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CEOs Are Using Return to Office Mandates to Mask Poor Management

forbes.com

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Re: CEOs Are Using Return to Office Mandates to Mask Poor Management

#41

Post by throwway120385 »

bolvyk wrote: post #6

People really want to push remote work as being great for businesses. The sad reality is that it’s not (at least for knowledge workers)… it kills productivity and the output is always lower quality.

I run a team of embedded systems developers writing software for a kiosk system, and our productivity is about the same as it would be in-office. We've had to make technology decisions at times to avoid doing low-level bring-up but almost all of the work we do doesn't require a shared lab space. My team is very effective at meeting organizational goals. We're more effective than many of the higher-paid "flagship" teams at the organization. We've delivered key strategic projects that the CTO considers very successful.

So no, remote work doesn't "kill productivity." It's a different way of working. There's a skillset and a set of attitudes and habits that successful remote working requires, and you have to start building that in new hires almost immediately if you want them to be successful. Like any transition in business you have to have a roadmap. And you need to think about the work your team does and how you're going to provide organizational supports without having everyone in the same room.

Re: CEOs Are Using Return to Office Mandates to Mask Poor Management

#42

Post by phpisthebest »

lolinder wrote: post #25
2c2c2c wrote: post #13

does anyone really find RTO surprising? I know several people personally who just blatantly don't work. it's more obvious in roles where the work is less quantifiable, but even in engineering roles everyone hears stories the alternative seems to be aggressively metricize and cut-- but that seems bad for different reasons

If it takes being in person for your management to tell that someone is not doing anything and PIP/fire them, then I'd certainly call that poor management. You shouldn't have to look over my shoulder to know that I'm doing my job.

I think it is more the environment for some people.

Working from home, really does IMO require a Home Office, a space dedicated for work.

I know many people that are more productive at home, all of them have a home office. I know many people that are not productive at home, none of them have a home office, instead are using some Shared Space, like a corner of the living room, the kitchen table, etc.

If you do not have a dedicated home office then likely your home will be filled with distractions,

Living situations impacts this as well, if you lived a alone with no pets vs having a house full of roommates, children, spouses, pets, etc.

So from a Management perspective do they fire all the people that cant work from home, or require everyone to return to office? Or do they have different policies for different people then open themselves up to Workplace legal liability from either discrimination or hostile work place charges

Re: CEOs Are Using Return to Office Mandates to Mask Poor Management

#43

Post by AlotOfReading »

2c2c2c wrote: post #13

does anyone really find RTO surprising? I know several people personally who just blatantly don't work. it's more obvious in roles where the work is less quantifiable, but even in engineering roles everyone hears stories the alternative seems to be aggressively metricize and cut-- but that seems bad for different reasons

It sounds like a textbook case of bad management if no one in the management chain or peer groups for those people can tell whether they're absent. I don't think that's a common situation though. Rather, tech companies have gotten paranoid about information flow regarding layoffs and don't meaningfully incorporate that data into executive decisionmaking. To escape their information vacuum, they instead look to outwardly visible signals like RTO/badge swipes as a substitute for the individualized performance metrics they've firewalled out.

Re: CEOs Are Using Return to Office Mandates to Mask Poor Management

#45

Post by alberth »

crowcroft wrote: post #26

Is it possible for someone to 1. Be a really good 'in person' manager (able to foster a good in-office culture, motivate and coach people effectively in real time). 2. Be a really bad 'remote' manager. Not saying RTO mandates are a good idea, but to say it's masking poor management as a black and white statement lacks nuance.

100%

Also, the tools a manager needs for 'remote management' is very different than what's needed for in-person.

It's also very possible managers are not given the tools needed to manage a remote workforce.

Re: CEOs Are Using Return to Office Mandates to Mask Poor Management

#46

Post by Spivak »

bolvyk wrote: post #6

People really want to push remote work as being great for businesses. The sad reality is that it’s not (at least for knowledge workers)… it kills productivity and the output is always lower quality.

> Companies With Flexible Remote Work Policies Outperform On Revenue Growth

> The report shows that the three-year industry-adjusted revenue growth rate of companies that have what Scoop calls a “fully flexible” policy—meaning they allow employees or teams to choose when or whether they come to the office, or are fully remote—is 21%. Companies in the data set with more restrictive policies—say, those that have corporate mandates for a couple days per week or those that require full-time work in the office—had only a 5% industry-adjusted revenue growth rate, the analysis found. When excluding the tech industry over the same period, public companies that were “fully flexible” outperformed by 13 percentage points.

You should offer office-optional, if you're tech you should really offer office-optional. I'm genuinely shocked how people didn't see these results coming, companies are simply unwilling to invest the money to give every employee a nice office tailored to their own productivity but guess what -- employees will do that on their own if you let them, for free.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenamcgregor/2023/11/14/compani...

Re: CEOs Are Using Return to Office Mandates to Mask Poor Management

#47

Post by HumblyTossed »

2c2c2c wrote: post #13

does anyone really find RTO surprising? I know several people personally who just blatantly don't work. it's more obvious in roles where the work is less quantifiable, but even in engineering roles everyone hears stories the alternative seems to be aggressively metricize and cut-- but that seems bad for different reasons

Isn't this just bad management? Hire people who can WFH effectively.

Re: CEOs Are Using Return to Office Mandates to Mask Poor Management

#48

Post by jorblumesea »

2c2c2c wrote: post #13

does anyone really find RTO surprising? I know several people personally who just blatantly don't work. it's more obvious in roles where the work is less quantifiable, but even in engineering roles everyone hears stories the alternative seems to be aggressively metricize and cut-- but that seems bad for different reasons

Do you think rto solves that? Your manager isn't going to be following your around physically. They're in meetings 6 hours a day. Everyone knows that one person who takes the 1 hour lunch break, leaves early, talks about this super hard bug that somehow takes them 3 weeks but no one has time to look into it.

Re: CEOs Are Using Return to Office Mandates to Mask Poor Management

#49

Post by hackernewds »

crowcroft wrote: post #26

Is it possible for someone to 1. Be a really good 'in person' manager (able to foster a good in-office culture, motivate and coach people effectively in real time). 2. Be a really bad 'remote' manager. Not saying RTO mandates are a good idea, but to say it's masking poor management as a black and white statement lacks nuance.

perhaps the answer is not necessary, since either way the solution there is to hire managers that fit the company's design and IC's strengths vs accommodating managers with weaknesses such as being a "bad remote" managers

Re: CEOs Are Using Return to Office Mandates to Mask Poor Management

#50

Post by MattGaiser »

crowcroft wrote: post #26

Is it possible for someone to 1. Be a really good 'in person' manager (able to foster a good in-office culture, motivate and coach people effectively in real time). 2. Be a really bad 'remote' manager. Not saying RTO mandates are a good idea, but to say it's masking poor management as a black and white statement lacks nuance.

Really good manager is highly context dependent. I had a manager early in the pandemic who was reasonably effective, but only because he was everywhere and picking up stuff via overhearing convos in our corner. It worked because he was omnipresent.

As soon as communication and the flow of information needed to be deliberate, he was more challenged.

In person, anything he wasn't present for never got considered or failed.

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