5 ms·

I'll preface this by saying that I largely agree with you. But just for shits and giggles, what kind of recourse, if any, should an employer of remote-working e

I'll preface this by saying that I largely agree with you. But just for shits and giggles, what kind of recourse, if any, should an employer of remote-working employees have here? If you're required to come into the office, it's pretty easy for your employer to tell when you lie about the number of hours worked. With remote work, that becomes quite the challenge. What's an acceptable stopgap?

danielheath 4y ago
I mean… they could pay for results instead of hours. For a WFH desk job without real-time latency requirements, an hourly rate makes no sense at all to me.
- richwater 4y ago
  I assure you moving to "results based pay" for the type of labor that is paid hourly will make their lives _more_ miserable, not less. If you think measurement is abusive now, wait till everything they do is tracked and monitored to determine _results_.
  - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
    That appears to be what they were already doing though. Which is why they turned on the monitoring software.
  - danielheath 4y ago
    Results are most easily tracked when work is submitted; hours can only be tracked by intrusive monitoring.
  - msrenee 4y ago
    I interpreted it as "this is the amount of work that should be accomplished in a week" rather than a piecework system. Basically figure out what 40 hours worth of work looks like and if that's getting done, it shouldn't be a big deal if documents aren't being opened and closed often enough. Sounds like she should have set something up to open and close documents automatically if none have been accessed for a certain period of time.
    - crooked-v 4y ago
      The point you're missing is that the companies that already do that set the standards based on a 60- or 80-hour week, then say that anyone who can't do that in 40 hours is an underperformer who needs to try harder.
      - msrenee 4y ago
        In my imaginary scenario, it would be based on the average output of current workers during a 40-hour workweek. The existing companies that pull that crap ought to be reprimanded themselves. I worked for Gallup for a very short, very miserable tenure. When they casually mentioned that they had increased the number of completed surveys for a particular client required to meet quota simply because employees were meeting the quotas too easily, I got the heck out of there. The company was getting paid the same per survey by the client independent of how many surveys were completed per hour. They saw an opportunity to increase profits by decreasing bonus pay and away they went. It wasn't a one-off situation, it was SOP. I feel like I say this daily anymore, but there ought to be a law. In doing so, I broke the half-sheet "contract" I had to sign requiring me to work for the company for at least 6 months under threat of lawsuit. Which is 110% unenforceable in my state and most others in the US. Didn't have to break the non-compete specifically, but it strongly reminds me of the way companies all over the country try to intimidate employees into staying in a crappy employment situation by making them sign scary, but completely unactionable contracts that the average employee is intended to mistake for a legitimate threat to their ability to provide for themselves and their families.
      - Aeolun 4y ago
        The existing companies that don’t do that give people 80 hrs of work at 50% pay.
  - 13of40 4y ago
    Maybe this is a life pro tip for anyone entering a situation like this. Keep your own logs, and if they come after you because the AI said you slacked off, just point out all the times you answered a question from on-call during dinnertime or were pressured into commuting to an office so you could sit alone all day and talk on the telephone.
floren 4y ago
> If you're required to come into the office, it's pretty easy for your employer to tell when you lie about the number of hours worked. No, it's easy to tell when you lie about the number of hours spent in the office. If the remote-working employees are not performing to the level you require (and it seems that this woman was not, which is why they turned on the tracking in the first place) you can tell them to improve or they're out.
A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
I think it really depends heavily on the job in question. If you are making physical widgets it is easy to track and prove you did things, but with less 'quantifiable' contributions, it just varies. I personally started a habit of documenting each meeting and interaction ( which also actually helped me to organize my rather messy approach to everything ) to make sure people know things are happening.

danielheath 4y ago

I mean… they could pay for results instead of hours. For a WFH desk job without real-time latency requirements, an hourly rate makes no sense at all to me.

richwater 4y ago
I assure you moving to "results based pay" for the type of labor that is paid hourly will make their lives _more_ miserable, not less. If you think measurement is abusive now, wait till everything they do is tracked and monitored to determine _results_.
- anonymouskimmer 4y ago
  That appears to be what they were already doing though. Which is why they turned on the monitoring software.
- danielheath 4y ago
  Results are most easily tracked when work is submitted; hours can only be tracked by intrusive monitoring.
- msrenee 4y ago
  I interpreted it as "this is the amount of work that should be accomplished in a week" rather than a piecework system. Basically figure out what 40 hours worth of work looks like and if that's getting done, it shouldn't be a big deal if documents aren't being opened and closed often enough. Sounds like she should have set something up to open and close documents automatically if none have been accessed for a certain period of time.
  - crooked-v 4y ago
    The point you're missing is that the companies that already do that set the standards based on a 60- or 80-hour week, then say that anyone who can't do that in 40 hours is an underperformer who needs to try harder.
    - msrenee 4y ago
      In my imaginary scenario, it would be based on the average output of current workers during a 40-hour workweek. The existing companies that pull that crap ought to be reprimanded themselves. I worked for Gallup for a very short, very miserable tenure. When they casually mentioned that they had increased the number of completed surveys for a particular client required to meet quota simply because employees were meeting the quotas too easily, I got the heck out of there. The company was getting paid the same per survey by the client independent of how many surveys were completed per hour. They saw an opportunity to increase profits by decreasing bonus pay and away they went. It wasn't a one-off situation, it was SOP. I feel like I say this daily anymore, but there ought to be a law. In doing so, I broke the half-sheet "contract" I had to sign requiring me to work for the company for at least 6 months under threat of lawsuit. Which is 110% unenforceable in my state and most others in the US. Didn't have to break the non-compete specifically, but it strongly reminds me of the way companies all over the country try to intimidate employees into staying in a crappy employment situation by making them sign scary, but completely unactionable contracts that the average employee is intended to mistake for a legitimate threat to their ability to provide for themselves and their families.
    - Aeolun 4y ago
      The existing companies that don’t do that give people 80 hrs of work at 50% pay.
- 13of40 4y ago
  Maybe this is a life pro tip for anyone entering a situation like this. Keep your own logs, and if they come after you because the AI said you slacked off, just point out all the times you answered a question from on-call during dinnertime or were pressured into commuting to an office so you could sit alone all day and talk on the telephone.

floren 4y ago

> If you're required to come into the office, it's pretty easy for your employer to tell when you lie about the number of hours worked. No, it's easy to tell when you lie about the number of hours spent in the office. If the remote-working employees are not performing to the level you require (and it seems that this woman was not, which is why they turned on the tracking in the first place) you can tell them to improve or they're out.

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago

I think it really depends heavily on the job in question. If you are making physical widgets it is easy to track and prove you did things, but with less 'quantifiable' contributions, it just varies. I personally started a habit of documenting each meeting and interaction ( which also actually helped me to organize my rather messy approach to everything ) to make sure people know things are happening.