Imagine this hypothetical scenario:
- Your happy employee regularly sends you questions and updates 9 to 5, Monday to Friday. The quality of her work is fine overall.
- Your equally-as-happy employee regularly sends you some questions and updates on a very regular basis 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, but also sends you comparable work messages at night, middle of the night, weekends, at all hours. The total number of messages sent is equal to that of the first employee. The quality of her work is fine overall, as well.
Which employee do you suspect is doing a better job?
The second one, in every case.
Why? For a few reasons.
- The second one is likely working a greater number of hours. That may be the reality or not, but that’s definitely the signal given off.
- Even if not technically “working” at all hours, the second one at least has you on your mind at her most creative moments. And you always want to hire the person who is thinking about your problems while in the shower.
- Employees working hard = good news = you want good news all the time. Would you rather get good news Monday to Friday, or Monday to Monday? And people on your team working hard is always good news.
There are a few ways to go about doing this.
The first is the most straightforward way. Just work at all times! I personally am an obsessive maniac and I can’t stop thinking about my partner’s challenges. It’s always best when the cadence of communication maps to the reality of the work.
There are also less direct ways to go about doing that. I know one person, at least, who schedules emails to be sent at all hours. This does psychologically and emotionally achieve the same effect. I personally don’t because of the previous reason—I want my communication to map to the reality very closely—but sometimes, clever ways to automate messaging go a long way. Think about it as “drip” marketing campaigns from companies to users, but not for individuals to clients.
Now, there is an important downside to take into account: the risk of overworking (and the ensuing risk of burnout), as well as the risk of setting the expectation that you’ll be on-call at all hours. There are three methods for minimizing these risks, while you communicate at various hours. The first is to keep the risk on the top of your mind when you do—knowing is half the battle. The second is to remember to always set expectations carefully, especially at the beginning of a relationship; you want this to be an extra bonus, not the daily expectation. The third is to make sure this is in-line with your payment and compensation structure, as well as with the type of job you hope it will grow into over time, if you’re planning a long-term relationship with the client. If you’re being paid to be a bureaucrat in a 9 to 5 office job, this approach may not be necessary.
