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This sounds like the sort of thing a founder or executive would say to make themselves not seem like the bad guy and shift blame to “middle managers”. There’s a

This sounds like the sort of thing a founder or executive would say to make themselves not seem like the bad guy and shift blame to “middle managers”. There’s a reason that in the world of fraud and auditing that “tone at the top” is such a big focus and not “tone at the middle”.

tomrod 5y ago
Some of the most successful campaigns I've seen in this pace start at the top.
Karrot_Kream 5y ago
I don't think it's _not_ the fault of those at the top. Every level needs to be cognizant of the effects of "forward the comms" culture. Ultimately I think it should be the top that takes the responsibility. Unfortunately it seems like the law only mandates writing down the current culture, though hopefully it's the first step to challenging employers based on what they wrote down.
- eru 5y ago
  A technical solution could help: Make it easy to set up things so that by default whatever message you send after reasonable office hours only gets delivered in the morning.
  - Karrot_Kream 5y ago
    That's what we do at our company FWIW. Lots of people queue up comms to be sent during the start of the other person's business day. It helps a lot especially for folks in other time zones.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      As a remote-first company, many of our teams/channels have people spanning five or more timezones. For my team, there is no time that I could send a slack to the channel in which everyone is working (and I think exactly one hour where it’s not 10:30PM-8AM for someone in the channel if everyone is in their home time zone). Further, I don’t require employees to notify the team if they travel to another time zone temporarily (it’s none of my/our business). Receiver-side notification settings are the workable answer here IMO. (I don’t care when you respond to the Slack channel; I do care that we can use Slack. Slack has the ability to set your own schedule on notifications already.)
      - midasuni 5y ago
        I don’t understand why anyone would have slack open outside of their work hours. And then complain because they lack the self control to turn it off.
    - midasuni 5y ago
      I don’t care when the email comes in as I won’t look at it until 8am (assuming I’m working 8-4)
ketzo 5y ago
You’ve never had a teammate who was just ALWAYS online on Slack? Or found yourself working on a weekend because you thought of a bug fix? I agree that there’s a lot of blame-shifting that happens at work. But lots of people struggle to disconnect from work for non-malicious reasons, either their own or those of someone else.
- jjav 5y ago
  > You’ve never had a teammate who was just ALWAYS online on Slack? Yes, but I don't care if they are, it won't make me. Where it becomes toxic is when the CxOs are on slack 24x7. Then it becomes a company direction, whether explicitly stated or not. I've also seen the opposite, where the executive team set an exemplary tone about work/life balance in actions and words, so that becomes the company culture.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    That's unfortunate. Anyone that isn't being paid similar piles of money shouldn't be made to feel any work-hour pressure based on what a CxO does.
    - jjav 5y ago
      I've been in a company where the the CEO is on slack from 6am to midnight 7 days a week expecting a response within a minute to anything. Extremely toxic environment. The worst of it, in some sense, is that they don't even do it from an angle of intentionally attempting to overwork people. It's just that they're an obsessive multitasker who doesn't really get that focus-oriented people need focus time, which is the complete opposite of what slack is.
      - GoblinSlayer 5y ago
        Overwork means the manager can't manage time and doesn't get work done on schedule. Is there some memey site that explains this? Like https://www.managersresourcehandbook.com/lessons-from-bad-boss/ https://www.managersresourcehandbook.com/lessons-from-bad-bo... (but that site focuses a lot on fluffy stuff like giving much attention to employees).

tomrod 5y ago

Some of the most successful campaigns I've seen in this pace start at the top.

Karrot_Kream 5y ago

I don't think it's _not_ the fault of those at the top. Every level needs to be cognizant of the effects of "forward the comms" culture. Ultimately I think it should be the top that takes the responsibility. Unfortunately it seems like the law only mandates writing down the current culture, though hopefully it's the first step to challenging employers based on what they wrote down.

eru 5y ago
A technical solution could help: Make it easy to set up things so that by default whatever message you send after reasonable office hours only gets delivered in the morning.
- Karrot_Kream 5y ago
  That's what we do at our company FWIW. Lots of people queue up comms to be sent during the start of the other person's business day. It helps a lot especially for folks in other time zones.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    As a remote-first company, many of our teams/channels have people spanning five or more timezones. For my team, there is no time that I could send a slack to the channel in which everyone is working (and I think exactly one hour where it’s not 10:30PM-8AM for someone in the channel if everyone is in their home time zone). Further, I don’t require employees to notify the team if they travel to another time zone temporarily (it’s none of my/our business). Receiver-side notification settings are the workable answer here IMO. (I don’t care when you respond to the Slack channel; I do care that we can use Slack. Slack has the ability to set your own schedule on notifications already.)
    - midasuni 5y ago
      I don’t understand why anyone would have slack open outside of their work hours. And then complain because they lack the self control to turn it off.
  - midasuni 5y ago
    I don’t care when the email comes in as I won’t look at it until 8am (assuming I’m working 8-4)

ketzo 5y ago

You’ve never had a teammate who was just ALWAYS online on Slack? Or found yourself working on a weekend because you thought of a bug fix? I agree that there’s a lot of blame-shifting that happens at work. But lots of people struggle to disconnect from work for non-malicious reasons, either their own or those of someone else.

jjav 5y ago
> You’ve never had a teammate who was just ALWAYS online on Slack? Yes, but I don't care if they are, it won't make me. Where it becomes toxic is when the CxOs are on slack 24x7. Then it becomes a company direction, whether explicitly stated or not. I've also seen the opposite, where the executive team set an exemplary tone about work/life balance in actions and words, so that becomes the company culture.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  That's unfortunate. Anyone that isn't being paid similar piles of money shouldn't be made to feel any work-hour pressure based on what a CxO does.
  - jjav 5y ago
    I've been in a company where the the CEO is on slack from 6am to midnight 7 days a week expecting a response within a minute to anything. Extremely toxic environment. The worst of it, in some sense, is that they don't even do it from an angle of intentionally attempting to overwork people. It's just that they're an obsessive multitasker who doesn't really get that focus-oriented people need focus time, which is the complete opposite of what slack is.
    - GoblinSlayer 5y ago
      Overwork means the manager can't manage time and doesn't get work done on schedule. Is there some memey site that explains this? Like https://www.managersresourcehandbook.com/lessons-from-bad-boss/ https://www.managersresourcehandbook.com/lessons-from-bad-bo... (but that site focuses a lot on fluffy stuff like giving much attention to employees).