Silicon Valley has done so much for the work culture. The impacts are both positive and negative. It really depends on the general culture of the local workforce. Obviously here in the Philippines, the entire Silicon Valley work culture is not entirely adoptable.
In fact I daresay that it has done the local workforce a disfavor in the general implicit mindset of up-and-coming employees. The expectations has been set so high that the local startups have to cope with giving this and shelling that – it just drains the company out.
Plus the respect for the work has decreased. Take the simple example of the fact that people just come in late under the guise of flexi-time. Often, people don’t finish the entire 8 hours required for flexi-time to work. In fact, some employees could be considered to just have worked for half a day or have not worked at all!
Flexi-time is definitely something that can be abused. Setting the boundaries for this is tough and requires the team leader to formulate new parameters and rules to regulate it properly.
The root solution for all this is to have people in the team with respect for their work. To honor their work. These people will not think of stealing time away or abusing some of the Silicon Valley loopholes of local startups here whose hands have been ‘pushed’.
