Would you WFH if your company heavily monitored you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a supervisor and would like some monitoring equipment. No I don’t want keystrokes, but would like a larger level picture of productivity. Or to know if someone is using a mouse minder.

“If my job is done well it shouldn’t matter.” Okay well what about if your job is barely done. Done enough that it’s not egregious but constant issues, you’re never around to answer questions and you always have knowledge gaps. Managers have a very hard time counseling those people. I can’t outright fire them. If I knew they weren’t working at all for hours during the day, it would be incredibly helpful because that is a fireable offense.

If the work isn't being done well, why can't you document it and fire them? It sounds like you want to be the lazy one.

[Anonymous]

My old company I always found if funny our Head of BSA/OFAC was married to a Compliance guy and both worked from home in same office. You could see husband in background sometimes.

I then went through all the slacks and emails I got from her and sometimes tone changes, her husband would answer things when she was out at bus stop.

I caught it when she mentioned her stomach bug flu her two kids had last week yet she was responding to messages. Out system tags it if from a phone, these were not and a different tone. J

[Anonymous]

Our work requires 5 minutes an hour to not be at our computer.

So yea, that is fine because nothing I do during my "downtime" take more than 5 minutes.

How are bathroom breaks handled. What about lunch?

I'd love for the tracking system to report who is not taking the 5 minutes break because that is a bigger problem than not working.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, but that is because I don’t want to be micromanaged whether in an office or at home. I am a professional and I can manage my workload without someone needing to know how many times I pee, or when I need a stretch break, or when I need to take a phone call from my doctor, or when I eat lunch, etc. I am a high performer. I respond to emails and IMs in a short time period. I attend meetings. If my boss needs more than that it’s not a good fit.

You aren't the employ they need to monitor. Many are not like you and spend a lot of time not working. It is these people who are ruining WFH for many of us.

Why don't you just enforce performance standards? Write someone up for not being responsive or missing deadlines or not being productive. Do the same thing you would do in the office.

Because it is easier to game the system when you WFH. And not every business has the ability/technology/money to implement measures to track this. Sure, you can write people up for being non responsive, but if they get THEIR work done, and don't help the people who rely on that person, that is a slippery slope. Success in business isn't just about individual contribution, but about how the individual contributes to the whole.

Some of us are self-motivated and willing to work hard to contribute on all fronts, home or in office. Many will take advantage of WFH given the chance.

It's really not a slippery slope, if their job is to contribute to the team and they're not doing so then write them up and fire them and be done with it. We have these same people in the office that blow off responding to e-mails and it's the same situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you micromanage someone who is working from home? I wouldn't put up with that, but I'm senior in my career, and there are many things I wouldn't put up with, and I have leverage. On the other hand, we have some younger employees who can't be bothered to answer an email before 11 am when they work from home, so I get why policies are in place.

+1 Very much this. And it's the younger workers who are pushing back on everything. We have raised many of them to not want to work hard, or even work.

Half the anti-WFH threads on this site claim younger workers are the ones pushing for RTO because they prefer in person. Which is it?

Maybe young people are monolithic? Young people lacking discipline are a disaster if they WFH; nothing gets done. Similarly, overachievers will overachieve wherever they work.

[Anonymous]

No, it's why I left.

I had to bill my hours (even though I was not a billable department) to clients in 15 minute increments. I understand lawyers do it in 6, but I'm not a lawyer. I shouldn't have to account for every minute of an eight hour day. I'm exempt. All of my actual clients are other people in the company (finance/compliance dept), but some how I had to revert back that the issues I'm working on were charged to a client. It probably wasn't even legal, I really do not know. But it sure changed from when I was first hired, and only had to put worked/not worked, then hours worked (8), then 1/4 hour accruals, with evidence (spreadsheets, log in screen shots, etc).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How would they know you are peeing vs. putting in a load of laundry?? This seems ripe for issues.

This. If my office was literally dictating that I couldn't pee during my work day (a la amazon) I wouldn't want to work there anyways. But literally, they wouldn't know if I was doing laundry or prepping lunch or had netflix on in the background. As long as the work is getting done, I think this is much ado about nothing.

[Anonymous]

I assume I am being monitored. I’m still a million times more productive than mos people that work with me, so I don’t really care. I’m taking my time back. The poster sho said all their good behavior got them was more work is right. Management is about managing the resources you have, which includes high performers who need to take it easy sometimes. No one can work around the clock indefinitely.


If your goal is to get competent people to quit, ramp up the surveillance though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I assume I am being monitored. I’m still a million times more productive than mos people that work with me, so I don’t really care. I’m taking my time back. The poster sho said all their good behavior got them was more work is right. Management is about managing the resources you have, which includes high performers who need to take it easy sometimes. No one can work around the clock indefinitely.


If your goal is to get competent people to quit, ramp up the surveillance though.

How are they monitoring you? I've often wondered the same. I am profitable for my company, so I don't see how firing me for working on an Instacart order or checking DCUM would improve their bottom line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, but that is because I don’t want to be micromanaged whether in an office or at home. I am a professional and I can manage my workload without someone needing to know how many times I pee, or when I need a stretch break, or when I need to take a phone call from my doctor, or when I eat lunch, etc. I am a high performer. I respond to emails and IMs in a short time period. I attend meetings. If my boss needs more than that it’s not a good fit.

You aren't the employ they need to monitor. Many are not like you and spend a lot of time not working. It is these people who are ruining WFH for many of us.

Why don't you just enforce performance standards? Write someone up for not being responsive or missing deadlines or not being productive. Do the same thing you would do in the office.

Fed here. You just can’t. It’s a years long process to try to fire. And now we have “pre- PIP warnings” that you have to issue before a PIP. I can tell people are away from their desks for long periods of time but it’s not something I’m able to track otherwise.

You can absolutely have performance standards for Feds, including for jobs that are mostly soft skills. Maybe HR or your management is not supporting you in this, but IME a lot of managers don't want to think about what good performance actually is and write that down so that it can be in a performance standard. And then they say "I can tell when someone is away from their desk" as if that is indicative of anything: my little green circle turns off when I'm on long phone calls, for example. You should be meeting regularly with your people, and they should be reporting what they're planning to do and what they've done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I assume I am being monitored. I’m still a million times more productive than mos people that work with me, so I don’t really care. I’m taking my time back. The poster sho said all their good behavior got them was more work is right. Management is about managing the resources you have, which includes high performers who need to take it easy sometimes. No one can work around the clock indefinitely.


If your goal is to get competent people to quit, ramp up the surveillance though.

How are they monitoring you? I've often wondered the same. I am profitable for my company, so I don't see how firing me for working on an Instacart order or checking DCUM would improve their bottom line.

It wouldn't, but also I would never do this on the company computer instead of my personal phone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, but that is because I don’t want to be micromanaged whether in an office or at home. I am a professional and I can manage my workload without someone needing to know how many times I pee, or when I need a stretch break, or when I need to take a phone call from my doctor, or when I eat lunch, etc. I am a high performer. I respond to emails and IMs in a short time period. I attend meetings. If my boss needs more than that it’s not a good fit.

You aren't the employ they need to monitor. Many are not like you and spend a lot of time not working. It is these people who are ruining WFH for many of us.

Why don't you just enforce performance standards? Write someone up for not being responsive or missing deadlines or not being productive. Do the same thing you would do in the office.

Fed here. You just can’t. It’s a years long process to try to fire. And now we have “pre- PIP warnings” that you have to issue before a PIP. I can tell people are away from their desks for long periods of time but it’s not something I’m able to track otherwise.

You can absolutely have performance standards for Feds, including for jobs that are mostly soft skills. Maybe HR or your management is not supporting you in this, but IME a lot of managers don't want to think about what good performance actually is and write that down so that it can be in a performance standard. And then they say "I can tell when someone is away from their desk" as if that is indicative of anything: my little green circle turns off when I'm on long phone calls, for example. You should be meeting regularly with your people, and they should be reporting what they're planning to do and what they've done.

DP. Amen. It’s amazing how productivity goes up when managers do their own jobs. No need to look at anyone’s logins on my team. I know who’s working.

-fed manager

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, but that is because I don’t want to be micromanaged whether in an office or at home. I am a professional and I can manage my workload without someone needing to know how many times I pee, or when I need a stretch break, or when I need to take a phone call from my doctor, or when I eat lunch, etc. I am a high performer. I respond to emails and IMs in a short time period. I attend meetings. If my boss needs more than that it’s not a good fit.

You aren't the employ they need to monitor. Many are not like you and spend a lot of time not working. It is these people who are ruining WFH for many of us.

Why don't you just enforce performance standards? Write someone up for not being responsive or missing deadlines or not being productive. Do the same thing you would do in the office.

Fed here. You just can’t. It’s a years long process to try to fire. And now we have “pre- PIP warnings” that you have to issue before a PIP. I can tell people are away from their desks for long periods of time but it’s not something I’m able to track otherwise.

You can absolutely have performance standards for Feds, including for jobs that are mostly soft skills. Maybe HR or your management is not supporting you in this, but IME a lot of managers don't want to think about what good performance actually is and write that down so that it can be in a performance standard. And then they say "I can tell when someone is away from their desk" as if that is indicative of anything: my little green circle turns off when I'm on long phone calls, for example. You should be meeting regularly with your people, and they should be reporting what they're planning to do and what they've done.

DP. Amen. It’s amazing how productivity goes up when managers do their own jobs. No need to look at anyone’s logins on my team. I know who’s working.

-fed manager

+1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, but that is because I don’t want to be micromanaged whether in an office or at home. I am a professional and I can manage my workload without someone needing to know how many times I pee, or when I need a stretch break, or when I need to take a phone call from my doctor, or when I eat lunch, etc. I am a high performer. I respond to emails and IMs in a short time period. I attend meetings. If my boss needs more than that it’s not a good fit.

You aren't the employ they need to monitor. Many are not like you and spend a lot of time not working. It is these people who are ruining WFH for many of us.

Why don't you just enforce performance standards? Write someone up for not being responsive or missing deadlines or not being productive. Do the same thing you would do in the office.

Fed here. You just can’t. It’s a years long process to try to fire. And now we have “pre- PIP warnings” that you have to issue before a PIP. I can tell people are away from their desks for long periods of time but it’s not something I’m able to track otherwise.

You can absolutely have performance standards for Feds, including for jobs that are mostly soft skills. Maybe HR or your management is not supporting you in this, but IME a lot of managers don't want to think about what good performance actually is and write that down so that it can be in a performance standard. And then they say "I can tell when someone is away from their desk" as if that is indicative of anything: my little green circle turns off when I'm on long phone calls, for example. You should be meeting regularly with your people, and they should be reporting what they're planning to do and what they've done.

DP. Amen. It’s amazing how productivity goes up when managers do their own jobs. No need to look at anyone’s logins on my team. I know who’s working.

-fed manager

Just wait- you’ll get these ingenious slackers. They do such a bare minimum of work and it’s impossible to prove.

[Anonymous]

Yes I’d work there, because I do my job. I’m not doing anything sketchy. I’m assuming this place allows lunch and bathroom breaks.