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WFH just amplifies management incompetence, it’s not a problem per se. If it doesn’t work, it’s better to look deeper to understand the root cause of inefficien

WFH just amplifies management incompetence, it’s not a problem per se. If it doesn’t work, it’s better to look deeper to understand the root cause of inefficiency.

onion2k 3y ago
WHF amplifies all incompetence, especially around comms. Managers are particularly bad at that but in my experience everyone is at least a little bad at it...
- mojo74 3y ago
  The comms thing is a bit of a bug bear for me too. I like to respond quickly to messages/emails because I believe the person at the other end appreciates having their questions answered quickly so they can get one with their day. When I have to wait an hour (or whatever timeframe feels disproportionate) for a reply to my message it grates. Still, I can live with it if I don't have work in a noisy shared space.
  - fcatalan 3y ago
    About the remote work comms there is a widespread attitude that irks me: People texting "can we talk?" or simply "hello". No! tell me straight away what you need so I can judge how and when to respond. When people state what they need, most of the time the response is immediate and it's the thing they need or some ok followup. "can-we-talkers" I'm starting to let stew for a few minutes, because I suspect they do that on purpose to "skip my queue".
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - mojo74 3y ago
      I agree. Having worked on the shop floor I don't like my time being wasted and I'm careful to add detail for my colleagues so that they are engaged from the outset with my query. All I ask is 'give me half an hour' or some similar response so I can manage other people's expectations.
  - onion2k 3y ago
    This is why so many orgs find remote working hard. Everyone has to be willing to compromise on how they communicate to find a middle ground, or the company has to hire for people who work the same way as everyone else. When you have a team made up of people who communicate with different expectations, and they're not willing to accept that other people will think differently about what's reasonable, remote working starts to break down. Maybe that's why so many companies push for people to return to the office. In-person working where someone can just walk up and interrupt someone else is equally awful for everyone.
    - mojo74 3y ago
      I'm all about the compromise. I don't mind waiting for an answer but I'm often hassled for a response in my role and then I need an update from another member of the team. If that response is not forthcoming guess who gets the follow up? Now I'm badgering people who are probably busy but have neglected to tell me and I'm now the block in the pipe to those above me. I don't mind a pat response that they're busy but someone somewhere always needs a status update.
      - ivan_gammel 3y ago
        Urgent ad-hoc status update requested by someone above is in most cases a communication anti-pattern. Why would someone need it outside of regular reporting structure (DSM, weeklies etc)? Even in case of disaster recovery, when updates need to be more frequent than daily, it’s better to agree in advance on how communication proceeds and plan the work correspondingly.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- kkfx 3y ago
  It's not just comms, many live in a digitalized world FORMALLY, they formally works on desktop computers, but their mind work on paper and they seems to be unable to works on computer other then mimicking their works on paper. Aside managers like people in the office because they are more tied to the company, change employer often means having to move elsewhere and the worker might be in couple and his/her partner might have issues moving, they might have kids suffering from loosing friends and change schools etc, this means workers more keen to accept bad condition at work at a certain point in time. A remote worker can potentially change employer just changing some login screens.
Gigachad 3y ago
Seems like a pretty big benefit of in person work that you can get better results out of less trained/less expensive employees.
- ivan_gammel 3y ago
  When WFH(A) is a real alternative, office work means hiring a mediocre team to achieve mediocre results. It is not better value for money, because poor management is not just about inability to organize remote work. Toxic environment will result in higher churn and missed opportunity costs, poorly designed processes will inevitably decrease quality and increase time to market etc.
The_Colonel 3y ago
In other words, unless you have a perfect management, a remote organization is going to perform worse than an in-person one. I don't think such scapegoating will actually help the remote crowd.
- ivan_gammel 3y ago
  No, you don’t need perfect management for that. It is not rocket science, WFA success can be replicated by most teams.
BiteCode_dev 3y ago
Employees always say it's management, management always say it's employees. But in most companies, it's both. And people suck at discipline.

WFH just amplifies management incompetence, it’s not a problem per se. If it doesn’t work, it’s better to look deeper to understand the root cause of inefficiency.

onion2k 3y ago

WHF amplifies all incompetence, especially around comms. Managers are particularly bad at that but in my experience everyone is at least a little bad at it...

mojo74 3y ago
The comms thing is a bit of a bug bear for me too. I like to respond quickly to messages/emails because I believe the person at the other end appreciates having their questions answered quickly so they can get one with their day. When I have to wait an hour (or whatever timeframe feels disproportionate) for a reply to my message it grates. Still, I can live with it if I don't have work in a noisy shared space.
- fcatalan 3y ago
  About the remote work comms there is a widespread attitude that irks me: People texting "can we talk?" or simply "hello". No! tell me straight away what you need so I can judge how and when to respond. When people state what they need, most of the time the response is immediate and it's the thing they need or some ok followup. "can-we-talkers" I'm starting to let stew for a few minutes, because I suspect they do that on purpose to "skip my queue".
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - mojo74 3y ago
    I agree. Having worked on the shop floor I don't like my time being wasted and I'm careful to add detail for my colleagues so that they are engaged from the outset with my query. All I ask is 'give me half an hour' or some similar response so I can manage other people's expectations.
- onion2k 3y ago
  This is why so many orgs find remote working hard. Everyone has to be willing to compromise on how they communicate to find a middle ground, or the company has to hire for people who work the same way as everyone else. When you have a team made up of people who communicate with different expectations, and they're not willing to accept that other people will think differently about what's reasonable, remote working starts to break down. Maybe that's why so many companies push for people to return to the office. In-person working where someone can just walk up and interrupt someone else is equally awful for everyone.
  - mojo74 3y ago
    I'm all about the compromise. I don't mind waiting for an answer but I'm often hassled for a response in my role and then I need an update from another member of the team. If that response is not forthcoming guess who gets the follow up? Now I'm badgering people who are probably busy but have neglected to tell me and I'm now the block in the pipe to those above me. I don't mind a pat response that they're busy but someone somewhere always needs a status update.
    - ivan_gammel 3y ago
      Urgent ad-hoc status update requested by someone above is in most cases a communication anti-pattern. Why would someone need it outside of regular reporting structure (DSM, weeklies etc)? Even in case of disaster recovery, when updates need to be more frequent than daily, it’s better to agree in advance on how communication proceeds and plan the work correspondingly.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
kkfx 3y ago
It's not just comms, many live in a digitalized world FORMALLY, they formally works on desktop computers, but their mind work on paper and they seems to be unable to works on computer other then mimicking their works on paper. Aside managers like people in the office because they are more tied to the company, change employer often means having to move elsewhere and the worker might be in couple and his/her partner might have issues moving, they might have kids suffering from loosing friends and change schools etc, this means workers more keen to accept bad condition at work at a certain point in time. A remote worker can potentially change employer just changing some login screens.

Gigachad 3y ago

Seems like a pretty big benefit of in person work that you can get better results out of less trained/less expensive employees.

ivan_gammel 3y ago
When WFH(A) is a real alternative, office work means hiring a mediocre team to achieve mediocre results. It is not better value for money, because poor management is not just about inability to organize remote work. Toxic environment will result in higher churn and missed opportunity costs, poorly designed processes will inevitably decrease quality and increase time to market etc.

The_Colonel 3y ago

In other words, unless you have a perfect management, a remote organization is going to perform worse than an in-person one. I don't think such scapegoating will actually help the remote crowd.

ivan_gammel 3y ago
No, you don’t need perfect management for that. It is not rocket science, WFA success can be replicated by most teams.

BiteCode_dev 3y ago

Employees always say it's management, management always say it's employees. But in most companies, it's both. And people suck at discipline.