October 15, 2015- ISSN# 1545-2646
The high cost of drama
The general concept in the workplace is that employees show up and contribute to the overall vision and mission of the company. For that they earn a wage, benefits and a feeling of accomplishment and contribution.
It all sounds so simple.
Introduce drama into the equation.
Drama can come from both internal situations as well as external situations. It sometimes starts as an innocent conversation among a couple of employees while getting their morning coffee and suddenly it turns into a wide spread murmur through the hall of the business.
Maybe it is about a fellow employee who did this or that and posted something on social media. Possibly it is about the various opinions about who was promoted over someone else. It can be as far reaching as a complete and utter lie or false truth being spread and the people in the gossip chain don’t even know the truth or facts of the matter. How it gets spun and tossed among the colleagues has its own life cycle.
All of this can appear to be just typical conversation among fellow employees and they all think it is meaningless and nothing is being harmed. Outside of the direct impact it could have on the employees whose name get captured in the dialogue, the cost I’m referring to here is the distraction costs of employees getting paid to contribute and spending inordinate amounts of time incorporating drama into the day to day workplace.
Using the outrageous projected minimum wage of $15.00 per hour. If the average person wastes 30 minutes a day on these types of things, then at the end of a year about 100 hours have been distracted from actual work activities which in turn cost the company $1,500 per employee. If you are a smaller business and have 30 employee then each year your business eats wasted time in the ball park of $45,000.00 or the value of possibly another employees base wage plus benefits etc.
Now I’m not stating that I have taken government grant money to research this but there have been many studies on the impact of people in the workplace wasting time on Facebook and other social media channels. If you don’t think Facebook is about drama then I suspect you have already stopped reading this article.
Business leaders are being asked to raise hourly rates, provide more benefits, give more time off etc. In the above example the small business owner has to hire one full time person in the $45,000 range just to offset the loss of productivity and it moves the organization no further ahead.
This week just be observant of the cost of drama in your business. It is difficult to address because it creeps in very slowly. Even some of your best staff get drafted into it and don’t even actively seek it out. If you don’t have a policy regarding distractions in the workplace such as social media then maybe you need to give that some consideration. Yes it going to get some pushback because taking away the drama is just an opportunity for them to create drama about it.
This time – if your organization is drowning in drama don’t call us. Give us a call (313) 527-7945 at JKL Associates if being a progressive focused strategically built company is of interest.
Questions or comments – email us at partners@jklassociates.com or call our Office at (313) 527-7945
Copyright – JKL Associates 2015
Get this e-newsletter from a friend?
JKL Associates
18530 Mack Ave #242
Grosse Pointe Farms MI 48236
Main (313) 527-7945
Fax (313) 731-0626
Become a Fan on Facebook ? www.facebook.com/jklassociates
Link up on LinkedIn ? www.linkedIn.com/in/jklassociates
Follow us on Twitter ? www.twitter.com/@jklassociates