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At https://www.waiterio.com https://www.waiterio.com we are fully remote and we introduced 32 hours work weeks except for customer support which still does 40 h

At https://www.waiterio.com https://www.waiterio.com we are fully remote and we introduced 32 hours work weeks except for customer support which still does 40 hours a week. We track hours with hubstaff.com which takes a random screenshot every 10 minutes. It's been a mixed bag. Half of the team kept productivity up and logged those 32 hours stably. Another half of the team, when left unchecked went down to 14 hours a week and very low output. I have still a lot to learn and I'm far from a great manager. I know perfectly well I might be the reason why a part of my team is underperforming and not working while I don't watch. I too have dreamt of giving autonomy and see the team reach great goals on their own. Those dreams seem naive now given the much harsher reality I've faced so far. Given how all this announcement of reduce hours look more like self-advertisement rather than a justly curious trial in something new that might or might not work, I'm a bit skeptic the others are getting things done with the same budget and efficiency that I do. What if the others have a larger budget and hiring more senior team-mates? What if their efficiency is actually lower than mine? What if they have already fired all the employees that were not absolute workaholics? Frankly I'm not so confident of my ways. I'll keep hustling and crawling my way up in the mud though. At least I know I'm not sugar-coating it.

reneherse 4y ago
You'll probably do better once you can retain people who reject employer surveillance.
- giorgioz 4y ago
  No-one ever quit from our company so that's not it.
  - lolinder 4y ago
    How many got wind of your surveillance policies and never bothered to apply? How many sensed your attitude towards your employees in the interview and took a different offer? How many spoke to one of your employees after the interview and then ghosted you? You can't measure the potentially wide-ranging negative impacts of your attitude and policies.
    - giorgioz 4y ago
      We are a startup of 6 people and we do international hires from different countries. So practically certainly no 2 candidates we've ever interviewed knew each other. You assume we are a big startup with a big budget and all problems that come with it. Ask questions next time.
      - lolinder 4y ago
        I didn't assume anything. Everything in my original post was a question. The point wasn't that any one of those hypotheticals was real, just that you can't account for all of the downsides to treating your employees like toddlers. If you need to take 10-minute screenshots while your company only has 6 people, you've got the wrong 6 people and you're going to fail. At that stage you can't afford to have anyone who isn't pulling their weight. If you're taking 10 minute screenshots with six people and don't need to do so, you're still going to fail, but it will be because you drove away your founding team.
- giorgioz 4y ago
  You assume everyone is self-oriented and wants to be autonomous and have a great work ethics and care about their privacy. There are people like that. There are also people that want a lot of guidance. There are also people that just wants to be paid and don't really care much about the current job goals. There are also people that will do the bare-minumum they can to keep the job. Understanding who is who requires good management and a good number of managers. How big is your company? What's the ratio of managers vs doers?
  - anon2020dot00 4y ago
    Taking ten minute screenshots is not a good practice. Why not just measure on output or have regular meetings? What kind of job requires ten minute screenshots? Definitely not a software development job.
    - giorgioz 4y ago
      I've watched the screenshots 3 times in 2 years when someone has been missing deadlines and failing to explaining why for several weeks in a row. I employee people from all over the world. Some of them have real problems. A guy from Venezuela got his computer fried from an electrical surge. I asked him a lot of proof and he did provide it immediately. It was all true and I bought him a new laptop. Another guy from Mexico said he could not work because a hail storm had damaged his computer. When asked for proof turned out that it was all completely made up. He did not wanted to provide a single photo of his damaged equipment. He played the "You don't trust me??" card. In my experience people that do the "You don't trust me?!?" card are at the last rope and have buried theirselves in a huge pile of lies. So no, I don't trust employees from the other side of the planet that I've never met in person that I just started to work with last month. Trust need to be earned over time with actual proof of being worth of trust. I give them the benefit of the doubt and I ask for proof.
      - anon2020dot00 4y ago
        I will just talk in general terms and not say anything personal since I don't have any personal knowledge of your situation. But in general, the problem with surveillance is that it is just all about appearances. People usually learn to "look" busy instead of being productive and that is counter-productive to actual productivity when people are just pre-occupied with appearances. Another problem is that it creates an atmosphere of low trust in the company. When there is an atmosphere of low trust, people will be less motivated to work hard and to give their whole effort since they will feel they are just expendable since the manager doesn't trust them.
twh270 4y ago
Some people don't have a strong enough work ethic to be productive when left without direct supervision, but there's hardly a more obvious and intrusive way to say "We don't trust you" than to take a screenshot every 10 minutes. That would absolutely demolish my desire to work.
- giorgioz 4y ago
  In fact, I don't trust my employees to a full 100% degree. I didn't have time or ways to build trust (yet). They work on the other side of the planet, I've never met them in person. Many of them are literally missing the few goals I've managed to set. > That would absolutely demolish my desire to work. I've watched probably the screenshots 3 times in 2 years when someone was underperforming and it turned out s/he was just not working at all. If you had the desire to work to start with, I would have never checked your screenshots because you have hit goals or showed me you could do awesome stuff.
triyambakam 4y ago
Measuring exact hours and performing surveillance is unbelievably immature.
- giorgioz 4y ago
  This is not an argument. You are literally saying you don't want to believe in something that is actually happening. I'm telling you of a real problem with real people. You are saying it's not possible to believe it (unbelievably). You called me immature. Yet the problem stands and you have no idea of my actual maturity. You only apply correlation with the fact that other people you know that would do that surveillance would be immature. You don't know about my situation. Ask questions.

reneherse 4y ago

You'll probably do better once you can retain people who reject employer surveillance.

giorgioz 4y ago
No-one ever quit from our company so that's not it.
- lolinder 4y ago
  How many got wind of your surveillance policies and never bothered to apply? How many sensed your attitude towards your employees in the interview and took a different offer? How many spoke to one of your employees after the interview and then ghosted you? You can't measure the potentially wide-ranging negative impacts of your attitude and policies.
  - giorgioz 4y ago
    We are a startup of 6 people and we do international hires from different countries. So practically certainly no 2 candidates we've ever interviewed knew each other. You assume we are a big startup with a big budget and all problems that come with it. Ask questions next time.
    - lolinder 4y ago
      I didn't assume anything. Everything in my original post was a question. The point wasn't that any one of those hypotheticals was real, just that you can't account for all of the downsides to treating your employees like toddlers. If you need to take 10-minute screenshots while your company only has 6 people, you've got the wrong 6 people and you're going to fail. At that stage you can't afford to have anyone who isn't pulling their weight. If you're taking 10 minute screenshots with six people and don't need to do so, you're still going to fail, but it will be because you drove away your founding team.
giorgioz 4y ago
You assume everyone is self-oriented and wants to be autonomous and have a great work ethics and care about their privacy. There are people like that. There are also people that want a lot of guidance. There are also people that just wants to be paid and don't really care much about the current job goals. There are also people that will do the bare-minumum they can to keep the job. Understanding who is who requires good management and a good number of managers. How big is your company? What's the ratio of managers vs doers?
- anon2020dot00 4y ago
  Taking ten minute screenshots is not a good practice. Why not just measure on output or have regular meetings? What kind of job requires ten minute screenshots? Definitely not a software development job.
  - giorgioz 4y ago
    I've watched the screenshots 3 times in 2 years when someone has been missing deadlines and failing to explaining why for several weeks in a row. I employee people from all over the world. Some of them have real problems. A guy from Venezuela got his computer fried from an electrical surge. I asked him a lot of proof and he did provide it immediately. It was all true and I bought him a new laptop. Another guy from Mexico said he could not work because a hail storm had damaged his computer. When asked for proof turned out that it was all completely made up. He did not wanted to provide a single photo of his damaged equipment. He played the "You don't trust me??" card. In my experience people that do the "You don't trust me?!?" card are at the last rope and have buried theirselves in a huge pile of lies. So no, I don't trust employees from the other side of the planet that I've never met in person that I just started to work with last month. Trust need to be earned over time with actual proof of being worth of trust. I give them the benefit of the doubt and I ask for proof.
    - anon2020dot00 4y ago
      I will just talk in general terms and not say anything personal since I don't have any personal knowledge of your situation. But in general, the problem with surveillance is that it is just all about appearances. People usually learn to "look" busy instead of being productive and that is counter-productive to actual productivity when people are just pre-occupied with appearances. Another problem is that it creates an atmosphere of low trust in the company. When there is an atmosphere of low trust, people will be less motivated to work hard and to give their whole effort since they will feel they are just expendable since the manager doesn't trust them.

twh270 4y ago

Some people don't have a strong enough work ethic to be productive when left without direct supervision, but there's hardly a more obvious and intrusive way to say "We don't trust you" than to take a screenshot every 10 minutes. That would absolutely demolish my desire to work.

giorgioz 4y ago
In fact, I don't trust my employees to a full 100% degree. I didn't have time or ways to build trust (yet). They work on the other side of the planet, I've never met them in person. Many of them are literally missing the few goals I've managed to set. > That would absolutely demolish my desire to work. I've watched probably the screenshots 3 times in 2 years when someone was underperforming and it turned out s/he was just not working at all. If you had the desire to work to start with, I would have never checked your screenshots because you have hit goals or showed me you could do awesome stuff.

triyambakam 4y ago

Measuring exact hours and performing surveillance is unbelievably immature.

giorgioz 4y ago
This is not an argument. You are literally saying you don't want to believe in something that is actually happening. I'm telling you of a real problem with real people. You are saying it's not possible to believe it (unbelievably). You called me immature. Yet the problem stands and you have no idea of my actual maturity. You only apply correlation with the fact that other people you know that would do that surveillance would be immature. You don't know about my situation. Ask questions.