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This entire argument is simple. If you’re a manager and you hire someone, you trust them to do the job you want doing. If you don’t trust them to do the job, do
by rcarr 3y ago
This entire argument is simple. If you’re a manager and you hire someone, you trust them to do the job you want doing. If you don’t trust them to do the job, don’t hire them. If you don’t trust anyone, then you have trust issues and probably shouldn’t be a manager and should instead go and work on yourself.
If someone betrays your trust or doesn’t perform the job adequately: fire them. If someone performs the job adequately and can hold down a second job simultaneously then what is the problem? If you’re concerned you’re not getting value for money either extend the scope of your job until they can no longer hold down two jobs simultaneously and have to choose one or the other or fire them and hire a less competent employee who takes twice the time to do the job and costs less. But both of these options seem pretty ludicrous. Honestly, the entire debate around this subject all just stems around ego and power/control driven managers who shouldn’t be in the job in the first place.
And no, I’ve never personally held two remote jobs simultaneously. But companies really need to move away from this “paying for time” mindset to “paying for the job” mindset. Like if they want to do remote and they’re concerned about this then why not just hire contractors?
- giantg2 3y agoThey aren't even in a "paying for time" mindset. They're in, or at least trying to be in, the mindset of "we own everything you do while employed here".
- s1k3s 3y agoIt's not that simple unfortunately. Some jobs have onboarding, which can last for weeks or even months. While in theory you can figure out if you're being screwed by an employee during onboarding, it would make the entire process a living hell for the employee. So most of the times you go with "they're new, they're learning, let's keep them for X months". If the person decides to slack it off after onboarding than you've just given someone free money for nothing. Also firing people is not easy everywhere. In EU this is a complex process that can involve unions, trainings etc. While it's mostly a ton of paperwork that you just do it just adds up to spending money on a person who didn't want to work there anyway.
- Dannymetconan 3y agoThis is what a probation period should be for. Even with all of the above you normally still have to pass probation. I've seen numerous people in the EU get let go in their 6 months for not meeting expectations. I think that is a risk with hiring regardless. Both sides have an information gap. I joined a place and within a week realized it was a disaster and I didn't want to work there. If the company had informed me half the teams had quit / was in the process of quiting I would not have joined. It's not like I could go back and get my old job
- s1artibartfast 3y agoit would be one thing if dishonest employees simply underperformed, but they also often suck up other people's time. It sucks being a manager and pumping tons of time trying to get someone up to speed and not knowing if they just need more investment and support that will pay off or if they aren't reciprocating effort and working other jobs. After being burned, my default is little compassion and investment in full remote employees. Ill train in office employees because I have more confidence I'm not wasting my time. This is on top of the fact that multiple employment usually requires directly lying to your manager and coworkers, inflating task difficulty, or creating problems for others to slow the overall pace of a project.
- NumberWangMan 3y agoPair programming has upsides and downsides of course, but one big upside in this particular case is that onboarding goes a lot faster and there's no chance of someone working multiple jobs, or slacking.
- camillomiller 3y agoIn EU we have 6 months probation mostly everywhere and you can be fired easily within that time. Also you can’t be legally employed twice, so the employee should be doing a freelance job on the side, which is also an inconvenience for most considering it would force you to make an additional tax report with some added taxation that isn’t worth it unless you earn a lot. This double remote job thing seems like it’s really just a US “problem”. Which is weird, considering how this hustling to get more for yourself should actually be incentivized in a society that promotes self reliance and getting rich as a core value.
- s1artibartfast 3y agoI think this is all accurate, but understates the challenge of determining if someone is betraying your trust or not performing adequately. It is hard to detect liars, cheats, and saboteurs in workplaces with a baseline expectation of trust and low micromanagement. The problem IMHO is not people who do a great job on time, but people who inflate timelines, and derail projects. If you give someone a novel problem, and they say it is difficult and will take 80 hours instead of 20, the only way to catch them in the act is to duplicate the work yourself or with another employee. Similarly, if they raise lots of questions and involve other people, it is difficult to determine if these are valid complications, or manufactured complexity, without replicating the work. Humans are pretty good at deceit.