some metric that sounds really big), but what’s most rewarding to you is that your employees are so committed to your mission (vision, ethos, some sort of ephemeral word that makes selling software sound like Jedi training).

You see employees at other companies (taking lunch hours out of the office, leaving on time, leaving their laptops at the office overnight, standing around the coffee machine having a chat in the middle of the day, not spending all their social time with their coworkers, not getting involved in after-hours events where they can write their company name on their nametag, not defending their company anywhere on the internet that it receives some criticism, not wearing company-fleece vests 24-7) and it saddens you deeply, because they clearly hate their jobs.

Your company culture is one of true dedication, as evidenced by (everyone being at the office late, everyone forgetting to eat, people being panicked to take sick days because they’ll get so far behind, people paying the late charge at their kid’s daycare three out of five days every week, everyone having their phones on their person at all times, including in the shower because you gave them a company-branded waterproof case for Christmas last year). The passion and hustle and energy your (colleagues, friends, co-combatants, fellow travelers, anything but employees because they are not just job titles to you) bring to their jobs each day are key to your success, much more so than anything else—even the free soda you offer, because Google.

You’re so thankful you get to work in a place where everyone loves what they do enough to live, breathe, and eat it, along with the free pizza on Fridays.

And you hope that all those poor, widget-hawking drones at other companies get a clue and come to work for you soon (link to hiring page with wacky GoPro video of one of your more attractive staffers riding a skateboard around the office past the free Tuesday donuts) because then they’ll know what a great company culture feels like.

***

How hard was that? Not hard at all. You probably had time to bang that out before the keynote at your company-sponsored conference!

If it seems thin once you’ve filled in the blanks, go cut and paste some stuff from Seth’s blog or that Gladwell person with the hair. You’re welcome!

But before you hit publish and jog onto the stage practically raining hustle , a couple of important things:

Overtime is not a dedication metric. It’s just overtime. Here’s what commitment is: inhabiting your role with passion, focus, and a desire for excellence, helping others succeed through effective collaboration, being both detail-oriented and big-picture aware, and getting the job is done. None of these things require overtime (though sometimes that will happen), eating at one’s desk (though sometimes that will happen), or working on the weekends (though sometimes that will happen). If you have employees who leave “on time” most days to be home to eat dinner with their families or coach their kid’s soccer team, or who head off to the gym to make their health a priority, or who turn their phones off on the weekends, they are not trying to tell you they lack commitment, and gosh, they wish you’d fire them, already. They’re just putting their heart and soul into a whole life. And when they’re back at their desks tomorrow, or logging on tonight to finish up a few things, they’ll put their heart and soul into what they do for you, too. Now if the work they produce isn’t great, that’s a whole different conversation—but a conversation that has nothing to do with hours.
Hang on, people who put in a lot of overtime have lives, too! Just in case the pendulum swings too far, let’s give some props to the people who truly, enthusiastically live to work, and for whom 90-120 hours a week feels like magic… exhausting magic, but magic. That’s a choice they’ve made, and it’s just as valid a choice as the people leaving at 5 on the dot. Are they doing more work than the other people? Hard to say, because time punches don’t tell the whole story, and we all work differently to get things done. Do they care more about what your company is doing? Again, hard to say. They want to work long hours. That’s what you know for sure.
A great company culture starts with realism. You can have a metric ton of passion, too, but realism is an incredibly powerful foundation for culture-building. Realism means you have perspective about what’s most important, both at the office and outside of the office. Realism means you have a reasonable expectation of what people can do in the 168 hours they have every week. Realism enables you to accept that different people have different commitments, priorities, and work styles, and that the best way to make them feel validated and empowered is to respect what they value.

Listen, we all know people who can’t stop talking about how much work they’re doing and how much they’re hustling… and who actually get nothing done.

We also all know people who work 9-5—and 9-5 only—who are ridiculously effective during every single minute they clock.

There are no guarantees, no absolutes, no litmus tests to tell who “cares” more. So let’s skip the binary view.

Big projects are going to come and pound us now and then, and we’ll need to be ready. Startups are going to demand a bit of white knuckling by their very nature, and we’ll know that going in. Some industries and careers demand a more hectic pace than others, and it’s not generally a secret which ones are which. And each of our career paths will pass through “In Too Deep, Population 1" at times.

Overtime happens. And it’s okay. Sometimes it’s even awesome.

But as a boss, there’s one truth you need to embrace: all your employees really owe you is great work.