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Let me add another 2 warning signs: - The free food/snacks get cancelled. - The "untracked" WFH days suddenly come under scrutiny.
by smtddr 13y ago
Let me add another 2 warning signs:
- The free food/snacks get cancelled.
- The "untracked" WFH days suddenly come under scrutiny.
- dkl 13y agoThe "untracked" WFH days suddenly come under scrutiny. This can also be an indicator of rampant abuse. That is, too many people work at home and don't work much. In my experience, even in small companies, there's a lot of me-too-ism with WFH, which leads to people asking for and being approved to work at home, when they really shouldn't be. Over time, this can lead to a measurable drop in productivity.
- smtddr 13y agoAh, point taken... but this may be a chicken-or-egg problem. If things are such in a company that a significant group of people start abusing WFH, that seems to imply morale has somehow been damaged and people aren't excited about their work(anymore?). Is WFH-abuse causing low morale/productivity at work, or did something else cause the decline in morale/productivity thus resulting in WFH-abuse.... I dunno.
- hkmurakami 13y agoI wonder which is a better approach: an unilateral barring of WFH days, or an effort to improve team morale to the point where people actually want to come to work. Yahoo is unilaterally cancelling all work at home plans, but my friend's manager was organically trying to get his team to come in on the WFH Fridays with Friday team events centered around alcohol, and other ways to build camraderie and morale.
- hkmurakami 13y ago- The free food/snacks get cancelled. Relevant recent discussion: The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free (2009) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5751329 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5751329
- Steko 13y agoMore relevant than you might think... In defense of the Google chef (2011) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3223595 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3223595 http://blog.rongarret.info/2011/11/in-defense-of-google-chef.html http://blog.rongarret.info/2011/11/in-defense-of-google-chef...
- hkmurakami 13y agoAh yes I remember this post (and many ex-Googlers coming to his defense) Ironic that his restaurant is only so-so wrt bang for the buck.
- usefulcat 13y agoAlso, requests for detailed written documentation of some software/process/whatever that only you are intimately familiar with.
- flexxaeon 13y agoAs soon as I got this, I was properly braced for the forthcoming downsize (at a company I worked for years ago).