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There is a great way to monitor employee’s performance. This one weird trick will save you losing your best employees!
Are their tasks getting done on time and with quality work?
Congrats! You just learned how to treat your employees like adults.
Now kindly fuck off and let me continue to work in my underwear.
But... but... but...
It's proving that my 25 years of being paid 3 times as much as the people I "manage" has been a complete scam the entire time!
Actually it's simple. Work well done? Cool, the employee is working. This "monitoring" mentality needs to fucking die.
But then how do you justify keeping “middle management” hall monitors on a payroll after admitting they’re pointless?
Well, they could focus on distributing or coordinating things and assembling results, things they now leave to those who's job it definitively not is.
"In probably unrelated news, remote workers love how they can't be micromanaged or watched over their shoulders and are frustrated and disoriented by return-to-office plans."
I’ve been working remotely for almost a decade now and have been a manager for 6 of those years and I do the following:
Is [EMPLOYEE]’s work getting done? If yes then do nothing aside from thanking them. If no then talk to employee and/or start the corrective action process.
I have neither the need nor the desire to hover over them. They’re grown ass adults.
A few issues with your method for the average manager.
What work exactly is the employee doing?
How do you know if it is being done correctly?
The average manager has no clue on either of these questions.
These managers rely on wandering around the office judging productiviy by who looks busy and holding constant meetings to hear themselves talk.
So don’t. Give your employees tasks and then leave them the hell alone. If they don’t get things done, find a new employee.
I had a one on one with my boss today. He told me he was very happy that sometimes he doesn't even know what I'm doing, but he doesn't get any complaints and all my deliverables are on time. I am for help when I need it and before everything is urgent
Meanwhile he needs to babysit the two most senior employees and have daily meetings with them because they don't deliver anything on time and is going to force them to go to the office twice per week. I guess not everyone knows how to be responsible, but at least my boss knows he can trust some people
As a boss who thinks remote work is fucking amazing, these people are retarded.
And I can guarantee that they have no fucking clue if their workers are slacking off in the office as well. They seriously believe them being in the vicinitee actually encourages worker to work harder. What a bunch of clueless muppets.
Skill issue.
This is correct.
They can't adapt or change. They don't know how as they are too comfy and stuck in their ways...
But then they force us to read "who moved my cheese"...
It also likely reveals that for many of these managers, their role as micromanagers is completely unnecessary. So they have an identity crisis, unable to justify their position.
My department has transitioned to WFH and it's been wonderful. Every single employee much prefers it and my boss notes that productivity has increased while "issues" have subsided. That's what you want to see.
Now that I'm doing WFH, I will forever seek a job that enables me to do this at least 75% of the time.
It’s almost as if most middle management is completely unnecessary and a massive drain on resources if they feel that most of their time should be spent monitoring their employees.
They are too stupid to actually review your work. No, they need to SEE you doing your work.
They are living with the constant assumption you're not doing much work because that's what they are doing every day.
"Bosses" can go fuck themselves, alongside the astroturfing scum that keeps pumping out articles trying to validate the idiotic decision of returning to offices.
You can monitor the work being done. Is the work being done? That's all you need to know.
I think the biggest problem is that employers used to require that we do all the work we can do. The easiest way to achieve that is to observe that no one is slacking off. With Home Office there is suddenly a need to find out what is a reasonable workload. They seem to fear that they don't get occupy the employees 100% of the time and as usual on capitalism it is not enough when you produce enough bit when you produce all you can.
I find it odd and oppressive how important this detailed oversight and control seems to be to employers. Home Office compatible jobs are mostly computer and thus "brain work", and here productivity never has related linearly correlated with "time staring at monitor". In office there would be plenty of smell talk, coffee breaks, diddling with smartphones and other ways to relax in between. These breaks are an important part of the productivity cycle, giving the mind a chance to process ideas and problems. In other countries/cultures there's more reliance on the concept of good faith: I work at a company that uses home office contracts by default. I can go to the office if I want, but I don't have to. Last time I've been there is five years ago, long before COVID. The company does not track our computer activity ( illegal here anyway) or working hours at all. Obviously it is still my duty to task the hours I spent working for clients for billing reasons, but that's it. The bosses expect that we spend our time in a manner that is beneficial to the company. If one runs out of work, it is expected to notify one's boss so be take can be found and assigned. Of course they still keep an eye out for slackers, but the metric never is working hours or office hours, it's "what have you spent your time on and how has it benefitted the company?" This approach leads to us employees reciprocating the trust shown. This is the first job I never minded putting in extra hours at critical days, because I know I'll just plan on more off hours or even off days during calmer weeks, giving myself to balance the hours. And no, I don't have to get approval from my employer to do that, as it is expected I schedule my time offs in a manner that is least disruptive. This means I just ask a colleague working on the same or similar projects if he's gonna be there so clients have a point of contact in case of emergency. I don't think I ever can work for a conservative, controlling employer again after having enjoyed this level of mutual trust and maturity in the working environment. It's almost as if I'm self-employed, but with all the benefits of being salaried.
It's actually not that hard. If the assigned tasks are being fulfilled within set parameters there's really nothing to observe and keep track of. What they're worried about and what they can't monitor and observe is what the employees are doing outside of those tasks.
My friend works from home he does all his work and in the down time he'll run errands, work out, and play pool at his local bar. Whatever. His work is fully completed and submitted and his performance views are top notch.
And that's pretty much the only thing employers need to be worried about. How well the work is being completed.
Fuck the office.
They're frustrated because it shows that they aren't necessary. People can just get on and do their work without some micromanager breathing down their neck.
This is true. Your job as a "boss" should not be to command and control but rather to remove obstacles preventing your workers from doing their jobs effectively.
A good boss trusts their employees to do their work, but is comfortable working with them if there is an issue with their performance.
Micromanagers HATE this one trick.
FFS, if you cannot monitor your employee's productivity via ERP software or meetings you are a shit boss and you should have been shitcanned a long time ago. Why the fuck is the mainstream media pumping out this shit day in and day out?
Because commercial real estate is suffering. Got to pump the usage rates and occupancy numbers so the REITs can be rated AAA for investors!!1
I hate remote work because it means I have to pay attention to overall output and the progress of the project instead of constantly surveilling and lording my authority over the workers, who I view as subhuman tools for my own enrichment.
Does that about sum it up?
Simple solution. Is the work getting done? Then your minions, sorry employees, are doing their jobs.
Is the work being finished and timelines being met? Congratulations, you know all you need to know.
That’s a feature not a bug. Enjoy the increased productivity and the less having to be on top of things that don’t matter.
"We don't know what you're up to!"
You don't know that in an office either. You trust us because you have your own tasks.
"We can't get a hold of you"
That's an individual's responsibility. Don't bunch me up with others.
The whole reason is jealousy and it sucks.
Most industries should do remote work as much as possible, specifically the ones that involves sitting in front of a computer all day: less traffic on the road, no commute time, more commercial office real estate that can be converted to housing/shops...
I don't really see the downside to any of this except to micro-managers.
Lol, get fucked. I’d sacrifice 50% of my pay before going back to the office full time.
And THAT is the real purpose behind RTO; these pathetic losers feel like they’ve lost grip on those they perceive below them
They desperately need to feel in control. (Also they want to introduce things like second-by-second AI monitoring of each employee, this is already a reality; ever heard of WADU? Sounds bad but not that bad right? wrong)
Here’s some relevant snippets
I think everyone expects their employer to track them to some extent. It is pretty standard practice for employers to monitor and run analysis on things like building badge swipes and the amount of time spent connected when working from home. It has also become very common place for employers to record audio and video at the office. WADU is on a different level. It is an artificial intelligence & machine learning system for workforce human behavior. Starting at the moment you arrive to the building, WADU is tracking you using facial and speech recognition. Most JPMC offices and branches have been outfitted with some of the best HD AV security cameras. Whenever you are at your desk, know that there is a HD camera tracking you the entire time. WADU uses the array of HD cameras at the office to monitor all of your non-verbal body language all throughout the day. The collected information is then fed into the AI/ML system and it is used to update your WADU profile in real time. Every manager gets access to a dashboard that lists all the metrics about their subordinates. The productivity metrics about an employee start getting updated immediately after an employee logs into the system. If the employee is at the office, two bio-metrics are available, attention/focus and stress. The bio-metric feeds are updated from the facial and behavioral tracking. Having a bad day? Stressed about something? WADU has already noticed this and alerted your manager. Can’t focus? Not working at your usual pace? WADU has already noticed this and alerted your manager. Did something you normally don’t do? It’s possible WADU flagged it as suspicious and alerted your manager. WADU is also why they are pushing RTO or “return to office” so hard. Upper management does not care if some employees are more productive when they are working from home. They want everyone back in the office as much as possible so that their WADU profiles are being refined. Enhancing their insight into you is more important to them than better productivity from working from home. A lot of teams are now required to come in two to three days per week. Director level and higher are required to come in four to five days per week. Upper management wants to see everyone at all levels back in the office five days a week. They have invested millions into the WADU system, and they want to get a return on that investment. That only happens whenever people are in the office as much as possible.
Guess what...FUCK BOSSES.
I'm a call center manager. I don't really observe or control my team. I just look at their results.
Sounds like they need something to fill their days with AND they don't know how to do their own jobs. If you know the work well enough, you can understand milestone/status checkins and gauge progress enough to fill your useless reports.
Tell me you're an incompetent manager without telling me you're an incompetent manager.
If the work gets done, what's the problem?
This is how you realize that management spent a good chunk of their day just checking on employees while not actually doing anything, and now they're being exposed for having to find ways to fill their day while employees are still being as productive as they were previously.