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My companies biggest concern is ensuring that people are still working while at home, when in the office they have the ability to walk around and see that you a

My companies biggest concern is ensuring that people are still working while at home, when in the office they have the ability to walk around and see that you are at your desk. While it is still possible to be working on other things besides work, they at least see you are in the office and in front of your computer. When at home they've said in the past "We dont know if you're really working". For my position remote work would work great, if I dont have code to show for, I'm getting fired, but other positions in the company have a problem "proving" work I guess. So it comes down to a lack of trust and guarantee that people are still working while outside the office.

BjoernKW 10y ago
That's another problem with cargo cult work today: Work is commonly measured in time wasted instead of value created. The reason for this is that when it comes to work society is still largely caught in Taylorism / assembly line thinking. When you had to maximise the output of an assembly line measuring work in terms of time made sense. With office / white collar / knowledge work this management approach simply breaks and it has been broken for decades: Mock work, people pretending to "work" while in reality they're only butts in seats is a widespread phenomenon that not only impairs productivity but mental and physical health as well. It shouldn't matter how much time you spend on a task as long as it gets done before the deadline and you're available for others to ask questions or give feedback. The current system favours those who are less productive. It also favours those who've learned to game the system. There are saner, more reasonable approaches to assessing work such as results-only work environments and value-based pricing. It's about time we adopt approaches like these instead of relying on 200 year old cargo cult management methods.

BjoernKW 10y ago

That's another problem with cargo cult work today: Work is commonly measured in time wasted instead of value created. The reason for this is that when it comes to work society is still largely caught in Taylorism / assembly line thinking. When you had to maximise the output of an assembly line measuring work in terms of time made sense. With office / white collar / knowledge work this management approach simply breaks and it has been broken for decades: Mock work, people pretending to "work" while in reality they're only butts in seats is a widespread phenomenon that not only impairs productivity but mental and physical health as well. It shouldn't matter how much time you spend on a task as long as it gets done before the deadline and you're available for others to ask questions or give feedback. The current system favours those who are less productive. It also favours those who've learned to game the system. There are saner, more reasonable approaches to assessing work such as results-only work environments and value-based pricing. It's about time we adopt approaches like these instead of relying on 200 year old cargo cult management methods.