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No, I believe managers do useful work. What I mean is that knowledge workers have discovered they have the capability to do their job just as effectively when r
by fwlr 4y ago
No, I believe managers do useful work. What I mean is that knowledge workers have discovered they have the capability to do their job just as effectively when remote, while managers have simultaneously discovered they don’t have the capability to do their job nearly as effectively when remote; i.e. a lot of managers are realizing they relied on face-to-face interpersonal skills to motivate, track, and manage their employees. Some managers (like yourself) have clearly adapted, while others have realized how much they relied on (benign!) shouldersurfing to figure out if work was being done.
- gcatalfamo 4y agoI know it's not very HN-y to say "I agree", but I think your comment encapsulates wonderfully the general topic, in a concise and very well put paragraph. edit: I am also commenting to retrieve it in the future.
- yoden 4y agoI think this is a very insightful comment. If you're an experienced individual contributor, the shift to remote work was great. You got less oversight at work and more free time in your personal life. This category is a lot of the hacker news audience, so remote work is popular here. It was less good if you were a new contributor. You might find yourself with less development and struggling to break into existing cliques within the organization. You may not have built good practices in personal time management. None of this is malicious, it is just failures that are easier to have happen when working remote and not being careful. Managers have an even harder time. Good managers work by building strong relationships with their team members, not with carrots or sticks. That's harder in a remote environment, due to the default-private nature of most remote communication. The lack of relationships hurts individual contributors too, who become even more like cogs in a machine. Overall, I think the ability to retain experienced employees and hire from a wide range of locations outweighs these costs of remote work, but they are real and significant. For Big Tech, where acquiring talent is relatively easier due to salaries and name recognition, you can see why they might prioritize in-office work.
- caskstrength 4y ago> Some managers (like yourself) have clearly adapted, while others have realized how much they relied on (benign!) shouldersurfing to figure out if work was being done. So you are saying that those "other managers" will have to actually become competent in projects they are managing instead of measuring the time butts spent in the seats and trying to sneak on employees who are reading reddit at work? Good!