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I know I said I didn't want to spam the thread with all the extra articles, but these are killing me: They want tech support help desk staff to be in the building so management can "wander down the hall" to find them because they hate filing a ticket or talking on the phone. quote:Or difficult cases of tech support, when you can’t wander down the hall to find the engineer? "Too much freedom" quote:Best Buy ended ROWE, saying it gave the employees “too much freedom.” Its then CEO, Hubert Joly, reportedly said that ROWE was fundamentally flawed from a leadership standpoint and that he wanted to restore accountability to the culture at Best Buy. quote:But accountability wasn’t the only issue remote work dredged up. The empty office also demotivated the people working there — including me. One of the many reasons we stopped the one-day-at-home was a startling comment made by our chief financial officer on an empty Friday: “Why do we have this beautiful office when nobody’s here to enjoy it?” All the work got done and there were no performance issues, but you lost our trust by working at home. quote:One of the goals for coming back is to build trust among employees. And the guy from the NYT article who says he hopes "peer pressure and fear of denying promotions and raises" will "entice" people back. It's enraging. Edit: I need to stop looking at these before bed, but these are executives and managers at Fortune 500 companies writing in business journals and financial newspapers. quote:But having everyone work from home on some days as a matter of course can mean he ends up doing things he’d normally delegate. "Nothing is faster or more practical than just looking across the room and talking to someone with your voice. The instant you have to pick up a phone or write a message you’re wasting valuable time.” quote:Managers will reach out and say, “Either you've got too much work to do or I've got nothing else to do, so I'm going to work 15 hours a day." quote:if the C-suite and top managers are all in a physical building, then middle managers will all be drawn to that building to get face time. Just dozens and dozens of articles like this just from July 10 through today. I have 11 tabs open from just google news alerts this week. So many of them are openly saying how horrible it is that they have a "tight labor market" because employees aren't afraid to be unemployed and are giving "unprecedented push-back." Not even pretending to think the employees aren't disposable cogs in a public academic business journal. Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Jul 27, 2021 |
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Jul 27, 2021 03:53
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quote:“Why do we have this beautiful office when nobody’s here to enjoy it?”
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Jul 27, 2021 04:21
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Midjack posted:Nobody enjoys the office. Least of all when they're there, you fuckface. The tone of the anti-remote work people being absolutely gobsmacked and DISAPPOINTED in their employees not being monitored at all times is the most infuriating part. Using terms like "taking advantage of the tight labor market" to offer pushback or asking for management to reconsider policies shows how they think about the relationship. And if you can't even imagine how a tech support help desk - the most remote working job in the entire world - could even function if they didn't have C-Suite people down the hall to check on them, then you probably don't have the vision to be management. The condescension in these statements about how disappointed they are gets me. quote:Ultimately, of course, I can’t force my employees to be creative or hardworking any more than I can keep track of everything they are doing at every minute of the work day. Some people are always going to look for opportunities to take advantage of workplace loopholes. I can't make sure my employees never goof off in the office and that is very disappointing, so I will definitely not allow remote working because they will "take advantage of workplace loopholes" I assume.
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Jul 27, 2021 04:27
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We’re marching towards back in the office / back to client sites and it feels like there’s nothing we can do to stop it. loving sucks honestly.
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Jul 27, 2021 04:29
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Inner Light posted:We’re marching towards back in the office / back to client sites and it feels like there’s nothing we can do to stop it. loving sucks honestly. I've been partially in office since June 2020 and full-time for a few months. Last year, when I brought up the possibility of full-time remote work or hybrid work one of the administrators said, "We're just starting to get back to tackle this backlog. You should focus on how to work more and not work less." That basically solidified the attitude to me and it has been over a year, so that possibility has been dead for a while and I don't even have a dog in the fight. But, the open and public statements from so many places in so many prominent outlets essentially openly stating that they are hoping that threats and peer pressure can hold back the tide until the economy has mass unemployment again is bewildering and infuriating.
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Jul 27, 2021 04:36
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Inner Light posted:We’re marching towards back in the office / back to client sites and it feels like there’s nothing we can do to stop it. loving sucks honestly. Depends on what you do for a living. I've been remote for the last decade+ with remote teams for even longer than that. None of this has been new to me or the teams I used to run, and we all found it very interesting/hilarious when all of these other teams had to figure it out all of a sudden. In the end, micromanager are gonna be micromangers and it's more satisfying to have your micromanagees sitting in a place that you can survey "your domain". This may be necessary in some industries, but I'm not really sure which ones unless they are physically working machines/material. For the rest it's a load of boomer bullshit who don't know how to manage or use technology. Motronic fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Jul 27, 2021 |
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Jul 27, 2021 04:40
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Motronic posted:Depends on what you do for a living. I've been remote for the last decade+. And how have your company's values and culture been weakened by your treachery? Also, I just started looking at HR Forums linked in one of those articles for HR Professionals to negotiate getting everyone back to work and I need to close my browser and go to bed or I will have 10 more posts.
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Jul 27, 2021 04:43
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:And how have your company's values and culture been weakened by your treachery? I've been out for a year and they have gone from the private company I joined 7 years ago worth hundreds of millions to a market cap of 68 billion today. They were at 54 billion when I was still there. So I guess me and my team didn't tank them too bad.
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Jul 27, 2021 04:49
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One of the posters on this HR forums is recommending mandatory after-hours employee social events because it will begin to condition staff that they need to leave the house and go somewhere for their employer. That will help get them in the right mindset to be more pliable when they are told they have to be brought back in full time. It's an entire forum of people whose professional job to manage other humans, but only learned about what a human was two hours before their first day giving advice to each other.
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Jul 27, 2021 04:53
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:I can't make sure my employees never goof off in the office and that is very disappointing, so I will definitely not allow remote working because they will "take advantage of workplace loopholes" I assume. I can guarantee I have armor-clad ways of goofing off and wasting time in a physical workspace. One of them is called "chatting with middle managers who love to talk about themselves for hours on end." They're pretty consistently like those grade school teachers you could always trick into telling stories rather than actually requiring any sort of work. How am I gonna do that if I'm out of the office? I might have to work.
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Jul 27, 2021 05:02
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My Silverbug friend from ebay is directly emailing me now. Mostly boring stuff, but he wants me to learn about the coming silver theft by the U.S. government. quote:[Redacted] quote:It is done. quote:Bless you. Keep some silver for yourself so you don't become flatfooted when the change over happens. I've got enough for my kids to use if and when they need them. Also, I think I have bee initiated into some kind of gay silver bullion cult? quote:PayPal is asking me if I am paying for goods and services or if I am sending money to someone I know. I am selecting that I am sending money to someone I know, so I will pay the fees.
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Jul 27, 2021 05:03
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Bullion With Morgans: We are both men of silver
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Jul 27, 2021 05:12
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We are men of silver, zinc does not become us
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Jul 27, 2021 05:19
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Also, I think I have bee initiated into some kind of gay silver bullion cult? I'm a little confused. It sounds like this exchange is you buying silver over paypal from this "man of silver". Are you a man of silver?
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Jul 27, 2021 05:24
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Holy poo poo, Leon has been the Silver Surfer this whole time! Boards, Waves, Malibu!
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Jul 27, 2021 05:37
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:I can't make sure my employees never goof off in the office and that is very disappointing, so I will definitely not allow remote working because they will "take advantage of workplace loopholes" I assume. In my experience at one company in particular, the people that asked to work from home on an ongoing basis were coincidentally the people whose productivity just happened to fall off the face of the planet when they weren't in the office. They were often not contactable, fell behind on projects and agreed timeframes, and in some cases just didn't produce anything at all on their home days. It turned out one man was using his WFH days for intensive competitive triathlon training (which would have been fine if he'd made up the workload at other times during the day/week, but he didn't), another woman was using her WFH days to run her own business and would cover off her workplace obligations by sending 1-2 emails. Another man was using his days to be a dedicated grandfather, which was lovely, except he wasn't doing any work but refused to change his contract to part time work which would have been an accurate reflection of what he was actually doing (and not that we wanted him to because the role was full time for a reason). We couldn't fire at will either. Arguably all of the above are actually just performance issues, which the employees were using WFH to mask. Some people that worked from home were extremely effective, but they also did it on an ad hoc basis and we didn't have any issues with them irrespective of if they were in the office or at home. But in my experience there is a subset of people who need the structure of coming into an office to actually be motivated to pull finger and work. I guess it just means that in a post-COVID world of WFH this is just yet another way for that subset of poor performers to manifest their lovely work ethic, and managers need to adapt to new performance management methods to try and keep on top of it.
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Jul 27, 2021 07:30
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Bad managers hate work from home, because actually managing people to build a relationship and get results is hard. It is much easier to be a glorified card clock, noting down when people arrive and leave and assuming they are working when they are at their desks. We are being forced back in to increase creativity. I asked what cost centre I can charge the time I spent being creative and was looked at like I had asked where the portal to Narnia was. Just complete confusion. Not that working from home is always a good deal for employees, it can create burn out and it is nice to interact with people occasionally. My worry is that they companies that are smart will remote their employees, then convert them to piecework contracts, then freelance them.
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Jul 27, 2021 08:00
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:
shaping up to be BWM all around if mister silverbug ever decides to file a paypal dispute for some reason and discovers he can't get his money back and you get your account canceled for violating their terms of service for "selling" something over the friends and family money sending method which (not that you specifically are) is what pretty much every paypal scammer uses since it offers no purchase protection and it's almost impossible to get your money back or convince paypal that you didn't actually tell them to use this method so you the seller don't eat the paypal fees.
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Jul 27, 2021 08:26
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I inherited my grandparents casino winnings, but don't be thinking I'm some fancy high roller because it was just a huge jar of Eisenhower silver dollars from back when casinos still gave those out, that I've never taken to the bank for sentimental reasons. Sounds like I finally need to get on board this silver train and turn what I thought was maybe a hundred dollars into several of hundreds of dollars by throwing these on ebay for the silverbugs to go nuts over.
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Jul 27, 2021 08:37
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Vice President posted:I inherited my grandparents casino winnings, but don't be thinking I'm some fancy high roller because it was just a huge jar of Eisenhower silver dollars from back when casinos still gave those out, that I've never taken to the bank for sentimental reasons. Sounds like I finally need to get on board this silver train and turn what I thought was maybe a hundred dollars into several of hundreds of dollars by throwing these on ebay for the silverbugs to go nuts over.
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Jul 27, 2021 08:53
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The impression I get is that so much about modern work habits exists entirely for the personal satisfaction and comfort of micromanagers, with absolutely no connection to real productivity.
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Jul 27, 2021 10:41
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Wait, you are saying that having to wear a suit and tie doesn't improve my productivity like a wow legendary set?
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Jul 27, 2021 11:04
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:BWM: Religion edition I prefer to subscribe to my Cardinal's onlyfans page instead.
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Jul 27, 2021 11:43
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yeah we had a guy who took advantage of full remote to gently caress off, work on side projects, and then when called on individual low performance/output proceeded to blame everyone else on his team and his managers but you can deal with that, it just requires actually having an understanding of how to manage people
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Jul 27, 2021 12:05
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Chin Strap posted:I prefer to subscribe to my Cardinal's onlyfans page instead. Simping for the church while your family dies
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Jul 27, 2021 12:07
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:yeah we had a guy who took advantage of full remote to gently caress off, work on side projects, and then when called on individual low performance/output proceeded to blame everyone else on his team and his managers I....Am NOT in MAUI how dare you! I wore a hawaiin shirt because it is friday and this beach is a green screen. The coconut is coconut water and the hula girl is a filter!!!
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Jul 27, 2021 12:09
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Motronic posted:I'm a little confused. It sounds like this exchange is you buying silver over paypal from this "man of silver". Those are all emails from him. I sold him one coin over ebay and then he wanted to buy 4 more in bulk for cheaper (at a little less than half price). I told him it was too low, but I would go a little cheaper if he wanted to buy in bulk. I guess he thought I didn't want to sell to him at half price because I thought he was a reseller and he tried to reassure me that he isn't a reseller, he just wants his autistic son to have silver after the government makes it illegal to own. I don't know why I am a man of silver. I'm just selling a bunch of coins on ebay, but I guess he thinks I have a lot since I was selling 10+ coins and keeps asking me if I have bullion or anything else made of silver to sell.
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Jul 27, 2021 12:44
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Just trying out some ideas Man of Gold Man of Bitcoin Man of Fiat Man of Doge
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Jul 27, 2021 12:50
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One issue with remote work that does appear real to me is the impact on fresh out of school employees. I honestly can't imagine being fresh out of school and doing remote work in my field (electronics hardware). It takes a lot of guidance to become useful, and it's hard to get that guidance remotely. We've lost almost 100% of our interns and college grads who started in 2020. It would make sense in my mind to have WFH be tiered by experience. You report to the office for the first 2 years, "graduate" to hybrid as you demonstrate capability, and then be allowed full remote at maybe 5 years.
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Jul 27, 2021 13:12
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:yeah we had a guy who took advantage of full remote to gently caress off, work on side projects, and then when called on individual low performance/output proceeded to blame everyone else on his team and his managers Should be more like me who underperforms all the time so that my WFH doesn't seem any different.
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Jul 27, 2021 13:13
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doingitwrong posted:Just trying out some ideas Man of Truck Equity Man of Funko Pop Woman of Horse
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Jul 27, 2021 13:14
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Alan Smithee posted:I....Am NOT in MAUI how dare you! I wore a hawaiin shirt because it is friday and this beach is a green screen. The coconut is coconut water and the hula girl is a filter!!! i could actually have respected that but he chose to work on two incredibly lame "side hustle" type projects paternity suitor posted:One issue with remote work that does appear real to me is the impact on fresh out of school employees. I honestly can't imagine being fresh out of school and doing remote work in my field (electronics hardware). It takes a lot of guidance to become useful, and it's hard to get that guidance remotely. We've lost almost 100% of our interns and college grads who started in 2020. It would make sense in my mind to have WFH be tiered by experience. You report to the office for the first 2 years, "graduate" to hybrid as you demonstrate capability, and then be allowed full remote at maybe 5 years. yeah we are making our fresh out of college people go in to an office at some point once we get some kind of new space. there's just a lot you have to learn and pick up in terms of general office / teamwork / collaboration / politicking skills that are really hard to learn remote. a lot of this is pretty industry-dependent, though.
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Jul 27, 2021 13:19
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Chin Strap posted:Should be more like me who underperforms all the time so that my WFH doesn't seem any different. This was before Covid and WFH became a thing, but I used to have a boss that thought I was the greatest employee in the world because, when he would send me emails with requests 2 minutes before closing time, I would use Outlook to schedule an email response for two hours later that told him I would have it done tomorrow morning and he was amazed by my dedication to checking email and responding to him during dinner. Even though, he would have never noticed or cared if I stayed 10 minutes late to finish and send the email. Somehow, being lazy and not wanting to get dragged into an email back and forth for "just one quick thing" after closing time made me more impressive than actually staying late and doing it.
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Jul 27, 2021 13:19
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If covid wasn't a thing travel and wfh are super nice and it should be available to people. I guess #goals
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Jul 27, 2021 13:26
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paternity suitor posted:One issue with remote work that does appear real to me is the impact on fresh out of school employees. I honestly can't imagine being fresh out of school and doing remote work in my field (electronics hardware). It takes a lot of guidance to become useful, and it's hard to get that guidance remotely. We've lost almost 100% of our interns and college grads who started in 2020. It would make sense in my mind to have WFH be tiered by experience. You report to the office for the first 2 years, "graduate" to hybrid as you demonstrate capability, and then be allowed full remote at maybe 5 years. Our Unix team hired a new guy in 2020 who came into an empty office every day while all the experienced techs worked remotely and he lasted 6 months before he finally quit. It was the stupidest thing. WFH has a lot of advantages, but onboarding and training isn't one of them. Also we somehow sent people home whose job can't be done from home. "Oh, you need a new security badge? Sorry, the guy who creates those doesn't come into the office anymore. We'll just print you a temporary badge every day that doesn't give you access to anywhere secure for the next 6 weeks."
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Jul 27, 2021 13:26
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That is something that the crazed back to site analysts have right, visibility is more important than performance to progression. That they have mask off said it as a positive way to get people back to the office is amazing.
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Jul 27, 2021 13:29
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:yeah we are making our fresh out of college people go in to an office at some point once we get some kind of new space. there's just a lot you have to learn and pick up in terms of general office / teamwork / collaboration / politicking skills that are really hard to learn remote. a lot of this is pretty industry-dependent, though. I feel like a lot of office jobs that CAN be remote would be devastated by this. It's not just fresh grads, but any new hires that get hurt by not being able to collaborate with others immediately. But that said, of all the reasons being touted to require in-office attendance, this one is suspiciously not on the list. Companies seem to be leaning on literally every reason EXCEPT for the legitimate ones. I mean, facetime with superiors is a good one, but that's less about what's good for everyone and more about what's good for a select few brown nosers who are trying to get one of those coveted "promoted out of harm's way" jobs where nobody wants to fire them because they're connected but nobody trusts them to do any real work. Krispy Wafer posted:Our Unix team hired a new guy in 2020 who came into an empty office every day while all the experienced techs worked remotely and he lasted 6 months before he finally quit. It was the stupidest thing. WFH has a lot of advantages, but onboarding and training isn't one of them. That's just poor planning. If you're going to isolate the new hire, at least let them WFH so they can more easily look for other jobs or get things done at home... obviously they weren't doing anything productive at the office.
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Jul 27, 2021 13:52
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DaveSauce posted:But that said, of all the reasons being touted to require in-office attendance, this one is suspiciously not on the list. Companies seem to be leaning on literally every reason EXCEPT for the legitimate ones. I know that this is my pet peeve subject that I can't let go of, but the fact that a CEO of a major company published an Op-Ed in a national paper of record arguing that "we spent so much money on these nice offices, that it would be financially irresponsible not to bring everyone in to enjoy them." still blows my mind. Or another CEO openly saying that having people perform their job remotely with no issues for 16 months is bad because it will embolden employees to ask to keep doing it.
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Jul 27, 2021 13:58
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:I know that this is my pet peeve subject that I can't let go of, but the fact that a CEO of a major company published an Op-Ed in a national paper of record arguing that "we spent so much money on these nice offices, that it would be financially irresponsible not to bring everyone in to enjoy them." still blows my mind. This 100%. It’s dumb because of why everything is dumb in America: nothing is a rational debate anymore. Everything is just people pushing their agenda. I don’t think people would be upset with the question “what are the pros and cons of WFH, and are their negatives we need to balance on 100% work from home?” But instead, people push their agenda because they just don’t want change, and the result is a push back from the work force now saying “well gently caress you, you aren’t even listening so yes we’re going to demand 100% work at home.” God forbid upper management has a real dialogue of “these are the real concerns, we will take feedback on solutions.” I will say for the record, I’m lucky to have moved to an area in my company that is 100% remote and my company is extremely clear that the entire section is staying that way. That said, it’s an area that makes sense for 100% work at home (call center). Like, why pay us to sit in an office talking on the phone, when it’s the same thing in an empty room at my house and they save rent / utilities, plus it’s clock based so there’s really no question on “people abusing work at home productivity.” Either you’re clocked in or you’re not. Anyway, point being all those articles drive me nuts too, but I also like getting upset over them, so post away Leon.
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Jul 27, 2021 14:40
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Duckman2008 posted:This 100%. I think part of it that drives me insane is how blatant they are being in expressing their contempt for employees "demanding" something, even when they say that specific thing has not caused any problems. The act of "demanding" it makes it bad. Going to full in-person office really isn't "taking away" anything that people had pre-pandemic. They are just going back to how they always used to operate. It's not that the objective "damage" is that high, but people in power and management aren't even pretending it is about anything but power balances anymore. When you have people openly - in prepared remarks in a national newspaper! Not off the cuff! - saying that their business improving during WFH is bad because it will embolden employees or that they hope they can stall until we have mass unemployment again to "put the toothpaste back in the tube" by having people desperate for work, then it is just open contempt and they feel it is socially acceptable to express that. CEO's and C-Suite people usually cloak their preferences under the argument that they need to make tough cost-cutting or performance-enhancing choices because it is all about making profits. Now, they are arguing - openly in public - that they need to take a hit to profits in order to prevent upsetting the balance of power in the employee/employer relationship. Some of these people aren't even the actual employers. They are just an employee working management who is 100% on board with the idea because they think it helps their relative position of power in the company.
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Jul 27, 2021 14:51
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