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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to expect people working from home to actually work?

208 replies

MelbourneWay · 31/03/2020 21:08

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?

OP posts:

Makeitgoaway · 01/04/2020 08:54

Yes, that's working in schools Dippy and the normal job/delivery has changed beyond recognition. Our staff (I'm also in school) have still been given some expectations regarding amount of contact with students and keeping in touch though. OP needs to work out a way,with her staff, to get what needs doing done.

museumum · 01/04/2020 08:59

I’m a supplier to a number of organisations - they’ve all emailed their entire supplier database even if not currently supplying a service asking for all invoices to be emailed due to covid.

FunkyKingston · 01/04/2020 09:13

The result is that the staff working from home are doing very little work

That none of the staff are doing much work rung alarm bells, it suggested poor or absentee management, little thought in managing the shift to homeworking or inflexible company structures. As subsequent updates have borne out, the staff haven't become lazy en masse, they aren't been given either the structure or the tools to do their jobs properly.

I would suggest that if every single one of them isn't doing any

GreenMugOfTea · 01/04/2020 09:24

this is all new for everyone. it will take a little while before people start to work again at top speed- particularly if the infrastructure (paper invoices!) are not working as they normally would.

Most people are trying to do their best. Cut everyone some slack and it will pay dividends in good will. And in times like this you need the good will of the people who work for you.

StressedMumOfDSOne · 01/04/2020 09:30

Also... just a hint. It's worth just shouting out to your employeees and say you know everyone is trying to do their best in really hard times. No matter if they are at home trying to work or in the office trying to work.

It would go a long way.

My office have furloughed 65% of staff and the rest of us are trying to do their work as well as our own.

I earn well under £20 k a year and i am very stressed and anxious trying to do everything I can. A colleague asked our line manager if we would get some additional days of leave as a thank you when this is all over (not even overtime!!) and the response was 'don't bet on it'.

A thank you would go a long way.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 01/04/2020 10:29

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

Up to a point, yes, but given the number of people being laid off completely, you'd hope they'd be glad to still have a job and maybe do their bit in rallying round ... after all, OP didn't say they're just a bit disorganised, but that some are hardly doing the work at all

Granted that this couldn't be planned for so the whole thing's a bit of a mess anyway, but at least it'll be a useful indicator for the future as to who's prepared to put in the work and who isn't

ChainsawBear · 01/04/2020 10:38

There's a difference, though, between not being prepared to put the work in and dealing with the degree of crisis we have going on. Even many people who were already set up for WFH and don't have children underfoot will be struggling with stress, anxiety, or adjusting to working from home completely as opposed to occasionally or partially.

Piss taking should of course be dealt with as it should in any situation. But not being 100% as productive as "normal" right now is not pisstaking, and if someone is normally a good worker they should definitely be cut significant slack.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 01/04/2020 10:46

if someone is normally a good worker they should definitely be cut significant slack

Absolutely with you on that, but although OP's not said whether these particular staff normally do a good job, I find crises can be a pretty useful indicator of who's prepared to put the work in and who's not

Which can be useful when things return to normal ...

cologne4711 · 01/04/2020 10:51

I saw something on LinkedIn a few minutes ago which I think is a great thing for managers to bear in mind. People are not working from home, they are asked to stay at home and are trying to do some work while there.

The best thing for managers to do is to decide what needs doing, set deadlines (realistic, bearing in mind people may be propping a laptop on the kitchen table and trying to look after the kids as well and lacking any kind of admin support) and then enforce those.

I work from home all the time this isn't an issue for me at all, but others have been thrust into a whole new way of working. Give them time to adjust.

cologne4711 · 01/04/2020 10:51

not being 100% as productive as "normal" right now is not pisstaking

This.

cologne4711 · 01/04/2020 10:53

You are not working from home. You are at your home during a crisis trying to work

Yes this was what I saw on LinkedIn, I'd misremembered the exact wording, but it is definitely worth all managers bearing in mind.

Frigginella · 01/04/2020 10:58

Agree it’s something that needs addressing with the individuals, are they struggling with their mental health for example? I can’t currently wfh. I did in my last job a few months ago and if my children needed my attention during the day I would do non-urgent work in the evening to make up time and so I could focus on urgent stuff during the working day.
My DH works from home and manages well although his manager is also understanding that he is alone with 2 young children to supervise and assist at times. DH will also finish some work in an evening as needed but he has not needed to be asked this.
It’s either a management issue (including they may need more support and structure or understanding) or they are just poor performers.

MiniMum97 · 01/04/2020 14:26

"I think the real problem is going to be that the staff still coming to the office just want to do "their job" and don't want to spend a lot of time scanning invoices for other team members."

Well that's a problem with your office staff and not those wfh.

They need to do what they need to do at the moment to chip in and support a different way of working. That means EVERYONE has to change what they are doing and how they do it.

If your office staff won't support those wfh by sending them work then they don't have a right to complain that wfh staff aren't doing enough. They can't have their cake and eat it!

Brefugee · 01/04/2020 14:33

We have not yet worked out a satisfactory way to get the paper invoices to the homeworkers
Scan and save on the server? or if the WFH people can't access the server, scan and email?

You need to manage them well, properly with motivation not just all stick and no carrot. Good luck!

Purpleartichoke · 01/04/2020 15:21

There is a big difference between having PDFs of the invoices that are then keyed in manually and optical character recognition. The first is manageable right now with just some adjustments in how you organize work. People can have the pdf on one half of their screen and the data entry on the other. If that is too small, see if your company can issue everyone a second monitor.

The people onsite can scan. They may not want to, but they can. You can reassign some of their work to others. This is an emergency situation. There was a point in my career where I hated my job for about 6 months because I was suddenly doing a very different job, but a coworker died and we all had to pitch in and keep things going even as we grieved. This is the same type of
situation.

You can be flexible and still set goals for how much work needs to be done. An obvious one is to set a count of invoices to be processed. Since they aren’t standardized, maybe also have a lower target if they end up with a day of their complicated cases.

Or if no one wfh has children or is a caregiver right now, just set hours they must be sitting at their computer.

Hingeandbracket · 01/04/2020 15:46

OP seems to think the only non-paper option is optical character recognition which is notoriously unreliable.
Workers need a way to see the paper docs on screen - that can be done by scanning or even photographing them. If the screens they are too small, they need bigger ones, it is not essential to print everything, that's just lazy outdated practise.

scaryreading · 01/04/2020 16:59

I've got neck ache from being on a laptop. Horrible not having some printed materials to work with imo

AdmiralJaneway · 01/04/2020 17:47

I spotted this on twitter today - "You are not working from home; you are at your home during a crisis trying to work." - and it is so correct. We cannot expect a proper FULL days work from people.

I’ve said as much to my team and am trusting them to do what they can. Fortunately I have a good team that are keen to keep things going. So much so that I have to remind them to take breaks and care for themselves.

FelicisNox · 01/04/2020 17:48

Lots of good advice I see, well done MN.

Alwaysoverthinkingit34 · 01/04/2020 17:49

I have to WFH with a 1 year old just now and it’s difficult. I’m keeping up with my work but it’s taking logging on at 7am and logging off at 10pm!

You should speak to them and find out their situation and offer flexibility if you can but also do sporadic calls to them and make them aware you are monitoring their activity.

sabbii · 01/04/2020 17:50

depends on how you manage people and how you measure their output. People in the office can just as well do bugger all.
If you able to set expectations and targets for work output that you can measure then just use that. If some people fail to hit their targets because they're slacking off they will have no-one to blame.
BTW - I WFH and have shed loads to do, my employer has one rule ''get shit done'' wouldn't be in a job otherwise.

sandragreen · 01/04/2020 17:51

Are you new to management OP?

Vynalbob · 01/04/2020 17:51

Swap your home workers with your office workers each week and say why.
Go 100% paperless.
Just suggestions

Autumnwindinthewillows · 01/04/2020 17:57

I am much less productive partly due to the infrastructure - my internet speed is slow so everything takes 10* longer. That plus the boss micromanaging is driving me up the wall.
Plus there is a notoriously unproductive member of staff who management are bigging up so I have decided to only do what he does

Ghostlyglow · 01/04/2020 17:58

I've been sent home until the end of this week, I've been given online training courses to do. My Internet connection just isn't up to it! I don't have a proper desk or chair either. I gave up in frustration early this afternoon and will try again tomorrow.
I don't care if my boss gets arsey about it.

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