Are You The SME That Squeeze Their Employees by Extending their Working Hours

Many times, I came across many employers who will stretch their working hours to the maximum and within the employment law so much so that every dollar they are paying to the employee, they believed they must get the maximum ROI on the employees. This type of employers I would classified them as typical SME (Small Medium Enterprise) mindset, many will also want the employers to work on Saturday itself.

However, let us look at the whole thing in a bigger prospective, why would the employers want to do that? Stretching the hours longer and giving the same salary, the reason is simple, they would want them to work more and potentially have more “Sales” so that the company can make more money, right? Wrong….in this way, the employees will not feel happy, feel that they are being short-changed and felt that the boss is another typical SME boss….many employees given a choice will not want to put themselves to be working with another typical SME boss, they will rather work with an MNC (Multi-National Companies) so that they will have slightly shorter working hours, more perks and benefits….

That is why the SME usually will never be able to compete side by side with the MNC because the top elites will only work with the MNC, and those who are willing to work in the SME, the quality, sad to say are usually not on par with the employees of the MNC! Let’s face a cruel fact, will your employee be working every single hour, no.. they will not. Based on the 80/20 rule, they have only about 1-2 hours of productive time per day, hence, even if you were to stretch the hours a little bit longer, the productive hours will still be about the same…isn’t it? So why not shorten the working hours, make their productive hours the same as 1-2 hours and make them happier, increase productivity and will this be able to retain more people compared if you were to stretch the working hours and squeeze them dry.

Sadly many SME bosses will not think this way… They will always think – I am the one paying for the salary, hence I must get every dollar back by making them work longer hours….this is just what is happening in the mind of the SME bosses!

 Here’s what SME Bosses should do to turn the table around and compete side by side with the MNC: 1)      You must be willing to pay – Forget about budgeting, because when you are willing to pay, you will get good people and good people produce good results.

2)      Make your working hours shorter – This will increase efficiency, morale and people will appreciate them.

3)      Have perks that MNC has, just do it, because if you are always within that comfort zone, you will also be another SME.

4)      Always appreciate your staff, no matter how small the things are. Even a pat on the shoulder is also good.

5)      I know you are the boss, you can be one, act like one but when you are with your staff, become their friends….

6)      Implement flexible working place and hour, whether the staff can work at home when needed. There is a saying, if you want to be BIG, think BIG, do BIG things, don’t focus on the smaller things because focus on small things will yield smaller results.


Dougles Chan is the author of Financial Success in Recruitment Industry, Recruitment Consultant Winning Formula & Job Seeker Power Manual. He is the advisor for his clients who want to push their company or agency to a higher level. He mentors and trains individuals in The 200K Formula to personal success in recruitment business. He can be contacted at @ (65) 93880851 or email to dc@dougleschan.com