I know you do. The question is do the people who work with you?
I believe in work life balance. I rarely reach out to my team late in the evening or on a weekend, maybe once or twice a year. Usually when something out of the ordinary has happened or we are on a known crazy deadline. And I know I can count on them then. It is part of who I chose to hire.
A couple of years ago we were expanding our team of six to 30 people for a 30-month project. We needed to staff quickly. We found candidates and interviewed. So did our small business subcontractor. One guy came up in both searches. Solid degrees. Experience in the field. Decent writing sample (pre AI).
But something was off. He liked the subject matter. But didn’t seem to care about the client, or the work, or being part of our team. He’d have been a perfectly adequate hire.
But here’s the thing, in our business, sometimes there are emergencies. There are occasions when the workload exceeds capacity. Other occasions, the work matters, but the task is routine and boring. And when those things happen, and the team needs to pull together, it helps to care about the work. People who don’t, don’t always show up and if they do, they complain and work at a snail’s pace.
I can teach people skills and information. I don’t know how to teach them to care. And if they don’t, I don’t hire them. I’d rather explain why I haven’t filled a role or will be late, than make a bad hire.