When a remote employee appears to be slacking off regularly, what is the right course of action to handle this situation?
Ask HN: How do you handle underperforming remotes at your company?
1–10 of 38 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you handle underperforming remotes at your company?
#2Assuming you have objective performance metrics, and consistent criteria, the appropriate course of action would be to warn them, re-evaluate after a trial period, and fire if nothing changes.
Re: Ask HN: How do you handle underperforming remotes at your company?
#3Same as any employee, of course.
Re: Ask HN: How do you handle underperforming remotes at your company?
#4Assuming you have objective performance metrics, and consistent criteria, the appropriate course of action would be to warn them, re-evaluate after a trial period, and fire if nothing changes.
this is right. In fact it’s exactly the same for in office employees, it’s just that old style management can no longer judge people by when they walk in and out of the office.
Re: Ask HN: How do you handle underperforming remotes at your company?
#5The Ludovico’s Technique worked for us.
When you can measure and compare productivity and “slacking off” objectively and fairly, for everyone, let us know. Until then read Ed Zitron and stop worrying about how other people work.
Re: Ask HN: How do you handle underperforming remotes at your company?
#6Depends entirely if you're his colleague or boss. To get good answers you have to ask good questions.
Re: Ask HN: How do you handle underperforming remotes at your company?
#7The Ludovico’s Technique worked for us. When you can measure and compare productivity and “slacking off” objectively and fairly, for everyone, let us know. Until then read Ed Zitron and stop worrying about how other people work.
If they were working I wouldn't be bothered.
Re: Ask HN: How do you handle underperforming remotes at your company?
#8Depends entirely if you're his colleague or boss. To get good answers you have to ask good questions.
Or check Jira and Git, it's not rocket science. If the person has a task assigned that would take a junior max 3 days of chill work to knock out but it's been 7 days and still no results and the person hasn't reported any blockers on the dailys, it's pretty obvious there's a performance issue.
Re: Ask HN: How do you handle underperforming remotes at your company?
#9Assuming you have objective performance metrics, and consistent criteria, the appropriate course of action would be to warn them, re-evaluate after a trial period, and fire if nothing changes.
"objective performance criterias" in a development role is a joke.
Re: Ask HN: How do you handle underperforming remotes at your company?
#10Depends entirely if you're his colleague or boss. To get good answers you have to ask good questions.
Or check Jira and Git, it's not rocket science. If the person has a task assigned that would take a junior max 3 days of chill work to knock out but it's been 7 days and still no results and the person hasn't reported any blockers on the dailys, it's pretty obvious there's a performance issue.
It's quite easy to hide (provide plausible deniability for) low productivity if the person is smart about it. Complain about environment issues, broken CI builds, unexpected complexity etc., there was one meeting too, then put in the minimum amount of progress.