Name_Too_LongJun 14, 2023
Dave Weinstein

When companies say things like "if you are not in the office three days a week we will penalize you at performance review time" they are inherently contradicting their own claims that remote work results in reduced productivity.

If remote work were bad, you wouldn't need to add an artificial penalty for working remotely, it would show up IN the performance data.

If you have to threaten people with artificially lowered performance scores for not coming into the office, you are admitting that performance has nothing to do with RTO.

Jun 14, 2023 at 4:45pmWeb
Show threadDavid FetterJun 14, 2023
@dhw let's be perfectly clear here. The higher up you get in the hierarchy of a company, the less value you provide, and the people higher up that hierarchy are well aware of this, hence their eagerness to inject self-serving metrics.
Show threadTravisJun 14, 2023
@dhw And let’s not forget that they frown upon you having extra activities that occur during work hours, yet CEOs can essentially work for other companies, be on other boards, etc. all on work hours.
Show threadfernandoJun 14, 2023
@dhw and they should also forego any pretence that they are somehow eco-friendly because there is no scenario in which forcing people to commute is better for the environment than working from home.
Show threadKobiJun 14, 2023
@dhw you assume that performance reviews actually measure performance?
Show threadcouplandJun 14, 2023
@dhw It's a clever argument but I think we all know they're simply threatening to punish you because they know they can.
Show threadRomain DelamareJun 14, 2023
@dhw I interpret it differently. I think they are admitting that they can't really review performance and that they're just faking it. (but yeah, performance has nothing to do with RTO)
Show threadPi FisherJun 14, 2023

@dhw I'm anti-forced-RTO. My employer (Google) just announced this policy.

One of the justifications I was given for the artificial penalty is: being in the office improves your ability to enhance the rest of your team members' productivity. Their productivity wouldn't normally show up in your eval, so somehow this accounts for that.

It's vaguely plausible, making it by far the least bad justification I was given.

Show threadDieuJun 14, 2023
@dhw I think what's actually going on is a bit weaker but perhaps even more interesting: in any sufficiently complex job, performance cannot validly be measured at all, beyond maybe the distinction abysmal/not abysmal. They don't know how you perform in any case and just assume it's worse from home because you're safe there from their metal eyes.
Show threadLooking for explanations…Jun 15, 2023
@dhw How can spending time & mental energy in commuting unnecessarily be good for productivity?
Show threadBlazingJun 15, 2023
@dhw here i am trying to get motivation to go to the office to get my swipe
Show threadhorenJun 15, 2023
@dhw @Npars01
It is nothing else than to show power, nothing to do with efficiency or else.
Show threadNicole ParsonsJun 15, 2023

@horen @dhw

Power is partly the motivation behind the malign influence campaign against remote work.

The main reason is the valuation and viability of commercial real estate.

When businesses don't need the space because people are working from home, they reduce costs by giving up expensive downtown office leases.

That has real estate interests worried.

Commuting is a drain on tax dollars too. All that infrastructure is maintained with taxes.

https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/5/15/23721410/return-to-office-remote-work-commercial-real-estate
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/remote-work-sticks-signaling-doom-for-us-commercial-real-estate-sector-72411895

Remote work is just one of many problems for office buildings

The weak return to the office, explained.

Vox
Show threadcanusfeminacanisJun 15, 2023

@Npars01 @horen @dhw

90% of our economic and social problems dérive from real estate agents' interference. Housing crises, business being brainwashed into unnecessary onsite work requirements... people being manipulated into FOMO and paying outrageous prices for housing, only to be faced with crippling mortgage payments. It's obscene.

Show threadMoxcieJun 15, 2023

@dhw the whole RTO thing is so wild. I’m in a fully remote role that has been fully remote for almost 10 years. I visit clients across the country and travel basically continuously.

The new RTO policy now means that my once per week admin day now needs to be done in the office.. somewhere I had basically never been before this policy began.

Show threadideaPDishJun 15, 2023
@dhw
Spry, very spry.
Show threadRussell NechesJun 15, 2023
@dhw I just can't wrap my head around the business case for RTO. With remote work, you can shed a ton of expensive overhead and compete for a bigger, broader and more diverse labor pool and make workers happy. I've give you that Zoom meetings are huge productivity killers, but I think that is more because most MEETINGS are productivity killers, and Zoom makes the loss of productivity trivial to document. Is it just that all executives do is have lots of meetings?
Show threadRussell NechesJun 15, 2023
Anyone want to start a betting pool on shortest time from instituting a major Return to Office policy shift to major sexual harassment lawsuit among Fortune 500 C-suites? I mean, *besides* Elon Musk. My money is on 5-6 months, so we'll start seeing them in the news 6-8 months after that, while HR keeps them bottled up in arbitration so Certain Parties can exercise their stock options.
Show threadTheNurseIsInJun 15, 2023
@ryneches @dhw you completely nailed it with these two posts.
Show threadGeoff WinklessJun 15, 2023
@ryneches @dhw it's actually really hard to measure employees' output. Having them sit at a desk is easy because you can say "this person was in the office from 9am to 5pm today and I could see them at least pretending to do work in that time". But if you let them just sit at home you have to put in place metrics and measurements and all that stuff that bad managers would really rather not bother with.
Show threadRussell NechesJun 15, 2023
@Geoff @dhw When I worked in tech, I always found it fascinating how tenuous a grasp my managers had on what it was the they hired me to do. Got fired more than once for asking frank questions like, "It says I do X in my job description, but you are telling me to do Y. Is this in addition to X, or did you hire a software developer manage a loading dock?"
Show threadarielsJun 15, 2023
@dhw Or that [their] performance reviews don't actually work! The advantage of using an objective performance measure such as "in the office 3 days a week" is that you can measure it fairly well. Some people think that that is enough to overcome the slight disadvantage - that it measures the wrong thing.
Show threadskategoat 🐐 🇵🇸Jun 15, 2023
@dhw none of this is relevant though, as performance data doesn't exist
Show threadNathan SalwenJun 15, 2023
@dhw OTOH coming into the office might help others' performances.
Show threadryanJun 16, 2023

@dhw RTO has never been about productivity. It’s about control.

It’s hard to justify all the management overhead, prestigious office spaces, and other status symbols when they’ve all been replaced by slack and some emojis.

How is everyone supposed to know you’re the boss when they can’t see you sitting in the throne room?

Show threadDarrenJun 16, 2023
@dhw exactly.. these are all organizations that haven’t figured out how to measure and reward productivity so they fall back on “did I see you in the office”. Bonus points for making the criteria “who arrives early for work?” to double down on metrics that don’t matter. Meanwhile efficient distributed orgs are literally working while your office culture sleeps.
Show threadMatt GoddenJun 16, 2023
@dhw It’s almost as if the entire managerial class is built on claims of driving productivity... but lacks any objective measures and so is primarily concerned with protecting the defensive walls around its power structures.
Show threadElanJun 16, 2023
@dhw One concern I have is what happens when remote workers do consistently have a lower level of performance. If it becomes apparent that remotes generally get lower scores that looks like it’s punishing remote work, even if there really is statistical evidence that as a group they miss deadlines more.
Show threadMark GalassiJul 1, 2023

i always felt the same way about drug testing policies. seems like a lazy shortcut instead of actually understanding of your employees are reliable.

@dhw

@kees

Show threadShephallmassiveAug 20, 2023
@dhw yes and for your good performance you will take a a pay cut of several hundred pounds a week month to pay for those travel fares to work and further hundreds if not thousands to employee others to do the school runs and let the dog out..