Are Your Work Systems Unintentionally Sabotaging Employee Engagement?
Telecom giant AT&T recently announced it is scaling back its “presence report” system. This system is designed to enforce return-to-office compliance for employees. Since its introduction, it has caused frustration, inaccuracies in reporting, and chipped away at trust within the organization. Perhaps the most serious, yet unintended outcome of this reporting system is the reduction in employee engagement or discretionary effort. The presence report system exclusively used negative reinforcement to get one result: employees spending the workday in the office. That’s the minimum standard the system sets.
People welcome data tracking when it sets the stage for positive reinforcement. Punitive monitoring systems have a predictable and opposite outcome when it comes to employee engagement. Employees managed by fear, intimidation, and a system designed only to punish will do the bare minimum job requirements to keep their job. In this case, the minimum requirements were badge swipes, computer logins, and staying in the office to provide the desired mobile location data. Did the program achieve its goal? Yes, employees were back in office. But at what cost?
While effective to an extent, employees were incentivized only to engage in those behaviors being tracked and not much else. If we had a peek into the office at AT&T, we would see employees swiping their badges and logging into their computers on time. Were they meeting the return to office standards? Yes. Were they going above and beyond? They were not. They reported being frustrated by the system, and trust had broken down. Innovation, going above and beyond, extra effort beyond simply logging in or swiping a badge—discretionary effort—was discouraged. Once trust is lost, it can be time-consuming to regain. AT&T suggested that the system had identified some “freeloaders,” employees who logged in and left shortly thereafter. Those employees certainly were working around the system, but if they were returning home and working productively, the freeloader label was misplaced. Certainly, employees could have complied with the tracking system, hung around the office all day, and accomplished little or nothing of value. If resorting to labeling people (which is always ill-advised), the label would have better fit those employees.
Leadership at AT&T recognized the unintended impact of the presence report and its detrimental effect on discretionary effort. The CEO reported that they were shifting to looking at broader patterns of behavior. Ideally, that shift will create the opportunity for positive reinforcement for meaningful, productive behaviors. That is what is needed to rectify the lost trust, build back employee engagement, and encourage discretionary effort within the organization. The pendulum must swing from a punitive system to an environment characterized by an abundance of positive reinforcement. Leaders must identify critical behaviors associated with returning to office that encourage employees to go above and beyond. They must increase the positive reinforcement for working in the office rather than merely providing consequences for being in the office. Rather than badge swipes, perhaps in-person collaboration? Both result in employees back in the office, but one has opportunity for positive reinforcement (idea sharing, relationship building, meeting or working toward business outcomes, etc.).
The more opportunities to build in positive reinforcement, the better. If the work environment was infused with positive reinforcement, I bet I would observe employees consistently engaging in activities that align with business objectives. Leadership at all levels must catch employees doing it right. And when employees are doing things right most of the time, opportunities for recognition become abundant.
Programs like the presence report system designed to function only by negative reinforcement have far-reaching adverse impact on employees and organizations at large. Negative reinforcement will produce results quickly, but not sustainably and at the expense of discretionary effort. Kudos to the leadership team at AT&T for recognizing the unintended impact of their presence report system and exploring alternatives to motivating a return to the office.
