Follow-up on everyday agency life: about employees, motivation and burn-out

My article on hours tracking last week had a lot of readers and I received a lot of feedback. A few people, first and foremost Adrian Zimmermann from the Swiss internet agency Snowflake, criticized my thesis and explained their point of view. All very valid arguments in my opinion. The discussion also went in the direction of dealing with employees, employee motivation and burn-out, which I find very exciting, as I have made a few mistakes in this area in 20 years of my entrepreneurial career and have had to learn from them (the hard way). So a few loose thoughts on individual points.

(Reading time: 4 minutes – you should have read the previous article, and especially the comments, for a better understanding )

Support vs. projects

One objection I heard from various people was that it would be possible to do without recording hours in projects. However, this is probably not possible in support, as it is practically never possible to bill on a daily basis. That is of course absolutely correct. In support, hours have to be reported, there is no way around it.

Simultaneous work on different projects

I also often heard the objection that in smaller agencies it is common for developers to have to work on several projects at the same time. Therefore, logging only on one day would not be possible. I can follow this argument, but I don’t share it.

My experience is that even in small agencies, a sequential way of working is perfectly possible. The projects are not smaller than one day (then it’s probably support). Most of the time, however, there is a lack of coordination and agreement, and in most cases the “messy work” could probably be avoided. What I have also learned is that the vast majority of developers hate working on different projects at the same time like the plague. Perhaps precisely because it is always associated with stress due to “project fire drills”.

I see it as the duty of the agency management and the project managers to create the necessary time and peace of mind so that high-quality work can be delivered.

Legal component

Adrian points out that in Switzerland (and also in Germany), the recording of working hours is legally mandatory. This is a very good point of criticism; from my article, you might think I was ignoring this fact. However, the way in which working hours are recorded can vary. It remains undisputed that the legal requirements must be complied with. It is well known that many roads lead to Rome.

Overtime

Our industry has a bad reputation when it comes to overtime. In many places, it simply has to be done. It is absurd to cite the hectic and pressurized project business as an argument for this. In fact, developers are relatively far down the food chain. What’s more, they can only use 1 and 0. This means that there is no room for vague or unfinished projects. However, this is exactly what consultants, project managers and customers produce in the vast majority of waterfall projects. The developer therefore usually has to close the gaps, not necessarily because they particularly want to, but because there is no other way.

I maintain that a large part of the overtime is due to this circumstance and is therefore a home-made problem. In addition, and Adrian explains this well, communication and expectations are eminent. The expectations raised when selling an agency are often difficult for the project teams to meet. This creates additional pressure. Citing time tracking as a way out of the overtime dilemma is one possibility. In reality, this delegates the responsibility for overtime to the employee. But I think the responsibility lies with the employer. How can they fulfill it? With two different measures:

1. Respect employees’ wishes
   Private matters must be just as important as work during the day. Good employees want to work, want to deal with professional challenges. But they may want to leave at 2 p.m. one day because, for example, their mother has a special birthday or the heating man is coming over and that means additional stress in the evening. That has to be possible, even if it’s “full project stress”. When I joined AOE, I was initially very alienated by this, but today it is completely normal for employees to formulate their private requirements in planning meetings (also with the customer) and to organize themselves around them. I know that sounds strange. But it’s just a mind change: I’ve never seen a project damaged by this. On the contrary. The employees, given freedom and independence, achieve much more in the time they work. And the atmosphere is incomparably better.
2. Creating capa
   Point 1 only works, of course, if the employer also creates the corresponding employee capacity. This means hiring and keeping more people available than is economically necessary. Admittedly, this is much more difficult with smaller agencies, as the scaling effects are not as great. But nevertheless. If you want to prevent overtime, this is sometimes the most effective approach.

Not all time recording is the same

The point of my article was that I am of the opinion that recording and categorizing time in hourly units (or smaller) by the employees themselves creates negative side effects, which one is trying to get under control with controlling, among other things. However, this does not mean that no time should be recorded at all. The key message was: The employee himself does not record the time and no small units are tracked, which are then analyzed together with the employee and used for performance assessment.

Time recording is not the same as working time recording

Time tracking is not the same as agency time tracking. I have already heard of cases where, for example, the actual work on projects was first tracked as working time. I find that suboptimal. At least so suboptimal that this story found its way to me via 3 people. As an agency looking for good employees, image is almost everything.

Burn-Out

I also had two interesting discussions about burn-out in relation to the article. One interlocutor argues that burn-outs cannot be prevented by employers because there are simply people with a certain “predisposition” to it (attention: ideological discussion), while the other believes that employers (as drivers of work) are always to blame for burn-outs.

The fact is that there is an above-average number of burn-outs in agencies. However, these do not manifest themselves in such a way that the burnt-out people go to the doctor or take sick leave. Rather, it is the case that young burnt-out agency employees in particular leave the company and do something else. It is undisputed that they have overworked themselves. But they can escape from the overload, while their older colleagues are usually dependent on the job and (mistakenly) think they have to get through it come hell or high water.

My experience with this topic leads me to neither trust nor believe the employees on this point: If the employee tells you that they will get through the stress and can handle it all, don’t believe them. For his sake.

It’s better to use your common sense, even if it sometimes has serious consequences for the project: I’ve only met very few people who can really cope well with 90-hour weeks and high levels of mental stress, and I don’t know a single person who delivers really good work at this pace. So please forget it.

In the end, everything falls back on you: the project, the employee’s personal situation and the overall situation in the agency. Nobody wins.

It is your responsibility to ensure that this does not happen. Create an environment in which the employee is comfortable, in which they can devote themselves to their tasks, an environment that is sporty but not top-class. And create overcapacity so that overtime does not occur.