Is It Just a Spring Clean for the May Queen?

Two questions for business owners on the advent of May Day (5/1): 

1. Are you hiring (salaried) people for hours or for results?

2. What does your neighborhood smell like right now?

There are two big traditions for the first of May. One is ancient and related to the season: the first of May is seen as the beginning of summer. Many pagan traditions in Europe have Maypoles to dance under and a May Queen to crown. (Sweden does this around the summer solstice, hence the movie Midsommar.)

The second is that May 1 is International Workers’ Day. Solopreneurs and many other business owners labor in their businesses, and some entrepreneurs also have other workers in the company to deliver the product or service to clients.

Both of these traditions offer some perspective for business owners who want to be as effective during the workday as they can, which enables them to have a life they love in addition to the business they love.

Seasonality is an advantage for wise and productive entrepreneurs

For most places in the US, and definitely southern California where I live, by the time the first of May rolls around there are some spring blooms already in progress. Which means lovely scents (and for many of us, post-nasal drip.)

I don’t know about you, but I can get so used to seeing things that I no longer see them. Which is why I’ve never been a fan of affirmations on post-its scattered around the house, because I know at some point they will cease to be visible to me. That makes it pretty easy to walk around, even on a gorgeous spring day, and not really be present.

One thing that I’ve found very difficult to do is to ignore scents, especially when they’re nice. If I start smelling something good, suddenly I’m right there in the moment. Even if I was wandering around in my head not two seconds prior. 

A couple of weeks ago, I was walking and suddenly noticed a really intense perfume of orange blossoms. At least, I think it was orange blossom. No person was around me, but I must have been near a tree or bush with the flowers. Really gorgeous. My neighborhood also has plenty of jasmine and honeysuckle, both of which I love. There are also a lot of roses, though some of them are the showy kind that don’t have a lot of scent.

When was the last time you stopped near a flowering bush or tree and just stopped to literally smell the flowers? Being in the moment can help you get out of your head and away from rumination or wishcasting. It gives you some stillness in our 24/7 digitally connected world which gives you a break from the madness.

Observing seasonality can also help business owners from burning out. Ancient humankind didn’t work all the time; they’d get food and the rest of the time be with their kin or tribe. As a species, before this century, no one was expected to keep up with everything all the time. Summer and the time between Christmas and New Year’s were expected to be a little looser in corporate America since many, if not most, people, were on vacation.

No one expected to be “on” constantly, with no respite. That’s just a recipe for burnout. Instead, most people (including business owners!) accepted that their business had some seasonality to it. The exact seasons might differ - for product-based entrepreneurs, the fourth quarter is often where they’re most profitable. But for service-based entrepreneurs, it might be a slower time.

Bursts of energy followed by “fallow” time is pretty widespread in the animal community. Farmers, too, often rotate crops and leave the land to recover for some period of time before planting it again. Being intentional about charging hard and then taking downtime for recovery can help you avoid burnout. 

A simple equation: No downtime = no recovery = burnout.

Retaining workers saves time, money, AND helps boost productivity in the workplace

The summer I moved to Long Beach, I was at a small business networking event. One of the other business owners was complaining about a worker who had the audacity to… take another job in addition to working for this woman. I asked her if the worker was getting their job done for her, and she said yes. And yet somehow she was still offended!

As a business owner, you do not own someone else’s labor. That’s called slavery. Just because you’ve hired someone doesn’t mean you own everything in their lives (again, slavery). You are paying them a wage in exchange for their labor. As long as they’re doing what you asked of them, it’s a good trade. (If they’re not performing to expectations, they need some hard conversations, possibly more training, and a path to either improve or exit.)

If you’re paying them hourly, then yes, they need to be at the job for their scheduled hours. But if not, what difference does it make to you as the business owner if your worker takes another job – as long as you’re satisfied with the work they do for you? If they can get everything done in less time than you expect, what difference does that make to you? 

You might question whether you have something for them to do that's more interesting and complex that might require them to spend more time working. You might also question if you’re not paying them enough, which forced them to take on a second job.

I think what trips a lot of business owners up is that they have an (unsaid) expectation that the wages they’re paying equate to some number of hours. They think they’re paying for results, but they end up acting as if they’re paying by the hour. So if someone takes less time, the entrepreneur gets suspicious that they’re slacking… even though they’re doing what they’re supposed to.

That goes for the business owner as well. Many tasks seem to take longer than you think, but you might also have days where you achieve your goals in just a few hours. If that’s the case, you don’t have to feel guilty about leaving work. Give yourself a chance to sniff the neighborhood or do some other fun activity.

When it comes to team members, people want to feel appreciated. If you appear to be more concerned with butt-in-seat-time as opposed to results, your people won’t feel appreciated. They’ll leave, and you might have a hard time filling that gap.

The cost of replacing someone is often hard to quantify. But once you consider all the factors involved in replacing someone, you can see that it’s pretty costly in terms of both time and money. The person who’s leaving is probably mentally out the door, so you’ve probably got some issues even before they leave.

Then, you have to find applicants and sift through them to find some that might align with your company. After that, the interviews, and some of your key people might have to forego some work in order to have time to interview. Then there’s all the paperwork involved once you find someone. But you’re not done yet – they still need to be onboarded.

Granted, you can hire an outsourced HR function to take care of some of this for you. Obviously, the process will cost money, but it will save you some time. At least up until the interviewing process.

During that time period between the person leaving and the new one being ready to take over, you still have to run your business even though you’re down a person. Some work may fall by the wayside. Or other team members might pick up the slack, which increases their susceptibility to burnout if they’re already working for you full-time.

Alternatively, you could skip this outlay of expensive time and money and retain your employees instead. I’m not an expert on this (though I have some people I could point you to). I do know paying them enough and showing them the purpose behind what they do is helpful, in addition to proactively giving them opportunities to rest and recharge regularly. 

And of course… that goes for you, the business owner, as well. It’s very important that you take the time when you need to. Not only to prevent your own burnout, but also to show your employees that taking vacation is a good thing and that you value rest and relaxation time. That way they feel confident that they won’t be penalized for taking the time they need to recharge.

Recap (tl;dr)

Whether you celebrate May Day for the season or for workers or both, you can be inspired to be more productive without working longer hours.

If you see the value in rest and relaxation but don’t think you can make space for it as a business owner, schedule your free consultation here.

Photo by Beatrice Hautmann on Unsplash 

Title taken from a lyric in “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin