If after 3 years of a pandemic, a manager is unable to achieve success with remote employees, that manager is failing and should be let go.
I led a team on two continents at my last company, and my CEO had the nerve to tell us that RTO was so we could “get the crucial face to face time that ensures cooperation and efficiency”
Face to face. With Europe. From Ohio. Okay.
She could’ve just told us she has no idea how to function in a remote environment, but Forbes articles about how our company’s value was “deteriorating rapidly” was a big enough clue.
Preaching to the choir. I left my last job because they mandated return to office so that I could work remotely with teams in Montreal and Paris.
The only difference between doing that in my home office and doing it from their office was they could watch over my shoulder from there.
It’s not about managing remote teams. It’s about controlling workers, and those are very different things. These people are worried that you might be getting your laundry done between work tasks, or that you’re actually working 5 jobs, or other ridiculous bullshit, not about whether you’re achieving your assigned tasks.
Remote work is cheaper, more efficient, and leads to happier workers, and they’d rather wreck the first two to ensure the don’t have the third.
I’d argue that if you’re worried about what your salaried employee is doing between tasks, when their tasks are being completed, you’re a bad manager full stop.
That’s what I meant by saying people were incapable of managing remote teams.
You and I both know it’s always entrenched senior leadership, too, and they’re never the ones losing their jobs to incompetence.
This whole shift in working has been eye-opening and frustrating in equal measure.
If after 3 years of a pandemic, a manager is unable to achieve success with remote employees, that manager is failing and should be let go.
I led a team on two continents at my last company, and my CEO had the nerve to tell us that RTO was so we could “get the crucial face to face time that ensures cooperation and efficiency”
Face to face. With Europe. From Ohio. Okay.
She could’ve just told us she has no idea how to function in a remote environment, but Forbes articles about how our company’s value was “deteriorating rapidly” was a big enough clue.
Preaching to the choir. I left my last job because they mandated return to office so that I could work remotely with teams in Montreal and Paris.
The only difference between doing that in my home office and doing it from their office was they could watch over my shoulder from there.
It’s not about managing remote teams. It’s about controlling workers, and those are very different things. These people are worried that you might be getting your laundry done between work tasks, or that you’re actually working 5 jobs, or other ridiculous bullshit, not about whether you’re achieving your assigned tasks.
Remote work is cheaper, more efficient, and leads to happier workers, and they’d rather wreck the first two to ensure the don’t have the third.
I’d argue that if you’re worried about what your salaried employee is doing between tasks, when their tasks are being completed, you’re a bad manager full stop.
That’s what I meant by saying people were incapable of managing remote teams.
You and I both know it’s always entrenched senior leadership, too, and they’re never the ones losing their jobs to incompetence.
This whole shift in working has been eye-opening and frustrating in equal measure.