Page 142 - Managing the Mobile Workforce

Autonomy or not Autonomy? that Is the Question � 121

KPMG LLP, the U.S. member firm of KPMG International,
whose member firms have nearly 94,000 professionals in 148 coun-
tries, is one of the nation’s leading providers of audit, tax, and advisory
services. The firm makes sure its professionals have all the technologi-
cal bells and whistles—computers, wireless cards, PDAs—they need
to do their jobs and to stay connected. But, as it is for so many compa-
nies, that’s just the ante to get in the performance game. After that, it
takes a savvy manager like John to maximize employee performance.
But if getting the most out of employees is so important, then why
does he work so hard to slow them down?
At times it seems that John and his employees are “one with the
road.” The focus of his work is mergers and acquisitions, and his
clients are mostly private equity firms. So he is dealing daily with
high-pressure people who demand instant attention when needed.
Technology, he says, is a “double-edged sword.” Using technology
has increased productivity greatly and given clients immediate access,
but at the same time it really requires managers to work with their
employees to deal with the reality of never being able to disconnect.
KPMG hires some of the best and the brightest, and they demand
much of themselves to get things done, so John has to be sensitive
to his employees and to, actually, at times, coach them to work less.
That’s not what you’d normally think would happen at a high-flying
global firm such as KPMG, but the truth is that 24/7 accessibility can
actually interfere with productivity and also wear down people.
So what does John do to manage performance under these circum-
stances? One key role he plays is that of “coach and mentor” a key compo-
nent of the firm’s strategy to attract and retain top talent, and it’s not
always the big-ticket performance behaviors that he deals with. For
example, he sometimes notices employees, wanting to be responsive
to client needs, picking up and looking at their phones every time
they buzz. Counterintuitively, being connected in this case actually
reduces productivity. “You may have to take them aside,” he says, “and
tell them you know that they are trying to be responsive but that their
productivity curve is actually flattening. It is going the wrong way
because of this enhancement device.” With 100 people working for