Hi ya party people,

Whew, is it just me, or has this been a loooooong week? 

At this point, I can deff say I have nerves of steel, but I could not be more excited to turn my brain off for a day or two! 🧠

(Also super excited for the season finale of Industry! If anybody is watching and has thoughts, I wanna hear them.)

For this week’s Q&A, we're talking about activity monitoring tools, because apparently some orgs are out here tracking keystrokes, and boy do I have thoughts.

Then we're getting into the 32-hour work week convo, specifically through the lens of a small nonprofit already stretched thin, not quite hitting outcome goals, and watching good people walk out the door after a few years.

Take a deep breath, and let’s discuss!

And if you want a chance to be featured and you have questions, submit them here!

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ASK AWAY

👀 monitoring & burnoutCopy anchor linkCopied

✍🏾 Do any of your companies use activity monitoring tools like Time Doctor, Clockify, Teramind, ActivTrak, etc.? If so, how do you use them and do you have time expectations for employees and managers?  

Context: N/A

📣 Inas Laghzaoui, Head of HR & CSAT @ Vitalist Inc:

We used to use Clockify, but have moved to our HRIS for better alignment. We do ask them to log their time, but don't micromanage them to do it, if they miss a day, I confirm with their manager and log it on their behalf. I don't want it to turn into a toxic micro-task, so I'm not particularly strict about it and do it myself if they miss it, other than that, it gets logged just fine most days. 

Ultimately what's most important when implementing time tracking is making sure it doesn't overload the team, add more to their plate or gets ignored all together, the best solution for your team, is the one they will actually use. 

📣 Anonymous Safe Space Member:

I used Clockify at my previous job. It was first used for tracking billable hours and hours that needed to be closely reported but quickly turned into a micromanagement tool. Salaried employees were expected to log hours for every single task they did and provide details for each task - executive leadership tried to justify this by saying it helped them track productivity and helped them identify tasks that could be delegated to other teammates (spoiler alert: it did not and tasks were rarely ever delegated to someone else; it just caused a "why are you spending so much time on this task" convo). 

Teammates also started subtly competing with each other over who logged the most hours because those hours were a category that was used in determining EOY bonuses. It got toxic very fast. 

I think Clockify is a great tool for tracking billable hours, but its important to remind leadership, especially executives, that they shouldn't use it as a tool to micromanage time and productivity, as it can negatively impact team morale. 

📣 Angela Hansen, Human Resources and Payroll Manager @ Elation Property Management:

I have used Clockify for a team of contractors that work for us. It was more for billable hours by project. The reports are decent enough, but there is some customization needed. It isn't something I would recommend for a larger company with FTEs. It is a bit out of scope for daily tasks.

Safe Space members can join this discussion here. Not a member yet? Apply to join here.

✍🏾 Would a 32-hour work week really solve our problems?

Context: Small nonprofit of 22. Some staff are experiencing signs of burnout, but also some are naturally leaving after 3-5 years. There is concern because our organization is already not meeting all outcome goals and funding is not guaranteed -- we are a nonprofit afterall.

📣 Jessica Simmons, VP, HRBP @ ICD:

If burnout exists alongside missed outcomes, reducing hours without redesigning how work gets done may exacerbate the problem. The solution to burnout isn't always taking more time off. It can also be about broken processes, unclear priorities, and constant firefighting. If you try to decrease hours without addressing these issues (assuming they exist), you risk increasing pressure and making employees feel that they have to do more with less. It would be best to do a diagnostic to get to the root cause of the issue before implementing a solution. This could include things like workload mapping, process reviews, and listening sessions to distinguish between capacity issues, workflow issues, or cultural issues.

📣 Dan Bonach, Fractional CHRO @ Valhalla HR:

In this scenario, I'm not sure that a 32 hour workweek is the problem.  Sometimes, companies like to throw darts blindfolded without truly getting to the root cause of the burnout or rising turnover levels.  If you're losing people who have been with the company at 3-5 years, it might be time to start conducting Stay Interviews to learn more and understand why people are considering leaving.  

Could be compensation (perhaps compression issues exist).  Could be leadership (perhaps a new leader has come on board that is releasing toxicity into the team).  It sounds like there are performance management issues, overall, which could point to the leadership challenges I mentioned earlier.  Focus on transparency of goals, performance, expectations and if you find out that people are leaving because there are not enough resources, then look for ways to streamline processes (i.e. AI, tech) to help reduce the burden, but still remain focused on hitting the performance targets given to the team/org.

📣 Stephanie Slysz, Director of People & Culture @ Galvanize USA:

My experience is in smaller nonprofits, and the tension you’re naming is real.

I'm not sure a 32-hour week alone would solve your issue unless there are stronger parameters around work culture. If the expectation is 40 hours but people are already working more than that, simply reducing the official hours won’t change much without a real culture shift. Work/life balance has to be modeled and enforced from the top. There may also be real internal sysems  and process issues that contribute to the burn out as well.

Before making a big shift, I’d gather data: a quick staff survey for themes and a few stay interviews for deeper context. That helps you prioritize the right next step.

It may be that a 32-hour week isn’t the first fix. Other options to test:

- Sabbaticals at 5–6 years (or another meaningful milestone)

- Organization-wide shutdown weeks

- Clearer boundaries around workload and working hours

- More authority and autonomy to reduce internal friction

- Summer Hours pilot

If you’re open to reduced hours, I’d frame it as a pilot. For example, test summer hours (either half day or full Fridays off) from Memorial Day to Labor Day (or July 4 to Labor Day) and explicitly position it as an experiment with clear goals and metrics, gather data, survey staff on if it's solving some of the problem.

Also, in small nonprofits, some turnover at 3–5 years is natural. I generally see a tension in wanting career growth and the org's inability to continue to promote everyone to director. Sometimes it’s a “grow and go” model where managers support staff getting to their next role, and that’s okay, as long as burnout isn’t the driver.

TL;DR I’d diagnose first before recommending or moving forward with any policy change first!

Safe Space members can join this discussion here. Not a member yet? Apply to join here.

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🚨 ON YOUR RADAR

🎧 Let’s talk about authenticity, aka the thing companies say they love until you actually try it. Madison Butler and I unpack why being yourself at work feels risky and how to do it without blowing up your career. Check it out on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

❤️ From ‘I Hate it Here’ to ‘I Love it Here’: Your Culture Transformation Roadmap. HR can influence culture change in any organization, and this course teaches you how. Join the Safe Space community to access it!

🎓 Why do employees hate training? EasyLlama is hosting a webinar with behavioral psychologist Erica Lozy + yours truly to unpack the science behind training disengagement and how to fix it so your team stops groaning every time something lands in their inbox!*

*This one is brought to you by one of my amazing brand partners

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📝 RESOURCE OF THE WEEK

Each week I feature a resource I love from the Safe Space library that I believe would be relatable to this week's newsletter topic.

This week, we’re looking at a new rule book for managing change. Check it out HERE  ⬇️

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FRIDAY FUN

😵‍💫 it do be like that sometimesCopy anchor linkCopied

It's just one of those days - Monica

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That's all for this week! I hope you enjoyed! If you have any thoughts, please let me know. I'm allll ears.

Reminder: Today is FRIDAY. 🙏