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At JPMorgan, productivity falls for younger employees at home

bloomberg.com

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Re: At JPMorgan, productivity falls for younger employees at home

#211

Post by ponker »

jimmytucson wrote: post #156
MikeTheGreat wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can, for example, absolutely measure to the dollar the productivity of a plumber and you can easily compare two different plumbers I'm curious about this idea. What if plumber A shows up, quickly fixes something using existing, on-site materials, and ends up charging much less (no parts + 'quick' labor), and then the plumbing breaks again in X months. What if plumber B shows up, takes more time and replaces a p…

Doesn’t happen to the same degree as in software. With plumbing or painting, yes there are good jobs and bad jobs, but if the water gets to where it’s going and there’s no moisture, you’re pretty much done. If the paint is on the wall and not on the ceiling or the trim, and you can’t see roller marks, it’s a good job. With software, there seem to be endless layers of nuance between good or bad, finished or unfinished…

It doesn't happen as much in plumbing or painting because these fields have not had rapid change in the last few decades, so common practices have stabilized. Plumbing also has standardized code and inspections which pretty much make sure that everyone is doing the same thing the same way. And still there are differences in quality. Look at what two painters will do to a piece of shitty material like an oil-painted unprimed piece of plywood. One will sand it down to the wood and prime, the other will just slap a coat on top, and you'll have flaking in a few months.

Re: At JPMorgan, productivity falls for younger employees at home

#213

Post by djmips »

mjfl wrote: post #17

As a young guy who was a full time remote worker for about 6 months, and also very honest with myself: I was more distracted as a remote employee. I wasn't as focused as I needed to be and when I was on site working next to the guy I reported to I was much more productive.

That's true but you were fooling yourself. Wait until you get fired and then you'll realize it's about getting your work done and not where you are sitting. Discipline should come from within.

Re: At JPMorgan, productivity falls for younger employees at home

#214

Post by ponker »

yhoneycomb wrote: post #99
jessaustin wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent agrees, and further observes that all measures of productivity are "bad".

Parent does not agree, if parent agreed, then parent would not have used the word "abuse", which implies that the worker is the one at fault. There are many nuances to the English language that are difficult for non-native speakers to pick up.

Is there a word for the pedantry of an uninformed idiot?

Re: At JPMorgan, productivity falls for younger employees at home

#215

Post by jariel »

holidayacct wrote: post #76

Never believe stories like this, measuring productivity is an impossible problem. Microsoft spend something in excess of 3 billion dollars trying to quantify productivity in the 90s and they couldn't do it. One of my college professors worked on this exact problem for the Army in the 80s, they created a formal domain specific language for quantifying employee productivity it took them 20 years and several hundred mil…

This is hyperbole. There are many ways to measure productivity depending on the task, and often you can simply ask managers who have a good feel for how much progress is being made. It may be that remoters are 'trying hard' but that the limitations of remote are not overcome, but this is still a lack of productivity.

Re: At JPMorgan, productivity falls for younger employees at home

#216

Post by xorcist »

HenryBemis wrote: post #185
MikeTheGreat wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can, for example, absolutely measure to the dollar the productivity of a plumber and you can easily compare two different plumbers I'm curious about this idea. What if plumber A shows up, quickly fixes something using existing, on-site materials, and ends up charging much less (no parts + 'quick' labor), and then the plumbing breaks again in X months. What if plumber B shows up, takes more time and replaces a p…

Quality is the conformance to requirements. If you (the client) wanted a quick and cheap solution then A is for you. If you wanted a robust and you are willing to pay the premium to get the B, you're in luck! Mega big banks in the USA suffer from tech debt A LOT. The number one reason for operation disruptions is software errors, and with a large difference to reasons 2-3-4. An additional point could be that large US…

One thing that has stuck with the after many years of working with IT is that the big projects with resources to spare, the few that really gives you time to do the work properly for once, are often the one that ends up with the most tech debt.

It is completely contrary to my own feeling that debt is created by external pressure to deliver too fast. I can see why that would create perverse incentives should a project manager make a similar observation.

Great art breaks constraints, but there is this symbiotic relationship where art is nothing without constraints. I'm starting to think there are similarities with other creative endeavours too, which I absolutely consider programming to be.

Not sure where I wanted to go with this, just reflecting on your rant with one of my own.

Re: At JPMorgan, productivity falls for younger employees at home

#217

Post by pooya13 »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #115
holidayacct wrote: post #76

Never believe stories like this, measuring productivity is an impossible problem. Microsoft spend something in excess of 3 billion dollars trying to quantify productivity in the 90s and they couldn't do it. One of my college professors worked on this exact problem for the Army in the 80s, they created a formal domain specific language for quantifying employee productivity it took them 20 years and several hundred mil…

> Never believe stories like this, measuring productivity is an impossible problem I want to start off by saying that I don't completely disagree with you, but all of us should take a step back and realize how an absurd of a position this is for us to be in a society. This immeasurability is inversely proportional to the tangible, real value created. You can, for example, absolutely measure to the dollar the producti…

Another complexity with measuring software productivity is the value of reliability and maintainability which can take years to manifest. Also there is the multiplier effect of having a team player who brings up the whole team’s productivity but might not be obviously measurable.

Re: At JPMorgan, productivity falls for younger employees at home

#218

Post by 1e-9 »

Robin_Message wrote: post #208
1e-9 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Never believe stories like this, measuring productivity is an impossible problem. While I do agree that many productivity metrics are useless and even counterproductive, measuring productivity in a useful way is most certainly possible. For example, sales organizations measure sales per unit time for each sales person. I doubt you will find a successful sales organization not doing this.

Even then, what if one salesperson builds up better longer term relationships (e.g. by not pushing options the customer doesn't really need) and thus their future sales will be better but their initial productivity looks poor? Or a team player who is good at opening conversations but not closing? (I know, always be closing) But yes, with a quantifiable and accurate and business-orientated metric, you can measure some…

Modifying a now trite-but-true saying from the statistical modeling world: “All productivity metrics are wrong, but some are useful.” I imagine there will always be an infinite number of ways an employee could add value that would be inadequately reflected in any finite collection of metrics, but that does not eliminate the usefulness of good metrics. Managerial judgement is always needed to account for exceptions that require accommodation.

Re: At JPMorgan, productivity falls for younger employees at home

#219

Post by SergeAx »

holidayacct wrote: post #76

Never believe stories like this, measuring productivity is an impossible problem. Microsoft spend something in excess of 3 billion dollars trying to quantify productivity in the 90s and they couldn't do it. One of my college professors worked on this exact problem for the Army in the 80s, they created a formal domain specific language for quantifying employee productivity it took them 20 years and several hundred mil…

We can't measure productivity of creative workers to the cent, but we of course can use various proxies to assess the productivity. This often can lead to unwanted outcomes (like Uber's criteria of being innovative led to microservices hell), but in general you can't dismiss those proxy measurements as totally irrelevant.

Re: At JPMorgan, productivity falls for younger employees at home

#220

Post by metacork »

Robin_Message wrote: post #208
1e-9 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Never believe stories like this, measuring productivity is an impossible problem. While I do agree that many productivity metrics are useless and even counterproductive, measuring productivity in a useful way is most certainly possible. For example, sales organizations measure sales per unit time for each sales person. I doubt you will find a successful sales organization not doing this.

Even then, what if one salesperson builds up better longer term relationships (e.g. by not pushing options the customer doesn't really need) and thus their future sales will be better but their initial productivity looks poor? Or a team player who is good at opening conversations but not closing? (I know, always be closing) But yes, with a quantifiable and accurate and business-orientated metric, you can measure some…

A successful team structure will make it difficult to measure individual productivity because team members spend some time on shared team priorities rather than just individual priorities.

I enjoy team work and I push hard against managers focusing on individual performance metrics because it destroys team work.

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