Sisyphus in Greek mythology was the King of Corinth. He became known for his deception as he twice tricked the Gods and was able to cheat death. Sisyphus ultimately got his punishment when Zeus dealt him the eternal penalty of pushing a boulder up a hill. Each time before getting to the crest of the hill the boulder would roll back to the bottom of the hill causing Sisyphus to start over yet again. This type of punishment is known today as the “labor of Sisyphus” and has become the symbol for work that is nonstop and pointless.
This striking image of someone damned to endlessly repeat a useless task has resonated as a metaphor about the human condition. My objective isn’t to start a philosophical debate on the meaning of life or the purpose of human existence, but instead use the myth of Sisyphus as a launching point into the value of work.
Unlike Sisyphus, our work should not be punishment, and if it often feels that way, perhaps one is probably in the wrong career. Even the best employee can start to feel like their work is meaningless if it is going unrecognized and not rewarded. I have been involved in Public Works since I was sixteen years old and I believe that the monotony of many jobs, combined with a lack of metrics, does lend itself to some employees feeling like their work has little meaning.
Employees who in the beginning attack their duties with fervor and excitement fail to receive any accolades or recognition for their hard work. Great workers watch less productive staff receive promotions over them based on tired and antiquated reasons like tenure, leading to bitterness, or even worse apathy towards their job and others. Listless employees establish a culture of completing ‘just enough’ and that becomes the expected standard. Employees understand what is being seen, what is being rewarded, and they adapt quickly and perform accordingly.
People recognize when they have to step up their productivity because the bright lights are upon them. In the realm of Public Works, this could be a waterline break or during snow removal. These are tasks that citizens and elected officials will notice if they aren’t completed in a timely manner, so these are the things that get the full attention of staff. But how are these same employees producing when nobody is watching? As I mentioned in my earlier article ‘Managing the Iceberg’, greatness is truly built when nobody else is watching. Without systems in place to keep employees moving forward they fall into the “we’ll get it tomorrow” syndrome. Like orphan Annie taught us, tomorrow is always a day away.
This is where the Public Works Sisyphus is different, when he realizes nobody is valuing, rewarding, or even watching the contribution he is making, he stops pushing the rock at all only pushing when he knows somebody is observing him.
As I have worked with and talked to employees from many cities and entities this Public Works Sisyphus seems commonplace, here are some of the most common attributes:
Employees who were completely okay watching others shoulder the work load.
Employees who would work at a leisurely pace more concerned about where they were getting lunch than getting things done.
Employees who refuse to answer their phone or come out on after-hours emergencies.
Employees who find a nice place to park and watch shows/movies on their phones.
Employees who gave up all of their on-call shifts and did as little as possible when at work.
Employees who constantly abused sick time and were often tardy for work.
Upper management is often largely unaware of these problems because it seems the work is getting done, at least the emergencies are being taken care of. For example, they may not understand that it is the same 5 or 6 guys from a crew of 20 that are fixing most of the leaks, or handling most of the problems. Most employees don’t want to be the tattletale or have been met with resistance when introducing these problems to a supervisor. Middle management is often the problem and becomes the information bottleneck or even worse information firewall.
Most employees want to make a positive contribution to their workplace and I don’t really believe most people are lazy. I truly think many just fall to the low level of expectation that has been set by those that preceded them. I have spoken with many employees from different cities and the stories all sound similar. Once people truly understand their contribution, it gives value to their work and when that hard work is recognized and rewarded their effort continues.
Scoreboards absolutely matter; employees who can better articulate their contribution are happier and more productive. The lack of metrics leads to dark places for poor performing employees to hide in, and by simply quantifying work the majority of these poor performers will step up their performance. When considering the value of a scoreboard I think of shooting the basketball in the driveway with my brothers, it’s playful and fun until someone says, “Let’s go best of ten from the free throw line”. In that moment the focus completely changes, makes and misses actually matter, regardless of anything tangible on the line. It becomes a competition, and nobody likes to lose or be shown up. Scoreboards provide feedback on how we are doing in our organization and how we can improve.
When it comes to work when an employee understands how many water leaks they have fixed, how many meters they have installed, how many times they were out plowing snow, or even how many times they were tardy for work in the past year their behaviors change. It rarely even takes an ah-ha moment because employees just raise their output level to match or beat their coworkers. You start to remove those dark places for underperformers to hide and high performers love receiving the accolades of their outstanding work.
A common objection to tracking work is that it shows a lack of trust, I couldn’t disagree more. Instead I believe it creates a symbiotic relationship between all levels of the organization. It is a leader’s responsibility to understand the work that is being performed. I absolutely believe in giving employees autonomy to do their job the way they want without being micromanaged, but with autonomy also comes the responsibility to report back what is being completed.
We have worked to make the scoreboards as visible as possible in our department. We post numbers in our building each week showing the contributions different employees are making. It has never been our goal to embarrass anyone and what we have noticed is that the majority of people will beat and raise the organization’s expectations.
A great example in the value of scoreboards was our employee tardiness. Showing up on time is important to me and I started to notice more and more employees being late. We searched the number of tardies for the previous month, and we had an unacceptable 67 instances of tardiness. We watched the next month closely and we had 56 more…absolutely ridiculous. We didn’t overact, we didn’t threaten anyone, we didn’t give a long sermon on why being on time is important. All we did was start showing our team the total number of tardies in our department each month and the behavior began to change. Most months now we have between 0-3 department wide, and most of the employees who were having issues arriving on time not only changed their behavior but many of them made it a point to talk to me and apologized for having so many. The majority of them said they didn’t realize that they were late that often.
I understand that all work and behaviors cannot be quantified, some of the most productive days I have had at work would have been impossible to quantify. I also understand there is danger in how we utilize metrics. Goodhart’s Law says that, “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” I have seen this law demonstrated time and time again at work and in my personal life. When people optimize for a specific target they will do so regardless of the consequences and this can lead to neglect in other areas.
I care more about employee effort and believe effort is easier to see than measure sometimes. However, a lot of things are easily quantifiable, they do matter, and it is a lazy assumption to believe that it doesn’t have value to your organization. Many metrics we use are simply effort metrics, like showing up to work on time, hours spent on a specific task, or coming out on emergency after hour calls. By tracking things and using metrics we have garnished understanding and support from our elected officials. Many times the information we keep track of has created clarity for residents, employees, or elected officials.
Finally and most importantly we use numbers to recognize the contributions being made by our staff. I will go into depth in a future article on the true value and need for employee recognition and ways to make a significant impact in your organization. When leaders better understand their employees contributions work becomes more meaningful for everyone. For the Public Works Sisyphus even the monotony of pushing a rock up a hill seems more gratifying and rewarding to an employee who knows exactly how many times they have pushed that heavy rock to the top of that mountain.
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