Articles

It is very interesting how people spend time mastering the system.  First they experience the process, exploring its inherent strengths, understanding what the system is designed to do.  Then they scour the process for the inevitable oversights that were invisible when the architects created the system. 

For some, the reason behind mastering the system is a goal of achieving professional effectiveness or personal actualization.  For others, the intent may be less honourable.  Here are three ways employees attempt to manipulate systems, finding short cuts that avoid accountability:

• Extra days off:  There are employees who seem to disappear right after a public holiday.  They wait patiently for the holiday to arrive or if they are not interested in waiting, they obtain authorization from a doctor for sick days so they can abdicate their responsibilities temporarily.   For some manipulators, this behaviour is beating the system.  However, they don’t consider the impact of unplanned absences on others who are left to take on additional workload.
• My best friend the manager:  There are employees who try to beat the system by becoming friends with the manager.  Their motive is to carefully position themselves so the manager will be lenient.  The point of befriending the manager is usually self preservation but like any system, the system will restore balance.  This means the work will have to be done and done properly by someone else.     There are managers who bring about forced balance by letting someone else do the work or doing the work themselves.  Others fake the appearance of balance until unavoidable situations arise that expose the gaps.  Sometimes balance is restored as a result of removal, termination or transfer of the person undermining teamwork.
• Christmas vacation:  Some employers have a policy that doesn’t allow employees to extend their vacations past December of each year to avoid the accumulation of vacation in the upcoming year.  Sometimes this policy is coupled with another policy that all vacations have to be taken before November so there can be a full complement at work during the holidays.  People who manipulate this policy find a way to stall all year so the company has no choice but to allow the remaining vacation days to be taken during the Christmas the holidays.
  Four Causes for Working the System

There are five reasons why employees seek ways to circumvent a system, seeking shorter or easier route:

• Laziness:  One of the first assumptions persons make about persons who work the system is that they are lazy. Laziness is an inherent lack of drive or motivation that leads to low productivity.  Perhaps this is true in some circumstances, and untrue in others.
• Incompetence: Working the system can also be assigned to a lack of competence.  This happens when employees go into survival mode and find ways to attain a satisfactory rating in spite of their shortcomings.
• I am better than this: We cannot make an assumption that working the system is synonymous with laziness or incompetence.  It can be assigned to a sense of superiority and a refusal to participate in certain tasks because of a lack of interest or challenge.   Some take on this attitude because they took the job for the money, not because they were interested in a career.
• Difficult working relationships: Some people who work the system are highly competent but demonstrate a lack of interest because of a difficult working relationship either with a difficult manager or executive or a belligerent coworker, intent on sabotage.
• Entitlement: Entitlement is a sense that someone has a right to a benefit, whether or not they actually do.  In the context of working the system, entitlement attitudes can cause employees to take liberties they think they have a right to because of a notion of being short changed.

Unfortunately, there are productive employees who make every effort to follow the rules while observing the chosen few flagrantly bending the rules.  In some cases, productive employees may eventually adopt a detached attitude of “If you can’t beat them, join them” or “there is no point”.   However, there is also the risk that if good workers become despondent, they will look for another job because their work ethic dictates productivity.

Everyone we encounter has an agenda driven by a value system.  Whether the agenda is one based on integrity or dishonesty, selfishness or altruism, it is an agenda.  Working the system is usually perceived as a self-centered action because it usually benefits the person initiating the manipulations.  However, there are altruistic persons who manipulate systems so the greater good can be served. 

Thomas Sowell, an economist, political commentator and author once said, “One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain.”  When there are persons working the system for personal gain, let us be careful not to demonize the producers but instead, focus on finding ways to stimulate and engage persons intent on working the system and stimulate their productivity. 

Yvette Bethel is CEO of Organizational Soul, an HR Consulting and Leadership Development company.  If you are interested in exploring how you can enhance your team, you can contact her at info@orgsoul.com.