Maximizing Your Most Precious Resource

Have you ever touched time? You know, reached out and put your hands around time? Ever seen time? Spotted it running down the street? Ever heard time?

The answer to all these questions is no. Time is intangible, invisible, and inaudible. And yet time is of much greater value to us than almost all of our material possessions.

For example, we assign great emotional value to time. It is precious, we say. The time we spend with family and friends, reading a good book, or taking a long walk on the beach is essentially priceless. But when it comes to our work, most people are wasting this precious commodity, squandering it in jobs where they get no emotional or psychological satisfaction.

This is particularly sad when you consider that we spend most of our lives -- as much as two-thirds of our waking hours -- on the job or commuting to and from work.

The stress we experience during work hours, researchers say, has tremendous and long-lasting effects on our health, not to mention a negative impact on our home life. Clearly, what we choose to spend our precious time doing as work has profound implications on the success we experience in our careers and in our home lives. An employee who spends her time in a job that gives her a chance to do what she does best is more likely to succeed at work. And an employee who invests his time in a job that brings fulfillment will enable him to go home in a better frame of mind than if he spent his life doing work that he does not do well.

Time has financial value, too. Ask any chief financial officer, and she will be able to tell you in dollars and cents just how valuable time is. The first GMJ Survey of people 18 years and older clearly illustrates that, indeed, time is money. This research estimated that time lost because of low worker productivity cost the U.S. economy some $300 billion dollars a year. That's almost as much as our national defense budget.

Time is also money when an organization hires the wrong person for a role. Twelve to 18 months after a bad hire, that person's dismissal confirms that the company has lost time that could -- and should -- have been invested in building experience and expertise in the right person. Most companies can put a cost to the loss of productivity that results from bad hiring decisions. The dismal thing is that many managers still try to fix poor hiring decisions by wasting even more time and money on training. Using training to "fix" people who don't fit their assigned roles and probably never will is as much a waste of time as hiring these people in the first place.

Finally, time is of paramount importance to us because of its implacable authority. "Time waits for no one," or so the saying goes. Our age, as measured in increments of time, directly impacts our social status, legal rights, health, and earning capacity. In this way, time reigns over us with a mighty scepter. Its authority over us is undeniable. Time moves on, and as it passes, the years amass, and there's nothing we can do about it.

Many organizations assume that the passing of time automatically adds value to an employee and earns him a special place of honor and prominence. In some companies, seniority alone entitles employees to certain privileges and promotions. These companies buy into the adage that says, "Our people are our greatest asset," and they assume that the longer an individual stays with their company, the more value he adds. But The Gallup Organization's recent discoveries suggest otherwise.

Gallup research with a database of more than 700,000 respondents reveals that employees who have been with a company longer tend to be less engaged -- and employees who aren't engaged aren't adding value to your company. It appears that the practices and processes in place in most organizations, over time, have an adverse effect on their employees. Time moves on, but its passing doesn't help make employees in most organizations grow or become more engaged.

Among the thousands of companies Gallup has studied, however, the most successful organizations are the ones that make the best use of time. These companies do these three things that seem to contradict conventional management wisdom.

• They spend more time selecting employees than on training and development.
   
• They spend more time with the best performers than with weak performers.
   
• They spend more time rewarding and recognizing employees for doing things right than on finding things about the employee to "fix."

Investing time in selection

The best organizations are extremely adept at putting the right people into the right jobs. When evaluating a prospective employee, they go beyond the applicant's experience, résumé, and recommendations, and try to determine if the person possesses the unique "wiring" -- the attitude, appetite, and aptitude -- to perform the role. In fact, these organizations will delay filling a position until they are sure they have identified the individual with the right talents for the job. They do this because they know that if they hire the wrong person, they will lose time and money trying to coax a mediocre performance from an employee who lacks the talent it takes to achieve excellent performance in the role.

Investing time in talented performers

The best organizations make sure that their managers spend the most time with the best performers. They understand that time invested in a person who is wired to perform in a role yields the greatest returns. They realize that a top performer will produce more with greater success in less time than a person who struggles for results. Gallup's research supports this idea. In fact, Gallup research has shown that a person who is wired for a role, who is engaged in her workplace, and who has spent time in the role is likely to outperform all others.

These organizations turn time into money by investing in the unique talents and strengths of each employee and by putting employees in roles in which they use their talents and strengths. When people have the right talent for a role and are free to use it, they feel better about themselves and their organizations. Both the employees and the organizations reap the rewards. The employees gain added confidence and self-fulfillment, and their organizations benefit from greater profits and productivity and higher employee engagement.

Investing time in rewarding and recognizing talented performance

Too many companies spend the bulk of their time trying to improve the performance of weak performers, and they end up sending the message that mediocre performance is acceptable. It's far better to build a culture of excellence. One key way that great companies do this is by rewarding, recognizing, reinforcing, and celebrating the standards set by their best performers. These organizations single out their best performers and make "heroes" of them. Then, they encourage other employees to find their areas of excellence so they, too, may perform as the best do and receive similar recognition.

This, to be sure, is time well spent. The question is, are you and your company spending and investing time wisely? Or are you letting it go to waste?