I think most new employees expect this.
I think most experienced employees are ready to commit.
I know every entrepreneur lives this.
It doesn’t take a lot of thinking to realize that First In Last Out hours, aka FILO Hours, are expected and de rigueur when starting a career or transitioning roles.
You’ve gotta put in the hours. It’s a fact of life.
The Cold Hard Facts
- Working FILO hours is a commitment.
- Working FILO hours is hard.
- Ultimately, working FILO hours is an investment.
FILO Hours are an investment in your career. Putting them in is part of paying yours dues while honing your craft. This is part and parcel to the ideas that Malcolm Gladwell espoused about requiring 10,000 hours to truly master a skill in his book Outliers: The Story of Success. (This is an affiliate link, so we may earn a commission if you buy. It costs you nothing extra.)
The fact is … Putting in FILO Hours … Takes Work & Commitment.
The following short sentence says it all. If you have the grit, commitment and to a lesser extent the intelligence you can achieve a lot just by putting in the hours. I’m not discounting intelligence here. However, I am saying that some very smart people will not put in the hours … let alone FILO Hours.
“No ONE will ever outwork me!”
That quote is from someone I know, trust and respect. He has been very successful in his 20+ year career. He also prefaced it with the following:
“I may not be the smartest person in the room or on the team, but no one … and I mean NO ONE … will ever out work me.”
Where FILO and ROWE Collide!
One of the challenges of FILO hours these days is … where are these hours actually consumed. Meaning, where did someone actually DO the the work?
In today’s work environment the actual work can be often done anywhere, anytime and on any device. Which may mean at 6am on a treadmill or 6pm in the office or 2am from an airplane seat.
Enlightened managers realize that Results Matter. There has been a trend towards Results Only Work Environments, aka ROWE, where the fact that work GOT done is more important that WHERE it happened.
I wrote about this in Succeeding in a Results Only Work Environment and The Realities of ROWE. Take a look for a ROWE POV.
Where FILO and ROWE collide … is ultimately up to the company, the manager, and the individual. And, perhaps in a sense the customer too.
- Some businesses are very much in your face.
- You need to be seen to be respected.
- Where Out of Sight = Out of Mind.
Is this right? That’s not for me to say.
What can you do to find out? Get a pulse from your company, your peers, and especially your manager.
The fact is … ROWE efforts both collide and compliment FILO hours.
FILO Hours are in Investment
When Duty calls will you commit to FILO hours?
Drop a comment here and let everyone know.
