from the taking-care-of-business-every-day dept.
Are workers really as productive at home or are they just performing 'productivity theater'?:
A new survey by Microsoft has found that 87% of workers feel they're just as efficient at home as in the office, but the vast majority of bosses disagree.
Some 85% of business leaders suspect their workers are shirking at home while only 12% of them have "full confidence" their employees are being productive, according to the results of Microsoft's survey of 20,000 people in 11 countries.
[...] Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told BBC this week: "We have to get past what we describe as 'productivity paranoia', because all of the data we have that shows that 80% plus of the individual people feel they're very productive – except their management thinks that they're not productive. That means there is a real disconnect in terms of the expectations and what they feel."
Microsoft depicts productivity paranoia as a vicious circle. Businesses using employee-tracking technology undermine employee trust, which in turn can lead to "productivity theater", where workers knowingly join pointless video meetings and respond to emails at times that look good.
A study by GitLab found remote workers on average spend 67 minutes on feigning productivity each day.
[...] Microsoft's take on productivity paranoia is "where leaders fear that lost productivity is due to employees not working, even though hours worked, number of meetings, and other activity metrics have increased."
[...] A recent survey by hiring platform Hired found 57.1% of tech employees are planning on looking for a new job in the next six months. Even more would leave if a pay rise was knocked back. This year, 61.7% of tech workers were employed in 'remote-first' firms. Over half the respondents said they'd immediately start looking for new work if their employer demanded a return to the office.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Wednesday September 28 2022, @07:00AM (8 children)
If you manage by results, you get results.
People will produce what you track. It is that simple. Track my strokes per minute and I will write a very small script that produces gibberish. Track the time my screensaver goes up and I'll attach a sheet of paper to the mouse and hang it out the window into the wind to keep the cursor moving.
Track my results and I'll produce.
Managers are in a pickle here because if they ain't visibly interrupting your every other move, it becomes obvious that they don't produce fuck all.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by istartedi on Wednesday September 28 2022, @07:44AM (2 children)
There are a lot of stories floating around [stackexchange.com] about how IBM used to use "k-LOCs" to track developers. In the linked discussion, they say it was part of the tension between Microsoft and IBM. I don't know if that's actually true and the claim about MS's code being terse is interesting. It seems like MS probably had higher bug counts back then; but by no means should you draw the conclusion that LOC is a better way to evaluate developers. I'd be surprised if either one of them are using LOC today.
Fond memories of when I was in tech support. We were evaluated based on call times. There was a tech who staged a little demonstration of whipping through a few dozen calls by saying "Sorry sir, the Internet is down" just to get his numbers in line. Such was the business back then, that he did it openly and didn't get fired but the manager saucily said, "OK, don't do that again" and he didn't. What a time. I'm glad I *was* there, even though there was a lot to be miserable about when it was actually happening.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Opportunist on Wednesday September 28 2022, @09:11AM
Why not do it again? All you care about is call time, all I care about is call time. Are you trying to say my goals should not align with the ones of the company? Can I have that in writing?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by einar on Thursday September 29 2022, @07:17PM
Worked for a company who did this in the past. I learnt that we had contractors who inserted a line break into each statement by default. They were twice as efficient than others and had only half of the error rate per lines of code. For management, they were heroes.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2022, @08:12AM
I think you will find that they do produce fuck all.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 28 2022, @12:30PM (3 children)
Oh, I find managers are extremely productive. They produce an awful lot of hot air, noise, confusion, self-congratulatory nonsense, and of course mountains of bullcrap.
The good low-level managers ones focus those efforts into protecting their productive staff members from interference from other managers higher-up.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by pTamok on Wednesday September 28 2022, @12:47PM (1 child)
Which is precisely what I tried to do when I managed a large team (several dozen). Didn't count for much when I have to make significant numbers of them redundant and then lost my position as part of a downsizing/reorganization. Being liked by your team doesn't help much if your peers and superiors think you are difficult to deal with because you are 'overly protective'. I hated office politics, which is why I was left hanging in the wind. Really good managers need to be good at office politics as well. I wasn't.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 28 2022, @04:48PM
When I've been in that hot seat, I knew when trouble was brewing and quietly let my people know to get their resumes ready and that I'd be happy to write them a recommendation. Because protecting them as much as possible includes helping them recover if things aren't going their way.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 29 2022, @08:56PM
The whole corporate chain is supply for narcissists-in-training. Each layer produces narcissistic supply for the one above. It's grotesque - "my" team, "my" tech, "my" assistant. All those possessives! Once you get a whiff of it you can't unsee it, ya hear me?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 28 2022, @01:30PM (11 children)
I'd rather side with the workers on this one. If you don't have to spend 3 hours commuting every day, and then another hour decompressing from the commute in and preparing for the commute home, then you're going to feel a lot more productive, and you probably are, too. If managers report lower productivity it's probably because they are missing the sensation that all the worker bees are quietly working with their heads down at their cubicles.
Of course, life rhythms have to change to make remote work truly productive. You can't have kids and pets interrupting you every five minutes, so you have to isolate yourself or train the rest of the household to leave you alone when you're "I'm working" sign is hung on the door. Some have managed to make that change, and others haven't, but the proof is in the pudding. If managers manage by results instead of the appearance of being busy, then they'll be able to discern who the productive employees are and who aren't; they can then manage from there, either by telling the people who are bad at remote work that they have to come into the office, or by letting them go and hiring somebody else.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Wednesday September 28 2022, @02:26PM (10 children)
This is key. Some people certainly cannot work without supervision, or at least objective metrics. Call center work from home - no problem, because your productivity is directly measurable. Programming from home - some ability to goof off, but in the end a good technical lead will know what you should be able to achieve. Without a good tech. lead, you may be able to surf all day, and get away with it for a while.
It's about being all grown up, and taking responsibility for yourself. There is no reason to punish everyone with mandatory office time, just because a few people have no personal discipline.
There's another aspect of productivity that we may not want to discuss to openly. Many studies have shown that more than about four hours of mental work per day are pretty useless. The rest of an 8-hour day in the office gets wasted. If someone at home works those four hours, and then does private stuff for the rest of the time - is that a problem? If so, why?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 28 2022, @03:43PM (9 children)
I've known a lot of those, and that certainly isn't restricted to no-skill laborers. It goes for supposedly skilled craftsmen, I've seen it in the medical profession, it's always there in management in every field I've had a view into. That goes for the military, as well.
Some of you ask, "Management?" And, I'll point out that management needs to attend meetings constantly, because they either need supervision, or the top dog needs to assure himself that no one can get anything done without his interference.
I've kinda been on the fence with this work-from-home stuff. Far, far, far too few people are half as good as they think they are, unless someone is looking over their shoulders.
One thing that I've tried hard to impress on my own family, friends, and associates: If you ain't making the boss happy, the boss ain't gonna be happy when it comes payday. If you want to see that paycheck coming in every week/biweekly/monthly/whatever, you really need to make sure the boss is happy to sign your paycheck.
In this case, if the boss wants you in the office, he ain't gonna be real happy that his people are scattered out over 30 counties in six different states. Those people's paychecks may well be numbered, with small numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 29 2022, @08:37AM
As for processes, it's why I still believe any claims of intelligent AIs are bullshit. If humans truly know how to produce significantly greater intelligence from a bunch of dumb processes and systems, then they can apply the same thing to human processes and systems; and then produce more intelligent results. But currently that's far from the case.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday September 29 2022, @10:19AM (7 children)
By the same token, if the boss wants the best and the brightest, he's going to have to provide a working environment they want, and that is quite often work from home. Otherwise he's going to have to settle for second or third best and he'll have to pay extra for the privilege. The less happy the employees are, the bigger that check is going to need to be to keep them coming in. Otherwise he'll have to do all the work himself until the ship sinks.
That's the real reason some employers act like they're terrified by the prospect of a better social safety net. They won't survive if they don't have a captive pool of workers who can't afford to miss a paycheck.
Like a sandwich shop owner I saw interviewed who was complaining bitterly about how much having to make sandwiches all day sucked but somehow didn't connect that nobody else really enjoyed it either, especially for the minimum wage with a hostile boss he was offering.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 29 2022, @04:31PM (6 children)
You've said quite a lot there.
Now, we should examine how all of that intertwines with the current immigration system. Blacks are protesting open borders, Latinos are protesting open borders, but the borders stay open, providing cheap labor and cheap votes.
And, let us not forget, it's no longer just laborers and craftsmen being undercut by immigrants - it's begun to affect more educated and white collar people as well.
Bosses will settle for third, fourth, and fifth rate workers, so long as it remains profitable to do so.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 29 2022, @09:02PM
> Bosses will settle for third, fourth, and fifth rate workers, so long as it remains profitable to do so.
Truth.
Because they don't actually care about whatever gizmo is being produced. Their concern is YOU. Their product is YOU. Squeeze you, manipulate you, trick you, flatter you, criticize you - to get you to a state where you see yourself only through your value to them.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday September 30 2022, @01:37PM (4 children)
The answer you're looking for is labor laws. Actually closing the borders would require some serious Star Trek level technology or alternatively Big Brother complete with chipping citizens at birth (I for one, vote NO on the chop of the Beast). Busting a few employers who illegally hire undocumented workers for crap pay and worse working conditions than the law allows would be a lot easier.
For white collar workers, the solution is for the government to stop issuing H1-B visas for positions that don't actually meet the legal requirements, so again it's down to busting employers that skirt the law. That might require busting the legislators that take bribes under the table to pretend none of this is happening. We'll also need to create an incentive structure that discourages offshoring, or that alternatively helps consumers to offshore the expensive and top heavy management of U .S. based companies by buying directly from overseas. Those won't be seen as "business friendly", so we'll still need to clamp down on the whole bribery thing and voters will need to think carefully in the voting booth.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 30 2022, @08:30PM (3 children)
You're not wrong - BUT - the border needs to be secured. The drug traffic, prostitution traffic, and known terrorists crossing the border justify the expense of building the wall, and adding personnel. Aside from prostitution and/or slavery, the human trafikking justifies securing the border. Thousands die every year at the border, because we don't control the border. Women raped and brutalized, then left for dead, people from whom the coyotes can't extort any more money are often left behind without water, the sick and injured are abandoned, etc ad nauseum.
We have a responsibility to get control of the border. Immigration quotas are an entirely different discussion from controlling the border. We need to close it tightly enough that very few people think it worth the risk of being caught.
That does not mean going Extreme Orwell. Other nations secure their borders without being 1984.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday October 17 2022, @04:29PM (2 children)
Sorry about the late reply, life happens.
In the U.S., our terrorism problems have been m,ostly home grown with the exception of 9/11 (admittedly a BIG exception, but it hasn't happened again).
Prostitution too is mostly home grown.
That leaves drugs. Currently, we can't even stop the flow of drugs into high security prisons, what makes you believe we can stop them at the border short of turning the whole country into a beyond supermax prison? Even for marijuana, attacks on supply just gave us the far worse 'synthetic marijuana' which has caused far worse social problems and a great deal more damage to users, including Florida's face eating zombie problem.
Any progress we're going to make will have to be through demand reduction. We can start by mandating medical help for stopping the use of legitimately prescribed opioids. A shockingly large portion of heroin and oxy abusers started out with a medically justified prescription for opioids andthen got dumped by doctors who either just didn't care, didn't believe that their prescription had resulted in addiction, or were afraid that maintaining patients on a tapering dose in addiction treatment would attract the attention of the DEA.
Quite honestly, most of the DEA should be indicted for practicing medicine without a license.
Other than that, it's a matter of giving the bulk of the population less stress and more hope for the future. That's what really cuts the demand for drugs.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 17 2022, @05:36PM (1 child)
I'm not worried about a "late" reply, lol. Most of us have lives, and can't spend all day in front of the computer.
I've gone into some minor detail in the past, how we can secure the border. We already have military bases in Texas. Just move Fort Hood operations south, to the border, and expand their area about ten times - or more. Move other existing military operations to the border as well. Turn all of the border area into training grounds for reservists and National Guard. Basically, turn a ten mile strip of land adjacent to the border into one long military post.
You get high-tech surveillance, you get old-timey watch-standers, you get air patrol, you get all manner of military equipment, tracked, wheeled, and otherwise propelled, you get a place to test all manner of new equipment, you get it all.
I don't know if you've ever tried to infiltrate a military compound. Some aren't so very hard to do, others are hell. And, the very idea of penetrating a perimeter guarded by armed men and women is pretty intimidating, no matter how sharp, or how sloppy the personnel are. I mean, they're ARMED.
Mind you, I didn't say it would be cheap, or easy, or quick, but I insist that it would be far more effective than what we've been doing for the past 100 years.
As for places like Fort Hood - they were build on the frontiers. Their purpose was to guard the frontiers. Today, the frontier has grown far out beyond the places they occupy, and they've basically outlived their usefulness. I would be happy to see a bunch of them retired, and replaced with forts, posts, and other facilities on the frontier with Mexico.
Let those boys in blue earn their keep.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday October 17 2022, @07:54PM
And then the drugs come in by submarine (really, the cartels have them now) and get offloaded anywhere along the Atlantic or Pacific coast. Or they get air dropped from small planes.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Sourcery42 on Wednesday September 28 2022, @04:16PM (2 children)
So a non-trivial percentage of business leader have no idea what good productivity from their direct reports look like. Got it. Not suprised. Sounds like a likely highly compensated, redundant layer of SG&A ripe for the trimming to me.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2022, @05:16PM (1 child)
Exactly right. From TFS, "leaders fear that lost productivity is due to employees not working, even though ... number of meetings ... have increased." I've had so many managers that think like this, and it especially highlights the difference between technical managers and non-technical managers. Non-technical managers will up my whole day with meetings and then they can't figure out why no work is done. For them, they claim productivity by being in meetings, while for the technical folks that actually produce something, every meeting *IS* lost productivity (and that lost productivity goes beyond just the time scheduled for the meeting, due to the interrupt/context-switching, meeting burnout, etc). But I've never been able to successfully get that point across.
When applying for my current job, I made sure my whole management chain is technical. I can't overstate what a difference it makes. I'll never work any other way again. Not only do they avoid over-scheduling meetings and other bullshit, but they actually contribute on the technical side, so they understand what their reports actually do and help with it, all without micromanaging out of ignorance of what it takes to actually do what we do, and if their non-technical duties ever end up being made redundant, they have the technical fallback and can hopefully avoid getting trimmed.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Thursday September 29 2022, @12:57PM
My manager instructs us to make appointments on our calendars when we need uninterrupted work time. It's a little ridiculous we have to schedule our work time, but it works.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 28 2022, @06:24PM (1 child)
Everyone with a brain knows that there's a lot of non-productive stuff that happens in an office building, from the person who spends most of their time at the water cooler or allegedly in the bathroom to the guy writing a comment on SoylentNews when they should be working. And the old "The boss is coming, look busy" rule exists there just as much as at home.
And it doesn't seem to do all that much harm, really, because office work doesn't function the same way industrial work does. These managers are stuck in the mindset of "1 hour = X widgets produced, solve to maximize X", but that's never really been accurate. The person who sits and thinks for a while and sends a short email that convinces everyone to stop doing a major but stupid project might in fact be the most valuable person in the company, for example.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday September 29 2022, @10:21AM
There's a reason many games have a hot key known as the "boss key" that pauses and displays a fake spreadsheet.
(Score: 1) by Sjolfr on Wednesday September 28 2022, @10:22PM
Kinda sounds like a Micro$oft problem and/or a silicon valley problem. Which, to me, means that it is likely a problem in companies that are management heavy.