I suppose it helps to first define what "ideal" is, and of course, as with the definition of many buzzword terms, the answer is: It depends. Specifically, "ideal" depends on the mission and values of an organization. What's more interesting is when you throw in another buzzword value that every organization wants: innovation. How often have you heard that an organization wants to be innovative? Most of us have heard leaders say, "We must innovate, because the alternative is to be left in the dust."
Coincidentally (and fortunately for me), innovation is being championed at Granite State College. But just saying that we value innovation is not going to make it happen. We have to first know ourselves what it means to be innovative and then to be able to teach others how to do the same.
In order for continuous innovation to occur, it must be built into our culture. And in order for it to be built into our culture, we have to recognize that innovation and the continuous improvement driven by innovation needs to be adopted as every individual's responsibility. To that end, I propose the following distribution of time for an ideal employee.
During normal work hours over the course a fiscal year, the ideal employee spends his or her time on the following activities:
- Running the trains: 60%
- Self-reflection: 2.5%
- Directed learning; structured training: 5%
- Innovation; self-directed with approval from manager: 20%
- Giving and receiving feedback up, down and across: 5%
- Engage larger external community of professionals: 5%
- Engage customers: 2.5%
In addition, I believe that a truly engaged and happy employee will spend further time above and beyond the scheduled work hours (perhaps during breakfast, lunch, dinner, nights and/or weekends) to:
- Connect more personally with colleagues
- Take advantage of employee benefits such as tuition waivers
I feel fairly strongly that this worktime configuration will work for individual contributors, but I am not sure how well it applies to managers and leaders. However, one thing is certain to me: Innovation is the key to sustainable growth.
