AIBU to expect people working from home to actually work?

[MelbourneWay]

I'm the manager of a small company in an essential sector operating from a number of sites. Most staff can't work from home, but trying to minimise social contact we allowed half the office to work from home. The result is that the staff working from home are doing very little work (we can tell when they log on) and the staff still left in the office are having to work harder than usual to keep up. I appreciate that most people in country are furloughed, but how do I get the staff working from home to actually do the job they are employed to do without appearing to be an evil employer?

The invoices are not your staff's problem, they're a management one. If you want to know exactly what invoices each person has, ask them to photograph and upload them. Manage them.

Think you're being a bit unreasonable to be honest! Have these people got children, have they ever worked from home before, have the got people they are worried about in the house? Have they got work to actually do? DH is working from home and they have to call their manager for a team call at 9 every morning. This means they have to be up and logged on etc. They may also be experiencing the novelty of working from home and will settle down. Make them check in once a day clearly explain what you want them to do and send them a list get them to call you at the end of the day to go through what they've done

It's a big learning curve for new WFH staff and they're probably dealing with kids as well.
I'm working at 40% at best, one small slow screen and DC's to deal with every so often. My boss is good at catching up with us every day, she's struggling like the rest of us.

Their line managers need to be in touch with them setting daily/weekly delivery objectives and assessing progress with each.

Managing staff wfh isn't that different from managing staff in the office if you have good communications between them and managers and an understanding of objectives.

I have no idea what your business sector is but I quite often do a couple of hours work before I log on and a couple of hours after I log off. Not everything I do requires me to be online. And I really appreciate the peace and quiet without emails to just get stuff done. I'm a senior manager in the CS. Even we don't do 9-5 anymore!

It sounds you are quite new to managing people who are WFH OP. Take it steady. Don't become one of those bosses.

I should add that we both work from home at least some of the time usually, and manage fine, are both high performers in our organisation. The difference is we are not looking after DC at the same bloody time.

And it's not just supervising them. If DC are ill normally, we can stick them in front of TV and keep an eye on them whilst putting in a full day's work. Very different to organising the various different on-line learnings, teaching them whole classes so they can fill in the school's worksheets, stopping the arguments, teaching classes to two different age groups simultaneously.

I have a virtual team meeting every morning with my staff
An online work plan with all of their names and tasks - deadlines and estimates of how long it will take them to do them
Plus a section of tasks that anyone can sign up to
In between morning meetings we are in touch via what’s app
I have a phone call supervision meeting with each person each week where I “manage” them
No body is singled out and rather than naming n shaming it’s making the shirkers step up to the plate

None of the staff involved have children, but they have health issues which is why we allowed them to work from home, to minimise contact. We get several thousand invoices a month and it takes the same time to as long to scan and email an invoice (which the staff at home then have to print out) as it does to key it in directly. I have a lovely lady working for me who says she is too busy answering the phone and keying in her own invoices to scan and email other peoples' invoices.

There isn't an employee in the world who would think their manager was evil for managing . Phone everyone tomorrow for a brief catch-up on what's happening and what your expectations are.

As a starting point, get all the paper invoices scanned and filed together with those that are emailed on a shared drive so anyone can access them.

You need to manage the situation. Find out why first and then tackle the issue.

I'm hearing a lot about servers struggling with so many people connecting via VPN, so systems are quite laggy. It could be something as simple as that.

Why would they have to print them out?

It doesn't matter if it takes as long to scan an invoice as to key it - the benefit is that it is available for anyone to see and discuss.

Yes, internet troubles is another good point, especially if they've someone else using bandwidth in the house. Normally I can use our VPN no problem, but at the moment it's almost impossible to do stuff over the VPN, so I drop back to non-VPN which limits the kind of work I can do as it's less secure. And even then, some days this fortnight I've had difficulty even downloading a simple document because the entire world's internet is under strain.

paper invoices is crazy.
Pick as small a number of people as possible to come to the office and have their sole task be scanning invoices and uploading them to your server. If you don’t have a server, get one. You don’t even have to manage it yourself, you can use one of the many services that let companies save data in the cloud.
Then all but your skeleton crew can work from home.

The invoices already at home can be scanned via smartphone using the Office Lens app.

You need visibility of what people are doing for the day. So if they've taken work out first task of the day is to count what they've got and estimate how many they think they will do that day and have a shared drive document to save that number. Then you need daily morning calls to circle round everyone so they have some accountability.

Plus please remember that it's hard to adjust to wfh if you're not used to it and don't like it. It's worth putting in a virtual 15 minute tea break so co workers can chat and bond - mid afternoon is good as wakes people up from their slump and keeps them going.

For those wfh set up a weekly check in to see how they are doing on an individual basis. You can use this to address any performance issues but go into it with an inquiring mind - most people do not deliberately set out to take the mickey so there are probably factors contributing to their inactivity which can be tackled and/or if they are also looking after DCs then could you be receptive to changing their core hours so they can work early morning or evening?

Ok. I think you need to get a handle on this.

1. Email each homeworker tomorrow and ask them to spend the first 2 hours of their day logging on a spreadsheet every invoice they have taken home. Include company name, invoice no. Amount.

1. Have someone organised collate all the info into one spreadsheet.

1. Allocate two people to check off the invoices on this new spreadsheet against payments made. Have one start at the top of the list and one at the bottom.

1. Meanwhile, assign one person in your office to handle all new incoming invoices (paper and email). They can log them all on a different spreadsheet and individually scan them. Put the scans and email copies into a shared folder that home and office workers can use. Include all paper invoices in the office currently not processed.

1. Once you have a shared folder with someone in the office feeding all new invoices into it, you can then start allocating them out.

You need to know your workload before you can manage it.

@MelbourneWay I get what you mean about the invoices. If no one in the office has the capacity to scan or key them in then they don't have the time. Is there anything that will actually add value to the business that they could be doing? As a manager if someone was struggling with their health whilst WFH I would accommodate if reasonable, but if they're just sat there not doing anything then they should be. If they don't have any work to do, you really need to find them something and be clear about what you are expecting, outline outputs and timescales. If you don't have any tasks they can feasibly do, perhaps have to think of other options.

YABU As a company you are not set up to readily accommodate working from home but you are expecting that staff were. You need to have an open discussion with all employees about what is and isn't working and agree a way forward. Be clear about fairness, trust & monitoring.

I have sympathy for your situation in a pressured environment. DH works for a sizeable manufacturing company & they sent all office staff to WFH. Great except the company had nothing in place. Not enough laptops to go round and only directors have company phones... It's being sorted but slowly as HQ is overseas.

What software do you use? Is it cloud based? You could add a scanning cloud software programme or buy cheap scanners for the remote staff to scan in to it? You can get them for £100 ish

If they don’t have kids then no excuse not to be working.

Advise them that the output has dropped, and you need to discuss this as work is falling behind. can you cut their hours if they’re working less?

You need to manage them all better. Morning zoom meeting. Assign tasks. Afternoon zoom Meeting to discuss progress. Email to staff who are under achieving.

Are you actually checking in with them? My internet was brilliant on Monday and today was awful. I couldn't get into half the clinical systems i needed. Normally I'd go into the office but that's not possible now. You need to check if they're having any issues. You sound like a weak, uncaring manager and i doubt I'd go above and beyond for a manager like that.

And if they're "keying in" the invoices they already took home, why do you need the pieces of paper? Surely you look up the electronic version? Otherwise what's the point of all this data entry work?

Does the scanner not have a bulk feed? Scan a batch, email or save on a shared drive and allocate to a team member. Same as handing them a stack of paper.

Based on what you've posted I struggle to see how this is the employees' fault like your op suggested, but the employer/system they're trying to operate in.

We have not yet worked out a satisfactory way to get the paper invoices to the homeworkers.

Don’t you have a scanner? Or a camera? You make them electronic and email them. Or, you contact your suppliers and ask them to send e-invoices.

Why do some businesses still need to be dragged into the 21st century? I haven’t dealt with a paper invoice in over a decade.

The staff who aren’t working at home were the same ones who didn’t work in the office. Manage them properly, set them tasks and targets. Even the most workshy in our office are working productively from home, we have a daily update where we share what we’ve achieved.

I'm really uncomfortable WFH as I find dining chairs uncomfortable plus I have a proper pc at work not a laptop so this needs to be considered.

We do have to do certain tasks & report back. I make sure I am conscientious but we are told to take breaks. You would interact with people at work acne not on a pc all day in my role

This isn't a normal wfh situation though is it?

A big part in increasing wfh productivity for my team at the moment has come from having teams catch ups and conversations about moral support and wellbeing. Not just "work" conversations

I second checking they have the equipment. We were informed that we were all expected to teach remotely with webcams on but not everybody had a laptop.