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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

#281

Post by un1xl0ser »

godelski wrote: post #248
mesh wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally salaried positions, at least in tech on west coast include lunch, breaks, etc...

Interesting. Maybe because I'm an intern at a big CA based tech company right now that's been pro WFH, but my timesheet will specify the regular and unpaid hours. It even puts the unpaid into a lunch category. But then again, my internship feels like a job and I'm a bit confused. I do all the work with no direction, just report to my manager weekly and no training. Every internship I've had just feels like every job…

That's not a sign of a good internship program. I've always put a great deal of time coming up with projects that are suitable for the intern, and they always have to be tailored to the individual skill-set after the process. At the end of it we either have something that worked, and we have a good sense of the capabilities and fit with the team dynamic.

I would ensure that you have someone to talk to who can discuss what success looks like for the role (of intern). With that, there is always what you want to get out of it, but if you are looking for a job, you need to have performance and goal conversations reguarly. How are you doing compared to peers or other interns, etc.

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

#282

Post by mardifoufs »

w4 wrote: post #269
mardifoufs wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think founders would prefer WFH? All the data seems to point to even small start ups pushing for rto

I was commenting on the broader cultural shift on HN over the past 15+ years, not on RTO vs WFH.

Oh, agreed then. Tbh, it could be worse. Founder culture seems to have disappeared in favor or crypto or internet "entrepreneurs", and that still seems to be pretty rare here. Not sure if there is any actual founder community still left

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

#283

Post by danaris »

shortrounddev2 wrote: post #216
ExpendableGuy wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. I will fight this new trend of 100% Slack/Teams/Etc. as long as I possibly can. Email provides a barrier between you and the work -- email isn't a real time form of communication. Chats, meanwhile, imply immediate response. Hell, these apps even show when you're active -- I've gotten passive-aggressive messages like, "I know that you have DND on, but can you confirm you're seeing these messages?" chats out…

My problem with email is the amount of spam makes it unusable, and I don't just mean unsolicited advertisements. I get spam from work in the form of notifications and unnecessary CC's, so I'm accustomed to ignoring all emails. I think it may also be generational: at my previous job, I get chewed out by my manager for not responding to some question another coworker had sent me. I was confused because I don't remember…

Sounds like you need to learn to manage your email inbox.

I have dozens of filters set up to direct emails to particular folders before I ever see them. This is precisely the way to deal with automated notifications. They're always coming from the same source; in some cases, they're not going to your email directly, but to a group address that you can easily filter on.

If you're getting unnecessary CCs from particular people commonly, you can set up a filter to automatically route that category (from:thisuser@company, cc:me) to a folder of "check this once a day (or whatever timetable) to see if anything real got through".

The answer to "I have trouble with email," in an organization where email is a normal mode of communication, is not "so the whole rest of my team needs to change their workflow to deal with me." It's "so I need to pick up some skills and make checking my email part of my daily workflow."

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

#284

Post by raydev »

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.

Sure. Time to train them to be better managers if they are falling behind in a remote context.

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

#285

Post by raydev »

throwaway2990 wrote: post #181
pie420 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just described Teams, Slack, Skype, and Zoom. all ubiquitous and industry standard.

All trash. A meeting in person is always shorter cos you don’t deal with audio issues a talking over each other and the mountain of other issues from remote calls. No amount of money in good hardware fixes this no matter what anyone claims.

Do you live in a region with poor internet, or do your coworkers? I've been fully immersed in Meet and Zoom calls for 6-7 years now, and all the issues that used to come up are now mostly gone as they were rooted in people not having the correct habits and setups.

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

#286

Post by Joeboy »

lolinder wrote: post #277
Joeboy wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The project came to an end (hence me having to wrap up their work), so I didn't do much. I'm on a new project now, but I have the same question. If someone keeps insisting their work is coming along great and they'll be checking it in real soon, how do I know if it's true?

> their work is coming along great and they'll be checking it in real soon This is the process problem in my mind. Why are they working on something that goes weeks without checking in code? They should have smaller actionable chunks that can be checked in at least once a week. More importantly, take that same employee and put them in an office and do you really think things are going to be different? Alt tab is a th…

> Why are they working on something that goes weeks without checking in code?

I think it was a couple of days' worth of work, which they told me was nearly finished for a couple of weeks. All I was saying was there was no way for me to know whether that was the true or not. Unless they pushed the code, which they were always supposedly on the cusp of doing. On the last day before the holidays I was very explicit that they needed to push their code by the end of the day, which they said they would but didn't.

Perhaps I need to be more assertive about it, or insist they pushed it live while I watched or something. I do think I'd have found the situation easier if we had a face-to-face relationship, although that's not really what I was trying to argue.

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

#287

Post by Joeboy »

lolinder wrote: post #278
Joeboy wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Situations are situational Indeed. I suspect a lot of people here work in situations where there's slack in the system and nothing particularly bad happens if the work doesn't get done.

Yeah, no. We have tight deadlines that we're expected to hit and clear milestones for reaching those deadlines. If we miss them hundreds of people throughout the organization will know and ask why, and multi-million dollar sales contracts go out the window.

Ok, but unlike the person I was replying to you seem to be arguing against giving people the benefit of the doubt.

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

#288

Post by crowcroft »

melenaboija wrote: post #60
alberth wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What tools are needed for better remote management?

One thing I've never seen work well is on boarding grads with no work experience.

During COVID I onboarded a few grads into my team (for context we managed paid media for a SaaS company). We had a good track record of bringing in grads and training them on the job, but the cohort that came in during COVID had a terrible experience, and despite our efforts I'm not sure we ever really provided a good onboarding experience for them, and I don't think the training they received was nearly as effective as the training we used to provide in person.

I think WFH is often great for experienced professionals, but ever since that experience I have felt really bad for young professionals trying to make a start in their careers.

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

#289

Post by crowcroft »

hackernewds wrote: post #49
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

Does this logic work in reverse, should we accommodate ICs with weak working from the office skills?

I do agree though, the most important thing is to build a team and hire people that compliment the context the business operates in, instead of trying to mold the business around the people they happen to have working at the given time.

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

#290

Post by [deleted] »

mrweasel wrote: post #59

So research is finally coming to the same conclusion that a lot of people, myself included came to over a year ago. Well managed companies don't care where you work, it simply doesn't matter. The problem is that management is a lot harder than many thought, but you could sort of hide the fact that you're bad at it when everyone is at the office. There simply isn't enough talented managers around. We're not solving th…

[deleted]
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