All your brains belongs to me. Now get back to work you lazy sod! There now don’t you feel super motivated? I think the reason side projects are fine is you

All your brains belongs to me. Now get back to work you lazy sod! There now don’t you feel super motivated? I think the reason side projects are fine is you have to focus on the value of an engineer. If you are seeing value how time is being used doesn’t matter. It’s when you are not seeing value generated that you need to start worrying about time management. But before that make sure you have full visibility into what activities are taking place. Maybe there is value being generated you just didn’t notice. As manager an important role is to provide visibility into each engineers work/value.