4 ms·

Bosses Are Clueless That Workers Are Miserable and Looking to Leave

83 points by ipsocannibal 6y ago

ApolloVonZ 6y ago
Sadly, this article is behind a paywall..
- ipsocannibal 6y ago
  Hope this helps: https://archive.is/hRLwS https://archive.is/hRLwS
- 1ark 6y ago
  If on Chromium-based browser, get Bypass Paywalls (https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome)
freeone3000 6y ago
Of course employees are miserable, all their time is spent on teams meetings instead of actually doing work, they're isolated at home, and they have no useful feedback mechanisms. Anybody who thought their employees were suddenly going to thrive during a global pandemic is horribly out of touch.
- ipsocannibal 6y ago
  I think a lot of sentiment on management side boils down to confirmation bias. Employee morale is big part of a managers job, but only truely caring managers will admit if they are failing. In my experience most managers will minimize, highlight only successes, or out right lie to save face.
tomdell 6y ago
Personal experience: My company had record profits due to cost cutting in 2020, yet my department’s budget was frozen at the beginning of the pandemic and remains frozen. Two team members quit briefly before the pandemic and were never backfilled due to the budget freeze, no promotions or raises have been given (or will be given until at least the upcoming summer or fall, I’m told - though this flies in the face of what I’m seeing in other departments), and the workload for my team has increased drastically. I’m a middle manager with no real control over promotions/raises/etc. and it has been sad to see previously chipper and excited employees descend into obvious misery.
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  Why give raises when your employees have to be grateful for having a job at all?
  - tomdell 6y ago
    That seems to be the MO!
- Viliam1234 6y ago
  > Two team members quit briefly before the pandemic and were never backfilled due to the budget freeze I don't understand this. If the budget is frozen, that means it still contains money for salaries of those two team members that are no longer there, so I assume the salaries are no longer paid to them. Which means, the same money could be used to pay two new people... or maybe just one new person, if the new employees are more expensive than old ones. Eh, just kidding!
kiawe_fire 6y ago
I feel like this article conflates a few things, or perhaps I'm seeing through my own biased lens... but... In my experience, most managers are clueless about employee morale and whether they are looking to leave, unrelated to the pandemic conditions. I can see how this would be exacerbated today, but I would be surprised if this wasn't always true both across the board and especially for newer employees, women, and minorities out of desire of "not wanting to complain" if they see their position as somehow riskier to begin with. That said, as someone who has worked from home 100% previously, I predicted the barriers with work time would break down. My colleagues initially applauded being able to work from home with almost a sense of disbelief, and for a couple of months, all of the routine problems people had kind of faded away. I think there was a sense of gratitude from management that ANY work at all could be done like this, considering how un-trusting of work from home they were. And we were happy to finally be given some trust. But now? All the "old" problems from the office are catching back up to us, the gratitude on both sides is waning, and IMO because there's less "water cooler" commiserating, people are "suffering in silence" more with less of an outlet.
- BlargMcLarg 6y ago
  For me, remote work was a huge gain. Until management pushed down hard and essentially tried to turn remote work into "it's just like working at the office!" I don't miss the office and I don't want to work remote with the mindset of working at the office. With office mindset, I mean: * Emphasis on video calls over audio-only calls * Emphasis on synchronous communication (calls) over asynchronous (IM, Email) * Loads of small yet highly interruptive meetings often (again, synchronous video communication) * Management still largely sitting in its own ivory tower * Still pushing a 9-5 mentality heavily favoring morning people Sure, we got rid of commutes, open offices and the likes. But we can do so much better. It doesn't exactly instill confidence that we can move to fulltime WFH or even WFA (work from anywhere) structures. Additionally, all these things emphasize methods over results, which poor management tries to cover up as "but we are emphasizing results, see, you make your coworkers so much happier with video meetings!" NB: I'm not trying to enforce my preferred way of working as the "one and only way". If you prefer video calls and meetings often, you do you. I'm just getting tired of the inverse happening, people like me being told "this is the one and only way, and if you don't agree you're not a 'team player'".
Throwawayjedi 6y ago
Then please leave because I’m looking for a job.
musicale 6y ago
Pandemic or not, telling your boss "I'm miserable here at Evilcorp and looking to leave" is not usually considered a good career move. I expect it's almost impossible to get honest feedback from someone you can fire at will, as most companies and bosses can.
- o_m 6y ago
  Aren't polls like these usually anonymous?
  - goatinaboat 6y ago
    Aren't polls like these usually anonymous? Usually the email will say, this survey is completely anonymous, here is your unique link, don’t forward it to anyone else
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - musicale 6y ago
      > this survey is completely anonymous, here is your unique link ;-)
goatinaboat 6y ago
While the study showed the use of Microsoft’s Teams chat and teleconference product is going up, it also flagged that this unstinting growth is draining for workers. Time spent in Teams meetings has more than doubled and keeps rising, meetings are 10 minutes longer on average Teams is so awful that using it all day every day is exhausting. Zoom is noticeably less fatiguing, but none of them are great.
sjg007 6y ago
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. I think we need better tools and processes for the work from home era. Cal Newport calls this the hyperactive hive mind. In the office you had all of these meetings and interruptions so the real work got done outside of normal hours basically. With work from home it is a lot of trying to get the right information and aligning with others. Then the rest of the work gets done outside of that.

83 points by ipsocannibal 6y ago

ApolloVonZ 6y ago

Sadly, this article is behind a paywall..

ipsocannibal 6y ago
Hope this helps: https://archive.is/hRLwS https://archive.is/hRLwS
1ark 6y ago
If on Chromium-based browser, get Bypass Paywalls (https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome)

freeone3000 6y ago

Of course employees are miserable, all their time is spent on teams meetings instead of actually doing work, they're isolated at home, and they have no useful feedback mechanisms. Anybody who thought their employees were suddenly going to thrive during a global pandemic is horribly out of touch.

ipsocannibal 6y ago
I think a lot of sentiment on management side boils down to confirmation bias. Employee morale is big part of a managers job, but only truely caring managers will admit if they are failing. In my experience most managers will minimize, highlight only successes, or out right lie to save face.

tomdell 6y ago

Personal experience: My company had record profits due to cost cutting in 2020, yet my department’s budget was frozen at the beginning of the pandemic and remains frozen. Two team members quit briefly before the pandemic and were never backfilled due to the budget freeze, no promotions or raises have been given (or will be given until at least the upcoming summer or fall, I’m told - though this flies in the face of what I’m seeing in other departments), and the workload for my team has increased drastically. I’m a middle manager with no real control over promotions/raises/etc. and it has been sad to see previously chipper and excited employees descend into obvious misery.

tinus_hn 6y ago
Why give raises when your employees have to be grateful for having a job at all?
- tomdell 6y ago
  That seems to be the MO!
Viliam1234 6y ago
> Two team members quit briefly before the pandemic and were never backfilled due to the budget freeze I don't understand this. If the budget is frozen, that means it still contains money for salaries of those two team members that are no longer there, so I assume the salaries are no longer paid to them. Which means, the same money could be used to pay two new people... or maybe just one new person, if the new employees are more expensive than old ones. Eh, just kidding!

kiawe_fire 6y ago

I feel like this article conflates a few things, or perhaps I'm seeing through my own biased lens... but... In my experience, most managers are clueless about employee morale and whether they are looking to leave, unrelated to the pandemic conditions. I can see how this would be exacerbated today, but I would be surprised if this wasn't always true both across the board and especially for newer employees, women, and minorities out of desire of "not wanting to complain" if they see their position as somehow riskier to begin with. That said, as someone who has worked from home 100% previously, I predicted the barriers with work time would break down. My colleagues initially applauded being able to work from home with almost a sense of disbelief, and for a couple of months, all of the routine problems people had kind of faded away. I think there was a sense of gratitude from management that ANY work at all could be done like this, considering how un-trusting of work from home they were. And we were happy to finally be given some trust. But now? All the "old" problems from the office are catching back up to us, the gratitude on both sides is waning, and IMO because there's less "water cooler" commiserating, people are "suffering in silence" more with less of an outlet.

BlargMcLarg 6y ago
For me, remote work was a huge gain. Until management pushed down hard and essentially tried to turn remote work into "it's just like working at the office!" I don't miss the office and I don't want to work remote with the mindset of working at the office. With office mindset, I mean: * Emphasis on video calls over audio-only calls * Emphasis on synchronous communication (calls) over asynchronous (IM, Email) * Loads of small yet highly interruptive meetings often (again, synchronous video communication) * Management still largely sitting in its own ivory tower * Still pushing a 9-5 mentality heavily favoring morning people Sure, we got rid of commutes, open offices and the likes. But we can do so much better. It doesn't exactly instill confidence that we can move to fulltime WFH or even WFA (work from anywhere) structures. Additionally, all these things emphasize methods over results, which poor management tries to cover up as "but we are emphasizing results, see, you make your coworkers so much happier with video meetings!" NB: I'm not trying to enforce my preferred way of working as the "one and only way". If you prefer video calls and meetings often, you do you. I'm just getting tired of the inverse happening, people like me being told "this is the one and only way, and if you don't agree you're not a 'team player'".

Throwawayjedi 6y ago

Then please leave because I’m looking for a job.

musicale 6y ago

Pandemic or not, telling your boss "I'm miserable here at Evilcorp and looking to leave" is not usually considered a good career move. I expect it's almost impossible to get honest feedback from someone you can fire at will, as most companies and bosses can.

o_m 6y ago
Aren't polls like these usually anonymous?
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  Aren't polls like these usually anonymous? Usually the email will say, this survey is completely anonymous, here is your unique link, don’t forward it to anyone else
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - musicale 6y ago
    > this survey is completely anonymous, here is your unique link ;-)

goatinaboat 6y ago

While the study showed the use of Microsoft’s Teams chat and teleconference product is going up, it also flagged that this unstinting growth is draining for workers. Time spent in Teams meetings has more than doubled and keeps rising, meetings are 10 minutes longer on average Teams is so awful that using it all day every day is exhausting. Zoom is noticeably less fatiguing, but none of them are great.

sjg007 6y ago

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. I think we need better tools and processes for the work from home era. Cal Newport calls this the hyperactive hive mind. In the office you had all of these meetings and interruptions so the real work got done outside of normal hours basically. With work from home it is a lot of trying to get the right information and aligning with others. Then the rest of the work gets done outside of that.