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?

What systems/tools do you have available?

If you are using Office 365 then there are lots of useful productivity tools you could employ.

1- Set up an MS Teams group and use the chat and meeting functions to have regular conversations.

2 - set up a one drive folder shared between the team, have one person who's job it is to scan/photograph all invoices to the folder, then allocate them to individuals. DO NOT have original important paperwork split out amongst several people across home and office. Stuff will get lost and it's also a data protection nightmare if they're left laying around

3- Use planner, set up a bucket per team member and set tasks for each person with due dates and sub task/lists of requirements. It's easy then to visualise who has what to do and who is closing down tasks.

So, they are working from home due to health issues that make them particularly vulnerable at this time. I feel like that is a bit of a special situation - you obviously can't drag them back into the office when government advice is that they stay home.

I'd suggest managing a bit more proactively as a start. My workplace has a Skype meeting once a week for everyone, clear targets and I email my boss to update her on where I am regularly - it was once at the end of every day but she's said to drop that to once a week as she can see I'm doing a lot. Why not just start with that to get a little clarity going. They may well be confused about how this is meant to work too.

It sounds like your business is pretty outdated in terms of business process management.

For now you will have to find some workarounds (photographing invoices & whatsapping will be quickest). In future you need to invest a bit to compete with more agile/flexible companies - home working will be the new norm & companies that have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century won't survive.

We were informed that we were all expected to teach remotely with webcams

@Seventyone72seventy3sevent In a state school in the uk? Because the unions said absolutely fucking not.

Fully accept that I am not a good manager. I'm an accountant. We have been on an optical recognition project with the software house for a number of years but they have not delivered following a change of ownership so we still have to key in all invoices. My issue is that there is plenty of work that can be done from home (e.g. reconciling supplier statements) but no one working from home actually logged in after lunch today, meanwhile all those in the office were very stressed and said they are working too hard and not prepared to cover those who are not working, hence my post.

Some insights fry employer which is a global bank. They have always permitted quite extensive homeworking depending on role. They make it crystal clear that all your computer activity is monitored. They explicitly state you must be available on the internal messaging app and must have your phone on. In this situation all teams were encouraged to hold check-in/checkout meetings. They're also very clear that they understand we need flexibility and they carefully emphasize that it's purely about getting the work done. I often take a long lunch break to be with the kids and work after they go to bed. You need to point out to your employees that it's crucial for everyone to do their part to keep your business going. Make it a positive message about overcoming obstacles and make sure managers are ready to talk through individual circumstances and come to an agreement that works for everyone.

@MelbourneWay err ok they are taking the piss. I hate having these conversations too, but I think you need to remind them that they have to be working their contracted hours - if they want to do so at midnight, great, but working a half day means they should have declared it a half day and taken holiday.

Wfh here and we have to update our manager of what we are doing daily. The reason for this is that not everyone is pulling their weight.
If they aren't doing the hours they shouldn't be getting full pay.
You need to get assertive with them and make it clear that you are watching and that it's not on.
Maybe a dropbox system where everyone has access to the invoices? Save emailing them. You might need to assign one person the task to scan and categorise them.

@MelbourneWay I think that tomorrow morning first thing, you need to hold a group meeting with your home workers and make it clear that you expect the same level of productivity at home as at work.

That they are still required to meet the targets and that while you are sympathetic to the stress and difficulty of the current situation, in order to remain viable and continue to support home working you need the work to be done.

Ask why none of them were working after 12, give them time to answer.

Ask whether they think it's reasonable for those still attending the office to have to cover their work. Give them time to answer.

Explain that you will be monitoring there productivity, and that you will have to review whether home working can continue if you don't see an improvement.

Then set up 1:1s to give them the chance to raise individual issues with you.

Focus on output and results not hours. Which is what you should be doing anyway.

I'm currently managing 30 people who are WFH for the first time. It's a bloody nightmare just getting them all to log in to the company Skype app and open their email inbox at the beginning of their shift. No one is caring for children, yet the goes missing for hours at a time then say they think I'm unreasonable for asking where they are. Ffs. Managing homeworkers is really tough.

Your antiquated invoicing system isn’t your employees problem. Management need to resolve it ASAP as this situation could go on for months. Are you keeping in touch daily? Asking for a list of daily tasks (takes 5 mins on email) having a morning or afternoon meeting - everyday? You need to manage your staff.

I'm so afraid that this is actually going to put employers off homeworking, which (in normal times) will disadvantage women in particular.

DH and I have worked from home for years, as part of professional, high performing teams. The problem is usually to stop people working too much, because it's harder to switch off!

I wonder if the difference is that in our roles people have careers instead of jobs and are genuinely interested in their work. If you employ the kind of people who will mess around when the manager is out of sight in the office, then I suppose it's not a surprise they will bunk off at home now (excepting those who are struggling with difficult home enviro, home schooling etc). So maybe you need to find a way to motivate these staff in the way those of us interested in our careers are motivated?

Email them specific questions at different times of the day, asking for a reply - and then chasing it.

It won't take long before they realise that something's up and their lack of work is being noticed.

I don’t think companies can expect as much in these times

My company have been great

We have a relaxed work loaf and we can do it at any time of the day

These are not normal times

Expecting people to log on etc at certain times with schools closed etc is unreasonable I think

Many have young kids needing support or olde kids needing help with homework etc

I’m my work we can work our hours at anytime in the day. Therefore I do 8-10am then 4-8 and work a 6 hour day. We have one email sent each week and bosses are not too concerned.
Works fine for me and they’re totally supportive an don’t expect my typical workload
It’s totally not normal to expect someone to do normal routine with illnesses, stress of isolation and kids around

A supportive employer should take all this into account

You have a point Melbourne you would think they would at least stay logged in all day bar lunchtime. I can see why you are concerned

Thanks Videography, working from home is not something I had considered possible before our optical recognition project was completed. Fortunately we have cloud computing so that staff can login from home. But I don't have a scanning resource so I am not sure what to do next?

I'm managing to be logged in and working throughout the day (even though there is significantly less work without face to face contact). Without children, there's no reason why they can't be logged in and working for a full day, whether it involves working the same hours or by splitting them up over the day.

I'd love the chance to sit and reconcile things. I like inputting and making numbers balance.

I am managing a sales team remotely and there’s some really good advice here.
I told my whole team what the expectations are before they started working from home and made it very clear that if anyone takes the piss it will be dealt with.
We have daily catch ups via Teams, I can see their log in and log our times and their call activity. Not much else you can do! Luckily, we all realise how fortunate we are to still have a job and nobody has taken advantage so far. I’ve also had to be really flexible to consider those at home with less than ideal circumstances or children to care for as well. As long as they deliver the minimum expectation which I outlined before we started WFH then I’m happy

Look, this is unprecedented, and we’re all getting used to it.

Companies need to expect that everyone isn’t as productive as normal and just suck it up

@MelbourneWay just photograph the invoices, phone cameras have great resolution now so photos are perfectly legible. You can even get a scanner app that takes the photo, produces a pdf and chucks it into a cloud storage system like drop box, one drive or google drive. Each invoice will take seconds. Assuming 100 invoices a day, it's an hour and half worth of work and it gives you the security of having your invoices stored electronically.

Microsoft Teams is your friend @MelbourneWay
Team meeting every morning & afternoon via video chat. Have an agenda.
Scan in all invoices to Teams and then you can assign them to team members.
Spreadsheet in Teams detailing tasks with date completed and by who.

MelbourneWay
How much support have you given them.

Did you provide them with IT or just expect they already had it.

Do you give them a supportive online call first thing every day or expect them just to report to you on a regular basis.
So many questions.

Honestly it does sound quite disorganised. With even a simple iPhone app you could have one person scanning in and emailing the documents out cc: another person to input into a data base or system.
Having information in paper only is archaic.
I agree with the general managing tips above.

Why can't you reroute calls to people's hone numbers. My work have r ST one this. Then the poor lady answering the phone and doing the invoices, can just do the invoices.

You need to think about how you can change things to make it rite from home, not just send people home and hope for the best. It sounds like you are not giving them enough to .do!