Work telling us we wont get opportunity's if we don't show our faces?

[lovemenomore]

Hi all,

Wanted to know if IABU for being peed off/demoralised at this message from the owner of the company I work for.

Basically started the job in Jan & it has been 100% remote due to Covid/office closed etc. Since the restrictions have lifted I have been in and met colleagues but continued to wfh as do 75% of the company. There has been talk of us never having to go back in full time and people can choose what to do. Nothing formal has been announced. If we do want to go in we have had to book in. However the other day this was posted on our internal comms site;

"While booking is now no longer required, we are noting who turns up. Expect those that do to get the best opportunities and progression. It's obvious that being 'front and centre' means you are top of mind. We've always been a company that prioritises what you do and achieve over simple time served, this is just one aspect of that."

What are your thoughts? To me that is saying if you dont come in you will not be given the opportunities....

Lots of the staff arent local and live all over the country/world. A few of my colleagues are miffed but some friends have said all companies are like this?

@Hekatestorch

I honestly think people are naive if they think everyone that WFH is working just as they would be the office.

I think its naive to think that when people worked in an office their 8 hours were productive 8 hours. People disappearing to make a coffee, have a chat, go to the toilet, have a cig coming back 20-25mins later. Doing this several times a day.

My team aren't working as they did the office as they had to be present, 8-4. If it was a busy week or a quiet week. Those were the hours the were expected to be present. They now work what hours they want. However, if there's a meeting that must be attended, they attend unless they have booked the days off. I genuinely couldn't care less if Susan logs off at 3.150m to pick her grand daughter up from school. I care that she has the report we need on time. Which she knows the deadline of, weeks in advance

We have daily, weekly and monthly deadlines. They all get hit faster than they did in the office. For loads of reasons including what was the point of being fast when you had to sit here til 4 anyway. Plus the social side of office life (which plenty of people hate) takes up time and you feel you have to join in.

My team are all adults. I don't have to micro manage what they wear, which hours they are productive. I trust if they may miss deadline they would give plenty of notice so we can pull sometime back.

I don't track productive hours. I track work loads. It's easy to spot someone isn't pulling their weight. And the people taking the piss at home would have been taking the piss on the office too.

I think that would be naive too, but then I haven’t said that. If people are in the office it requires less management time and management can focus on more important matters. Maybe somebody can meet their deadlines because the deadlines are easy and actually there is untapped capacity to do other things. Managing purely by deadlines, never re-setting them, challenging them, doesn’t sound like great productivity.

@Hekatestorch

I honestly think people are naive if they think everyone that WFH is working just as they would be the office.

I think its naive to think that when people worked in an office their 8 hours were productive 8 hours. People disappearing to make a coffee, have a chat, go to the toilet, have a cig coming back 20-25mins later. Doing this several times a day.

My team aren't working as they did the office as they had to be present, 8-4. If it was a busy week or a quiet week. Those were the hours the were expected to be present. They now work what hours they want. However, if there's a meeting that must be attended, they attend unless they have booked the days off. I genuinely couldn't care less if Susan logs off at 3.150m to pick her grand daughter up from school. I care that she has the report we need on time. Which she knows the deadline of, weeks in advance

We have daily, weekly and monthly deadlines. They all get hit faster than they did in the office. For loads of reasons including what was the point of being fast when you had to sit here til 4 anyway. Plus the social side of office life (which plenty of people hate) takes up time and you feel you have to join in.

My team are all adults. I don't have to micro manage what they wear, which hours they are productive. I trust if they may miss deadline they would give plenty of notice so we can pull sometime back.

I don't track productive hours. I track work loads. It's easy to spot someone isn't pulling their weight. And the people taking the piss at home would have been taking the piss on the office too.

That’s such a naive post I actually wonder if you are managing a team. In fact I’m surprised any manager would write such a thing. You’ve completely negated any benefits of office work in your rush to explain why people should be left to work from home. A very unbalanced view as well as a concerning lack of management ability shown.

It's presenteeism and has been shown in study after study to be damaging to companies. If they want people back in the office then they should approach it in a more formal manner - teams in for certain meetings, asking people to come in a percentage of the week etc. Not this vague threat...

@sailmeaway

It's presenteeism and has been shown in study after study to be damaging to companies. If they want people back in the office then they should approach it in a more formal manner - teams in for certain meetings, asking people to come in a percentage of the week etc. Not this vague threat...

So basically Micro manage people, remove all flexibility for employees to go in when suits them?

And presenteeism isn’t come in occasionally as suits you and work from home the rest of the time

It’s not school! You don’t get a prize for attendance, you are employed for your expertise. Plus in many jobs there is no uniform and no need to be fussing about what people are wearing. Results should matter most. Of course we all know of cases where it’s the most arrogant shouty person who gets to the top, not the most able!

A very unbalanced view as well as a concerning lack of management ability shown

In what way did that post indicate lack of management ability? The reason I ask is because it describes pretty much the way I successfully managed teams for over 20 years and nobody ever questioned my management ability.

My brother works for Royal Mail IT management, he has been WFH right through the pandemic & has said that it looks like they will be WFH permanently as it is cheaper for the company to not have offices & just hire somewhere if they need to be physically together at any time. They have a Microsoft teams meeting every day over coffee to keep everyone feeling like they are working together as a team & to stop anyone feeling isolated.

@ActonSquirrel

I agree. Those who work jobs that can’t be done from home seem to often have the misconception that working from home is lounging in pyjamas on the sofa with a laptop balanced on your knee, checking occasional emails, with the TV on in the background. I have worked from home for years. Ive never worked in my pyjamas or on the sofa. I don’t bother with shoes but apart from that I get dressed and do my hair, etc just as if I worked at the office.

Well then you're the minority and one of the few who are professional.

Our zoom calls for team meetings show most people in joggers and a t-shirt doing exactly what you describe.

One person who came to the office for the first time said it was actually nice to have a routine and get up and out make up on as she had been for 16 months getting out of bed staying in her pj's and walking next door to the lounge!

Why does it matter that they are wearing joggers?

Being in the office helps with opportunities to get ahead because there are more opportunities to suck up to the more senior people (who are in the office to suck up to their senior management as well), and to be able to slag off others.

My director is in the Netherlands. He reports to someone in Germany, who reports to someone in the USA. My director's DRs are in USA, Netherlands, Russia, Germany, UK, Dubai. The teams below are spread across even more countries. Being in the office doesn't help you that much with us, except once or twice a year (pre-pandemic), at which point we would be called into the office. Being able to build relationships remotely using email, instant messaging, telephone and video are key skills with us. If someone is in a different country, while they're working on desk-based tasks (and not all are - quite a lot of us have to visit data centres and field sites from time to time, just not all the time,) it makes little difference whether they're in the office or at home, as long as they can connect to the network.

Because of how we operate, being able to manage virtual teams well and learning who people are when you are not face to face are valued skills. And it is possible, even in different timezones.

Newbies get trained online, with shared screens to work through tasks, people are available to ask questions. This very morning, I shared a screenshot of an error message to see if others had experienced it, or if it was just me. I've got a wider range of people to ask than those based in my own office.

Younger workers coming into the office will be used to communicating with people by various online tools. It is good to meet face-to-face. It's why the company is prepared to invest a fair bit in airfares and hotels to enable it, at least in the past.
But not being face-to-face shouldn't be much of a barrier these days, because there are technological options to be in touch, to track staff, just chatting, and managers should be making the effort to do so, wherever staff are.

There are plenty of reasons why it's good to have people in the office. Some job tasks can't be done at home. Some people don't have the space or privacy to work effectively at home. Some people will take the piss - but that has always happened. Even when people were totally office-based, I'll bet you knew who among your colleagues worked hard and who didn't; it's not location-based.

I'm glad I work for a company where it's recognised that physical presence isn't a key marker of people's output, abilities and potential for promotion.

That’s such a naive post I actually wonder if you are managing a team. In fact I’m surprised any manager would write such a thing. You’ve completely negated any benefits of office work in your rush to explain why people should be left to work from home. A very unbalanced view as well as a concerning lack of management ability shown.

My team as I have said over and over again are hybrid.

Quite frankly what you think if management style, isn't something that bothers me.

I didn't negate any benefits of working in an office. However, for my team, every benefit listed on this thread simply doesn't apply.

My point was that people who piss take at home also took the piss in the office. And it was often just over looked by poor management

I don't need to micro manage my team, because pisstakers don't last on my team. So when they were sent hometo wfh, they didn't need micro managing. They are adults who all know their own responsibilities. They all want to continue earning their very good wages.

I can see every piece of work my team produces and who produced it. By their own accounts in our internal system. I can also view active hours and even what time they were in our system and audit exactly what they did and when. But I don't need to. And would only look if someone was consistently under producing.

If a report is due at 10am. I genuinely don't care of its produced at 6am or 9.30am. Or if the figures are ready, at 11pm the night before.

Because that's how MY team works. I also know that if they all need to be at a 3pm meeting they will be flexible and attend, even if they would usually be online then.

I don't manage children or people who act like children.

@Snoozer11

I think it matters a great deal. I’m not saying everyone needs to wear heels and a suit but I think once people start ‘slacking off’ with what they wear, it starts happening in other areas and can become a gradual decline.

Unfortunately, there are employees that once you give them an inch, they take a mile. I had this recently. Our breaks stopped being monitored but everyone was trusted to go and come back within the right time. I covered X’s break. Supposed to be half an hour so I’m expecting said person back within 35 minutes or so. I’m not going to get arsey over an extra 10 minutes. Nearly an hour later they eventually get off their hole and come back. So there’s me thinking, “oh it’s fine because they’ve obviously took all their breaks for the day in one go”. Nope, half an hour before I’m due to leave they’re suddenly “going on their break”, again.

I had to start specifying when they’d be back and literally going into the break room to get them in the end like I was looking after a toddler.

It’s a shame because there’s plenty of people who can manage their time well and work incredibly hard when they’re on the clock. It’s a real shame that others think they can do the bare minimum, take extra time and then go back to dossing about.

So yes, the joggers thing might seem like a silly detail but it’s evident once people feel relaxed to push one boundary, the rest soon follow.

Slightly off post,but certainly I've seen changes in friends who worked in offices now wfh.
Some are isolated,feel under appreciated and disconnected yet work tirelessly sticking to office hours.
Others have really enjoyed it,depression has lifted,work load is completed,but although not late,is not doing regular hours.none of them have either been congratulated or pulled up on it.So should a promotion arise,not being in the office,how can the employer tell who is worthy of it?
I know many prefer wfh but it is causing problems,every company,authority of business I contact say there are long delays due to staff wfh.

@bluntness100

That’s such a naive post I actually wonder if you are managing a team. In fact I’m surprised any manager would write such a thing. You’ve completely negated any benefits of office work in your rush to explain why people should be left to work from home. A very unbalanced view as well as a concerning lack of management ability shown.

The approach outlined by @Hekatestorch isn't naive & definitely isn't a lack of management, it's a different style of management. Some context is required here; if you manage a team of professionals then, you absolutely do not need to observe or control what time of day they choose to work, as long as they respond to emails in a timely manner & produce work by deadlines. When managing a team of more junior roles, then usually the nature of the work requires a more hands on approach.

However, the culture of the organisation & the industry sector norms also drives the amount of trust & autonomy given to team members, reducing the need to micro-manage teams, which in turn negates presenteeism and facilitate's WFH.

I worked for a large IT company 20yrs ago and 80% of the team permanently WFH. I only went into the office 1 day per week, which was the regional hub and none of my colleagues from my team or senior managers were based there, so they didn't "see" me. I was still able to secure promotion based upon how I met deadlines & delivered against goals & targets.

I came on this thread to say presenteeism is a load of bs & an antiquated, draconian & outdated approach to management & career development. But reading this thread, it's very evident that presenteeism is alive & kicking and depressingly still an integral part of the culture of several organisations.

So should a promotion arise,not being in the office,how can the employer tell who is worthy of it?

Promotions aren't about who's most worthy, it's about who has the stronger social network, sucks up the most and is most liked by the person making the decision.

It has fuck all to do with how competent, hard-working or deserving anybody is.

@user16395699

So should a promotion arise,not being in the office,how can the employer tell who is worthy of it?

Promotions aren't about who's most worthy, it's about who has the stronger social network, sucks up the most and is most liked by the person making the decision.

It has fuck all to do with how competent, hard-working or deserving anybody is.

I hire

Competency is enormously important

Sweeping yet definitive generalisations like this are… pointless

My point was that people who piss take at home also took the piss in the office. And it was often just over looked by poor management

Spot on.

@Bluntness100

Lives on mumsnet as far as I can tell, every thread I ever read I see posts from her.

So I wonder how productive home working is for you?!

Good for you if you are an exception that genuinely promotes based on who is "worthy" of it, not who has the best social network.

After an entire thread of people arguing "well, of course you need to show your face, promotions are based on networking and profile not work" .

I did not say that other factor were important!

Including networking for example

But you said competency meant fuck all.

And for many industries - it is certainly an extremely material consideration.

You seem extremely black and white on the issue

I wish posters would stop bandying the word presenteeism around. Has it occurred to them that some of us are really looking forward to meeting up with our workmates again after over a year. And being present in the office is far more than being about presenteeism.

A lot of posters seem to miss the points about soft skills and nuances that you don't get on Teams/Zoom.

I work just as efficiently at home or in the office, and much as I love DH, being with him 24/7 has meant that I am craving other company.

@Hekatestorch

That’s such a naive post I actually wonder if you are managing a team. In fact I’m surprised any manager would write such a thing. You’ve completely negated any benefits of office work in your rush to explain why people should be left to work from home. A very unbalanced view as well as a concerning lack of management ability shown.

My team as I have said over and over again are hybrid.

Quite frankly what you think if management style, isn't something that bothers me.

I didn't negate any benefits of working in an office. However, for my team, every benefit listed on this thread simply doesn't apply.

My point was that people who piss take at home also took the piss in the office. And it was often just over looked by poor management

I don't need to micro manage my team, because pisstakers don't last on my team. So when they were sent hometo wfh, they didn't need micro managing. They are adults who all know their own responsibilities. They all want to continue earning their very good wages.

I can see every piece of work my team produces and who produced it. By their own accounts in our internal system. I can also view active hours and even what time they were in our system and audit exactly what they did and when. But I don't need to. And would only look if someone was consistently under producing.

If a report is due at 10am. I genuinely don't care of its produced at 6am or 9.30am. Or if the figures are ready, at 11pm the night before.

Because that's how MY team works. I also know that if they all need to be at a 3pm meeting they will be flexible and attend, even if they would usually be online then.

I don't manage children or people who act like children.

This is how successful WFH & flexible working, works....

Also requires an open, honest culture were everybody is autonomous, individually accountable & is trusted to do their job.

And the management team acknowledge the input of all members of the team.

@RampantIvy

I wish posters would stop bandying the word presenteeism around. Has it occurred to them that some of us are really looking forward to meeting up with our workmates again after over a year. And being present in the office is far more than being about presenteeism.

A lot of posters seem to miss the points about soft skills and nuances that you don't get on Teams/Zoom.

I work just as efficiently at home or in the office, and much as I love DH, being with him 24/7 has meant that I am craving other company.

It's ok to want to be in the office. What you're describing & missing isn't it presenteeism.

Thank you @Blossomtoes & @NurseButtercup

I have been in management for a it 18 years. I spent the first half in contact centre management. It taught me one main thing.

That minor managing staff, isn't a good idea and breeds poor behaviour. I get to some degree, why contact centers do it. They need people on the phone at certain times.

But it became so obsessively managed that people got fed up, that's when the problems started and they used to start trying to exploit the system and became problem employees. Because they were so fed up, but also needed the job. Or course contact centre recruitment was not very robust either which caused issues

Its something I have aimed to not do in the rest of my career. I always have robust recruitment and ensure the members of my team can work independently without needing me to tell them they weren't logged on for 32 minutes, from 3.02pm.

I mean what happens when I go on holiday? If they all needed me watching their every move to ensure they do their job, I couldn't have anytime off. And if I came back and my team had missed loads of deadlines, I would see that as my failure as well.

These are the reasons, my employer chased me for over a year to join. Even though I turned them down

The thing is, in my experience, you do really stagnate when you work from home. You don't really get any better so why would you get promoted? And I know someone will jump on saying, oh that's just crap management, but it really isn't. You learn so much being around other people and at home, you just don't.

Can we discuss hybrid please, rather than one extreme or the other?