Been doing zero work since RTO and yet my bosses are happy

[Anonymous]

I believe OP. My supervisor doesn't have time to review or track productivity because we are chatting with her, asking basic questions, or going to get coffee, when she's not in a meeting. Some of us spent years putting in face time so it's come back naturally. Only difference is I can be even more leisurely in the office because we have WFH workhorses still delivering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Sorry to bump an old thread but I just came across it and had to ask a question.

How on earth do businesses make a profit with this kind of employment model?

If an employee is getting paid for 8 hours, then they should be given the correct amount of work to keep them conformably productive for 8 hours. Maybe a high performer could get that done in 6-7 hours so they could either leave early on the clock or offered a bonus to get more work done during the remainder of their day. Under performers get put on a PIP and eventually fired.

If an employee is literally only doing 2/3 work a day and they are in a team of 8 who all also have the same productivity then the obvious course of action is to fire half of them. The workload only requires 4 people to complete.

Simple. OP doesn't work in a business. OP is a government employee.

Op here. Incorrect. It’s a Fortune 500 company.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Sorry to bump an old thread but I just came across it and had to ask a question.

How on earth do businesses make a profit with this kind of employment model?

If an employee is getting paid for 8 hours, then they should be given the correct amount of work to keep them conformably productive for 8 hours. Maybe a high performer could get that done in 6-7 hours so they could either leave early on the clock or offered a bonus to get more work done during the remainder of their day. Under performers get put on a PIP and eventually fired.

If an employee is literally only doing 2/3 work a day and they are in a team of 8 who all also have the same productivity then the obvious course of action is to fire half of them. The workload only requires 4 people to complete.

Your assumption is that everyone is doing the exact same thing on a team and the work is interchangeable and that usually isnt the case. There can be natural downtime during projects while waiting for feedback from others or any number of things.

Teams collectively share a pot of objectives, that’s literally the point of a group of employees belonging to a team. On any given day or week I would broadly expect two employees on the same wage on a team to achieve similar deliverables, or for the higher producing one to have a higher pay in line with their results.

[Anonymous]

I agree that OP cant keep this up forever without getting noticed but also believe that they are able to do it without consequences for a while. The focus is on butts in the seat. So if they show up they get a gold star. Eventually the focus will shift to output or project productivity, but who knows when. As long as the sole focus is rto, which for many offices it is now, you can get away with very little work.

My company is similar though not this extreme. We had an rto mandate recently and i honestly told my boss, if you want me in the office every day in going to have to drop these projects to accommodate the commute time and she said yeah i know and well adjust. So time that i used to spend working i now spend commuting and do less overall and that is what the company wants for now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Sorry to bump an old thread but I just came across it and had to ask a question.

How on earth do businesses make a profit with this kind of employment model?

If an employee is getting paid for 8 hours, then they should be given the correct amount of work to keep them conformably productive for 8 hours. Maybe a high performer could get that done in 6-7 hours so they could either leave early on the clock or offered a bonus to get more work done during the remainder of their day. Under performers get put on a PIP and eventually fired.

If an employee is literally only doing 2/3 work a day and they are in a team of 8 who all also have the same productivity then the obvious course of action is to fire half of them. The workload only requires 4 people to complete.

Your assumption is that everyone is doing the exact same thing on a team and the work is interchangeable and that usually isnt the case. There can be natural downtime during projects while waiting for feedback from others or any number of things.

Teams collectively share a pot of objectives, that’s literally the point of a group of employees belonging to a team. On any given day or week I would broadly expect two employees on the same wage on a team to achieve similar deliverables, or for the higher producing one to have a higher pay in line with their results.

A team can have cross-functional members. The legal person isn't doing the same work as the marketing person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:. We had an rto mandate recently and i honestly told my boss, if you want me in the office every day in going to have to drop these projects to accommodate the commute time and she said yeah i know and well adjust. So time that i used to spend working i now spend commuting and do less overall and that is what the company wants for now.

So should firefighters subtract the journey time from the amount of time they spend fighting the actual fire? How about if on call surgeons or the police calculated their substantive work that way? This is ridiculous! Not everyone can work from home, it’s not a statutory right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:. We had an rto mandate recently and i honestly told my boss, if you want me in the office every day in going to have to drop these projects to accommodate the commute time and she said yeah i know and well adjust. So time that i used to spend working i now spend commuting and do less overall and that is what the company wants for now.

So should firefighters subtract the journey time from the amount of time they spend fighting the actual fire? How about if on call surgeons or the police calculated their substantive work that way? This is ridiculous! Not everyone can work from home, it’s not a statutory right.

Pretty sure PP means they were working some overtime that will no longer be possible due to commuting rather than cutting their regular hours short. That's the most logical reading of it.

[Anonymous]

Op here. My output since RTO is about 10% of what it was during WFH.

Still haven’t had any consequences or feedback and everyone seems happy.

It truly is like the only metric that matters right now is butts in seats. They also really want you to talk in meetings, even if your comment is pretty much irrelevant. And go to the happy hours/team building exercises.

All this time I had worried so much about deadlines and output and none of it matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:. We had an rto mandate recently and i honestly told my boss, if you want me in the office every day in going to have to drop these projects to accommodate the commute time and she said yeah i know and well adjust. So time that i used to spend working i now spend commuting and do less overall and that is what the company wants for now.

So should firefighters subtract the journey time from the amount of time they spend fighting the actual fire? How about if on call surgeons or the police calculated their substantive work that way? This is ridiculous! Not everyone can work from home, it’s not a statutory right.

Hahaha. Firefighters ARE paid for the time it takes to get to the fire! This wasn’t a good example for your argument…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:. We had an rto mandate recently and i honestly told my boss, if you want me in the office every day in going to have to drop these projects to accommodate the commute time and she said yeah i know and well adjust. So time that i used to spend working i now spend commuting and do less overall and that is what the company wants for now.

So should firefighters subtract the journey time from the amount of time they spend fighting the actual fire? How about if on call surgeons or the police calculated their substantive work that way? This is ridiculous! Not everyone can work from home, it’s not a statutory right.

Hahaha. Firefighters ARE paid for the time it takes to get to the fire! This wasn’t a good example for your argument…

And on call surgeons are paid to be on call! These are terrible examples. But your point was silly anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. My output since RTO is about 10% of what it was during WFH.

Still haven’t had any consequences or feedback and everyone seems happy.

It truly is like the only metric that matters right now is butts in seats. They also really want you to talk in meetings, even if your comment is pretty much irrelevant. And go to the happy hours/team building exercises.

All this time I had worried so much about deadlines and output and none of it matters.

I think output will start mattering again once being back in the office is the new normal.

[Anonymous]

RTO = SAD

Sleep at desk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. My output since RTO is about 10% of what it was during WFH.

Still haven’t had any consequences or feedback and everyone seems happy.

It truly is like the only metric that matters right now is butts in seats. They also really want you to talk in meetings, even if your comment is pretty much irrelevant. And go to the happy hours/team building exercises.

All this time I had worried so much about deadlines and output and none of it matters.

I think output will start mattering again once being back in the office is the new normal.

Nope, because it's the butts in seats management who wanted RTO. Which for me meant return to goofing off like I did before WFH. It's all about "face time" and groveling like the boss wants you to grovel. It's all a game and means nothing; I had hoped, as an introvert, things had changed but they haven't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:. We had an rto mandate recently and i honestly told my boss, if you want me in the office every day in going to have to drop these projects to accommodate the commute time and she said yeah i know and well adjust. So time that i used to spend working i now spend commuting and do less overall and that is what the company wants for now.

So should firefighters subtract the journey time from the amount of time they spend fighting the actual fire? How about if on call surgeons or the police calculated their substantive work that way? This is ridiculous! Not everyone can work from home, it’s not a statutory right.

Pretty sure PP means they were working some overtime that will no longer be possible due to commuting rather than cutting their regular hours short. That's the most logical reading of it.

That makes zero sense working OT makes commute easier. You are not in rush hour

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:RTO = SAD

Sleep at desk.

+1