Time well wasted

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MATT ROURKE / ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES (CP)

Coverage of the London 2012 Olympics began with a bang on the last day of a busy work week, July 27, and lasted until last Sunday.

More than 60,000 spectators filled the grand stadium for the opening, including Queen Elizabeth and several of her family members. In addition, I'm told there were almost 100 heads of state and government officials from around the world in attendance, as well as Michelle Obama and several movie stars and sports heroes. It was certainly showbiz at its best.

During this two-week time span, it was difficult to avoid hearing the cheers for gold, silver and bronze. And, if your employees couldn't get near a TV or radio, they could easily turn to their personal electronic devices, as all of the sports were streamed online.

And, if it wasn't before, tweeting became a phenomenon during the Games. More than 80,000 tweets were sent out as Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt became the first runner to win both the 100-metre and 200-metre world records in consecutive Olympics. This extraordinary performance certainly helped to heighten all of the excitement around Jamaica's celebration of 50 years of independence.

I suspect the challenge for many Canadians and employees in particular, was just how to schedule time to tune in to their special Olympic events while carrying out their daily work responsibilities. After all, it's much more exciting to watch a live event rather than viewing reruns after the fact.

With that in mind, I'm sure you can guess there was some loss of work productivity, as many employees did take time to view their favourite sports during working hours. If they weren't watching directly through some means, you can bet they were receiving tweets and alert messages throughout the day.

To many employers, taking time from work to engage in personal, non-work activities is akin to white-collar crime. In other words, taking time from work to watch the Olympics and/or any personal activity is considered stealing time, for which employees are being paid.

And let's face it, if every employee spent an hour a day in non-productive, personal-interest activities on their computer, the financial loss to a company's productivity would be enormous. Yet, it does happen and it will continue to happen. However, it doesn't have to always have such a negative connotation.

After all, exciting events such as the Olympics are planned well in advance and rather than worrying and complaining about the loss of employee time and productivity, employers would be better off to engage their employees in the glow of the event. In fact, there are so many more benefits to taking advantage of special events such as this to engage in employee team-building opportunities. Strong, positive morale among employees leads to better relationships and higher levels of productivity.

Manitoba has also been celebrating Folklorama, which has been around for three decades. It represents another opportunity to utilize a special occasion to cement a sense of teamwork within your organization.

Take advantage of the hype surrounding these kinds of events and engage your employees in some fun. I'm confident at least one of the following ideas will prove successful in creating energy, synergy and productivity among your employees. Plan enough activities to last until after the Labour Day weekend. Give these a try:

-- Similar to the common hockey pool, next time the Olympics roll around, create a pool that sees employees attempting to identify all of the medalists for each sporting event; donate the money raised to underprivileged children's sports or a summer camp.

-- Hold a series of "lunch and learn" activities where you can discuss a specific sport each day and provide biographical data on each player in that sport and/or have individual employees share information about sport in their home country if that applies.

-- Arrange for a potluck lunch where each employee can bring their favourite cultural food to share with others and create your own little Folklorama event.

-- Some employees are investigating

their family histories. Invite someone to share how they conduct their genealogical research and what they have learned about their families.

-- Hold an outdoor barbecue. Tie this in with some simple activities such as a three-legged race or a gunny sack race to create a bit of a sporting bit of fun.

-- Invite an Olympic athlete to speak to your employees on the nature of their work and the challenges they face in reaching such a high level in their sport.

-- Invite an employee to share the highlights of a special holiday trip with the rest of the staff. Focus on countries of interest to your team.

While I've linked the team activities mentioned above to special events such as the Olympics and Folklorama, leading-edge employers recognize that creating good teamwork is not simply a one-time event. Their goal is to ensure that teamwork is part of the organizational culture, "the way we do things around here."

These leaders focus on developing strategies that create a harmonistic, supportive environment where the diversity of ideas exists, where employees reach out to help one another and overall team synergy is created. In these environments, you will also see employee cliques disappear, team collaboration and co-operation increase and employee productivity and accountability rise.

This is what leadership gurus talk about when they say the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In fact, if you make an effort toward teamwork, you'll find that some individuals will rise to the challenge and demonstrate skills you didn't know they had.

These are the folks who have been labouring on a shop floor or the front lines but have the courage, expertise, intelligence and strategic thinking that can take them far beyond their current status, if given a chance. Believe me, I've seen it, I've experienced it, and I'm proud to have helped many of these individuals become successful team leaders who moved on to greater career heights and made major contributions to their employers' success.

Barbara J. Bowes, FCHRP, CMC, CCP, is president of Legacy Bowes Group and vice-president of Waterhouse Executive Search. She can be reached at barb@legacybowes.com

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 18, 2012 H1