Lucia Mabasa is Chief Executive Officer of pinpoint one human resources. Picture: SuppliedDo you nap at work? Do you allow others to nap? If the answer to both questions is no, then perhaps you need to rethink it, because just like working from home, taking a kip in the middle of the workday is more than just a fad pioneered in Silicon Valley, but one that is increasingly gaining traction here in South Africa.
The phenomenon neatly dovetails with the current post COVID push for employee wellness; but are South African companies ready for it? What happens if you are a CEO like me who doesn’t believe in taking a power nap, but soldiers on till you get back home at night? What happens if you have people working from home, who go offline to take their 40 winks? Perhaps most of all, how much of a nap is allowed during working hours? When does taking a nap become taking the company for a...
Without a policy in place, there is no way to ensure a consistent response and, most importantly, fairness. Times change and we must change with them as managers. 30 years ago, people could smoke at their desks, irrespective of what non-smokers felt. Then companies created designated smoking rooms where people who wanted a puff could feed their cravings – and then that was outlawed too and smokers had to physically get up and leave the actual office to smoke outside.
The best way of all – and the fairest way – is to do it based on performance. It is exactly how all of us as business leaders have had to navigate the increasingly contested space of remote versus office work. If a staff member can prove that they work well on their own - and the job that they do allows them that latitude – and in the process they meet the expectations that they have been given, they are less likely to be policed.