6 ms·

Monitoring butts-in-seats is a good metric for solving one kind of productivity loss. Eg - not doing job at all, the problem is that it doesn’t address the core

Monitoring butts-in-seats is a good metric for solving one kind of productivity loss. Eg - not doing job at all, the problem is that it doesn’t address the core issue of measuring what actually needs to be done.

SPascareli13 4y ago
I guarantee that you can be sitting in a chair all day and still not get any work done. The only thing this might measure is time you are available to do work, but the same can be done remotely.
- luckylion 4y ago
  At some point, sitting in front of a screen not doing anything gets harder than actually working. That's very different for "remote not working", where you can go out with friends, or run errands, or clean your house, or chill in your living room etc.
- ljf 4y ago
  Not only that, but that same person can stop a lot of other people getting their work done. I am far less distracted by the random conversations people try to pull you into, or loud chatter of teams around me, when I'm at home. I deliver so much more at home, though I do see some value in being in the office, I just find it frustrating how many people seem to rely on the office for their social life and also loudly take video calls from their desks all day now.
twodave 4y ago
Depends on the kind of work. If your "job" is pure data entry or smashing out code without any thought, then this might be a way to measure. It's still not necessary, though, since in that case it's a stupid job and you can therefore just measure something stupid like lines of code or data entries completed to get a sense of how well the job is being done. As soon as your job involves thought work, there is rarely any connection whatsoever between where the job is done and productivity. For example, in software development it's common that NOT writing code right now is the best choice if you haven't done the other steps. For jobs like this, productivity is a cycle that involves first learning, then planning, then finally maybe writing some code. Or maybe learning some more first and then continuing to plan. Planning is by far the most important piece, and it can be done literally anywhere and even while performing another task as long as it isn't a mentally-demanding one. So, at least in my experience you literally cannot plan while coding. Not anymore than you could write a novel. But you can do it while lifting weights, going for a jog, eating lunch, sleeping, taking a shower etc. etc. Where's the most comfortable place to plan? It's okay for that to be answered differently by different people. For some people that's the office. For many more people it's sitting at home in pajamas or whatever.
- eptcyka 4y ago
  Why would you ever measure butt-in-seat time for a data entry job when you could, you know, just measure the amount of data being entered?
  - twodave 4y ago
    Convenience for managers is the only reason I can imagine, but I'm sure there are some others. I.e. you can easily tell who's working/not by looking around vs having to get somebody to build you a recurring report or whatever. Not necessarily an optimal choice in any of the cases.
    - SuoDuanDao 4y ago
      One other is if you're a consultancy and you're billing out 10X Tommy at the same rate as .1X Oswald. We don't always care about productivity!
  - reidjs 4y ago
    Sometimes the act of measuring productivity requires the same amount of work as just doing the job
bachmeier 4y ago
> Monitoring butts-in-seats is a good metric for solving one kind of productivity loss. Eg - not doing job at all Only if butts-in-seats is your company's output. Anything else, and you still have to quantify productivity by looking at output.
rybosworld 4y ago
There are certainly some folks whose only motivation is a boss lurking over their shoulder. As a manager it would be your job to identify those folks and treat them accordingly. Arguing that "I can't manage remotely" is mainly an admission that you can't manage at all.

SPascareli13 4y ago

I guarantee that you can be sitting in a chair all day and still not get any work done. The only thing this might measure is time you are available to do work, but the same can be done remotely.

luckylion 4y ago
At some point, sitting in front of a screen not doing anything gets harder than actually working. That's very different for "remote not working", where you can go out with friends, or run errands, or clean your house, or chill in your living room etc.
ljf 4y ago
Not only that, but that same person can stop a lot of other people getting their work done. I am far less distracted by the random conversations people try to pull you into, or loud chatter of teams around me, when I'm at home. I deliver so much more at home, though I do see some value in being in the office, I just find it frustrating how many people seem to rely on the office for their social life and also loudly take video calls from their desks all day now.

twodave 4y ago

Depends on the kind of work. If your "job" is pure data entry or smashing out code without any thought, then this might be a way to measure. It's still not necessary, though, since in that case it's a stupid job and you can therefore just measure something stupid like lines of code or data entries completed to get a sense of how well the job is being done. As soon as your job involves thought work, there is rarely any connection whatsoever between where the job is done and productivity. For example, in software development it's common that NOT writing code right now is the best choice if you haven't done the other steps. For jobs like this, productivity is a cycle that involves first learning, then planning, then finally maybe writing some code. Or maybe learning some more first and then continuing to plan. Planning is by far the most important piece, and it can be done literally anywhere and even while performing another task as long as it isn't a mentally-demanding one. So, at least in my experience you literally cannot plan while coding. Not anymore than you could write a novel. But you can do it while lifting weights, going for a jog, eating lunch, sleeping, taking a shower etc. etc. Where's the most comfortable place to plan? It's okay for that to be answered differently by different people. For some people that's the office. For many more people it's sitting at home in pajamas or whatever.

eptcyka 4y ago
Why would you ever measure butt-in-seat time for a data entry job when you could, you know, just measure the amount of data being entered?
- twodave 4y ago
  Convenience for managers is the only reason I can imagine, but I'm sure there are some others. I.e. you can easily tell who's working/not by looking around vs having to get somebody to build you a recurring report or whatever. Not necessarily an optimal choice in any of the cases.
  - SuoDuanDao 4y ago
    One other is if you're a consultancy and you're billing out 10X Tommy at the same rate as .1X Oswald. We don't always care about productivity!
- reidjs 4y ago
  Sometimes the act of measuring productivity requires the same amount of work as just doing the job

bachmeier 4y ago

> Monitoring butts-in-seats is a good metric for solving one kind of productivity loss. Eg - not doing job at all Only if butts-in-seats is your company's output. Anything else, and you still have to quantify productivity by looking at output.

rybosworld 4y ago

There are certainly some folks whose only motivation is a boss lurking over their shoulder. As a manager it would be your job to identify those folks and treat them accordingly. Arguing that "I can't manage remotely" is mainly an admission that you can't manage at all.