If you ask a manager what quality they value most in an employee, chances are they’ll say reliability: delivering quality work on time. But since a manager’s evaluation is often subjective, there’s good reason to believe their perception of work quality depends in part on whether deadlines are met.
This is exactly what Fang and Maglio set out to explore in a recent article published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. They conducted a series of seven lab studies where participants played the role of managers evaluating the quality of the same work, with only the timing of its delivery varied relative to expectations. In every case, work submitted on time was judged to be of higher quality, on average, than work submitted late. However, no significant differences were found between work delivered early and work delivered on time—suggesting there’s no need to rush unnecessarily.
Their eighth study, conducted in the field, showed that high school students rated their peers’ artwork less favourably when they knew it had been submitted late compared to on time. One of the studies also looked at the effect of providing an explanation for the delay. The researchers found that when the delay was attributed to causes beyond the person’s control, the evaluation of the work’s quality was unaffected. By contrast, delays explained by avoidable reasons—or left unexplained—were penalized.
In other words, as the authors suggest, unless there are uncontrollable circumstances, it’s best to do everything possible to meet the deadlines attached to our work.