1 minute ago, we_gotta_believe said:

At the end of the day, people need to realize it's a symbiotic relationship. Good employees won't tolerate being unfairly treated like a child/slave and will leave to find something better if it persists. Likewise employers won't tolerate bad employees expecting to be treated like an adult/star and will get rid of them if their poor performance/behavior persists. For most industries/professions, the market generally arbitrates things fairly well. If an employer complains about not being able to find qualified employees, maybe the job just sucks. If an employee complains about not being paid enough, maybe they just suck.

Said another way -- people with options get flexibility. People without options live by the rules.

1 hour ago, NOTW said:

The pandemic is killing the myth that people can't work from home and be productive.  We've known this for years and many companies have embraced it.  There are obviously jobs you have to be there, but for any job that can work from home there's no reason to not allow employees to work remote.

Many companies have realized they can save a lot of money on real estate by having smaller spaces with hoteling spaces instead of permanent assigned desks and more conference and meeting rooms.  People can come in if they want to or don't have good space at home, come in when there are meetings that are necessary (important meetings that couldn't be done via email or conference calls).  

For workers, you don't waste time on commute, stuck in traffic, save money on gas, don't eat out as often and eat at home so it saves money, spend more time with family.  It's convenient to go to doctor appointments and other errands that are typically closer to home, events at your kids school stuff like that.

People take less sick time and end up working longer hours.  It's easier to roll out of bed, get coffee and start work and then keep going right up til dinner.  At the office, you have to leave to beat traffic.  Some people have commutes that can take an hour in traffic.  That hour could be spent working instead.  There's also work/life balance.

Too many managers say they can't trust their people, that they will be on the couch watching TV and just looking out for emails.  Well, the pandemic has made working at home required for many people.  And that's why you have results oriented approach:  you have work expected to be done with deadlines and I need to see the results.  If someone can't handle it, fire them.  Or require those individuals to be in the office.  

 

2 things that I hope change at my company as a result of the pandemic (and let me just preface this by saying I love my company and think they are a great company to work for).  

1) Start an official work from home policy.  Doesn't need to be 5 days a week.  But 1-2 days a week would be awesome.  

2) Be more flexible with where people work.  Our HQ is in Philly.  In this region, we have a satellite office in South Jersey, and there was talk of opening up a satellite office in the  PA burbs as well.   Prior to the pandemic hitting, there was a bit of mindset of, "if you want to work on the PA projects, then you need to be in the Philly office".  I think (and hope) that this mindset changes moving forward.  We have a number of employees that live in South Jersey that work in the Philly office.  I've now joined that club as well as we recently moved from Philly to Jersey.   I'm about a 10-15 min drive from our Jersey office.  It would be awesome if I could spend at least half of my working days from there.  

Interestingly enough, I'll actually have quicker commute to the Philly office from my current home than when I lived in Philly.   I lived in Fairmount, which means I had to bus it down to Olde City.   Now I can ride the train into the city. 

46 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

This is 100% not true, because most people aren't responsible adults. Most people with kids use them as an excuse to try and get out of work and it is nauseating the sense of entitlement they have. Oh, you reproduced? Good for you. We are paying you a salary to work and are paying for your time. If you want to go to Johnny's karate tournament, and that's more important to you, then find a more flexible job. (P.S., sorry Johnny lost to that new kid from New Jersey).

Most people aren't responsible adults. Most are basically children looking to get away with doing as little as possible. And none are worse than those who think that "my kid has a thing" is a legitimate reason to just skip work. We had one assistant who kept pulling that crap, so we cut her pay. 

EDIT: People show you who they are and how responsible they are. My assistant is great and always available. She wanted to go help her sister move and take a day off -- no problem. But others who pull disappearing acts? Yeah, they need to make a choice.

Yeah, I ended with:

59 minutes ago, NOTW said:

 

We're adults.  And if people aren't responsible and aren't producing results, discipline or fire them. 

Obviously there are some jobs that can't be flexible, I already said that a couple times.  There are jobs where you have to be there and certain jobs with set hours or set times things have to be achieved.  And yes you can have people who take advantage or use things as an excuse.  There's the famous "my grandmother died" and it's the 5th time this year, how many grandmothers do you have.

But you also have people that are "in the office" for 8-10 hours but aren't really working that long.  Coffee breaks, socializing, browsing the internet (posting on a football team message board), long lunches, stretching out tasks to take longer than they need to while they watch the clock... so why can't a person with a job like that go to their kid's school then come back and catch up?

If you have a job that the work is sitting there and can be done now, or 2 hours from now and it's no difference then who cares?  If someone wants to leave for a long lunch to have a doctor's appointment then stay an hour late tonight to catch up, why not?

 

8 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

And to cut off the liberal screeching, we took the money saved by cutting her pay and gave other people raises. So our employee costs stayed the same.

right, so the rich get richer while the highly compensated suffer

5 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

Said another way -- people with options get flexibility. People without options live by the rules.

pretty much.

if I tell my bosses I'm not working on a given day for whatever reason (I don't even have to give one, I'm an adult), then I'm not working. if they want to fire me for it they can, but they won't find a replacement readily.

they're good bosses who encourage me to take time off so I don't get burnt out. and they never ask why I'm taking time off. so it's a win-win.

but I deliver on the regular. my salary, bonuses, and the leverage I have with the company indicate that. 

am I replaceable? absolutely, everybody is. but the cost to the business would be high.

Since WFH my workday looks something like...

sometime o'clock in the morning -> break for breakfast -> back to work around sometime o'clock after breakfast -> break to go stare out the window and then run upstairs to annoy the wife to point where she yells at me to leave -> back to work around whenever I get bored o'clock -> break for an insanely long lunch -> back to work whenever -> break to scratch my balls and then go annoy wife again -> back to work -> break to take a long sh** which I announce beforehand from downstairs -> back to work until around sometime in the late afternoon o'clock.

57 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

If you took a job that has fixed hours and are accepting a salary for it, then fulfill your commitment or forfeit your salary. 

Sure.  And the discussion here is about changing that model of having fixed hours because people have lives and you aren't paying for people's hours, you're paying them to do a job. 

A fixed salary (vs hourly pay) is based on results.  And that often means you work over 40 hours and don't get paid extra.  But if you can be efficient and get the job done in 35 hours, what's wrong with that? The mindset is oh you worked 35 hours, we need to give you more work to fill up your time.  It seems like this model is suggesting not to focus on hours worked but on what you're trying to achieve.  

Example I work in software.  If I have a deadline by this Friday it doesn't matter if I get up early and do more hours before 9am, if I work late nights to get it done as long as it's done.  I might have a week where I'm working well over 40 to get a project done.  Then the next week a more typical week and I might work around 40, maybe even less.  

From a financial perspective with hourly employees it can actually save money.  I've read about how people will get more done in less time if they think they have to.  Take an 8 hour day filled with coffee breaks, talking about personal lives, sports and TV shows and surfing the internet.  Now one day you have to leave 2 hours early for your child's whatever.  You now have 6 hours.  You quit the extras and time wasters and crack down and get the work done.  

4 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

At the end of the day, people need to realize it's a symbiotic relationship. Good employees won't tolerate being unfairly treated like a child/slave and will leave to find something better if it persists. Likewise employers won't tolerate bad employees expecting to be treated like an adult/star and will get rid of them if their poor performance/behavior persists. For most industries/professions, the market generally arbitrates things fairly well. If an employer complains about not being able to find qualified employees, maybe the job just sucks. If an employee complains about not being paid enough, maybe they just suck.

^^^^ Yup. 

I try to treat my working situation as if I play for an NFL team.  in the NFL, a team will make no bones about cutting a veteran player if they can draft a rookie who's just as good or better.  They get the same production and can save on cap space, and use those resources elsewhere to improve the team.  

We hired a new employee last year who was a great hire.  And my thing was: OK I know what's she's making, and I make x% amount more than her.  Well my production better be x% amount more than her, otherwise why the hell would my company choose to keep me when they can get someone younger and cheaper and have a higher production/salary ratio.  

(Now, in reality I know that they wouldn't be able to fire me with the justification of, "yes he meets all his deadlines and requirements, but we found that we can hire a person with less experience at a lower salary, and save a little on the bottom line").  But having that mentality gives me a little extra boost and motivation. 

52 minutes ago, paco said:

I can only speak for my own personal experience, but I have found the complete opposite to be true.  I have a fairly demanding, performance driven job.  Clients demanding results.  Company demanding a very high % of my hours worked billed to a client.  Etc.  Going through 5 years for fertility treatments and now adoption related appointments, my work has been excellent allowing me to break from normal routine and get done what I need to get done.  "Do you have coverage?  Great!  Take care of your wife\family"

Everyone is going to have different anecdotal evidence.  There are companies and managers (like yours and mine) that are flexible, understand that people have lives, that people are an asset to your company and part of keeping good employees is supporting that work/life balance.  My boss told me the other day to do what I need to with my son, this is just software it's not life or death.  He knows I'm responsible and will do what I need to get the work done.  We had another employee a couple years ago who was not responsible, didn't deliver and always had excuses. He'd be out sick with the sniffles, take 3 hour lunches, etc.  He didn't perform and was fired.

But there are also companies that aren't flexible, managers who grill their employees asking about their symptoms (you can't do that) to decide if they think you are legitimately sick or not. Companies that think people's only purpose in life is to work for that company.  If you're missing out on your kids growing up, not taking care of your health because you're not allowed time off work or fear that taking allotted PTO will cost you raises or promotions that's a bad culture.

35 minutes ago, greend said:

With good people being hard to find most employers don't make you beg for time off. At least in my experience

A lot of us seem to be in salaried type jobs.  But think about a call center, warehouse or other hourly environments.  Workers with lower level of skills.  And hardly any breaks.  Think about how much of life happens to you that requires you to do something Mon-Fri.  Calling customer service, making and attending appointments, car registration, parent/teacher conference, having to conduct any business with a business that is only open the same hours you work.  You need home repairs urgently and have to call a plumber or whatever, and then be there to let them in.  Life happens, all sorts of things come up.

And there are companies and managers that are flexible about this, and others that will give employees a hard time about it.  

Just reading through the comments. As someone who has job hopped far too much over the last 5 years, every work place has a different culture. Even in the same field. For example

• Job I had in 2016 was a "Vikas" type job (though I wasn't making Vikas money). Be available 24/7. My boss loved calling me at midnight, then again at 5am asking if I'd made progress on the deal I was working on. Vacation wasn't real. Want to take the kids to Disney? Fine, but take your phone and laptop with you and prepare to get off Mr. Toads wild ride and give the boss an update.  (This is the job that almost killed me)
• 2017. Institution not doing well. Struggling to keep the lights on. You don't have to be on call 24/7 but guess what? We just laid off half your department. So now we need you to do your job, plus the jobs of 2 other guys we just let go. Don't complain too much or you'll be next. Say... your boss makes a ton of money. We're letting him go and you can do his job too. 
• 2019. The "siloed environment". Don't talk to anyone! Talk to your direct reports and the person you report to only! You're still doing your work plus your bosses work, but you need to STFU and smile while your boss takes the credit for all of it.

The job I'm in now pays me less but it doesn't have the headaches. The company is pretty stable, and my boss trusts me to run my area of the company. I had worked for such tyrants at a few of these stops I constantly found myself saying things like "I don't mean to be disrespectful or even discourteous" whenever I disagreed with anyone. Finally , our CEO had to tell me that people trust me as an expert and I don't need to qualify my opinions. Breath of fresh air. This place is a smaller company, more like a family atmosphere. Much more collaborative. Before Covid we traveled like crazy and most employees had dinner and drinks together. Close knit group.

Every work place culture is different. The key is, hiring managers should be honest about what prospective employees are getting into. I sure am when I interview someone for my team. If you're expected to be on call all the time, say so in the interview and negotiate a salary that is acceptable for those kinds of expectations. I did so much job hopping because my future bosses flat out lied about what the job was. The best question you can ask when interviewing for a job is "What is the measurement of success for the person you hire, one year out, 5 years out, and 10 years out". This helps gauge your future bosses expectations. The problem is unscrupulous F heads will often lie about their expectations or worse yet, they don't even know what they want.

Just now, NOTW said:

Everyone is going to have different anecdotal evidence.  There are companies and managers (like yours and mine) that are flexible, understand that people have lives, that people are an asset to your company and part of keeping good employees is supporting that work/life balance.  My boss told me the other day to do what I need to with my son, this is just software it's not life or death.  He knows I'm responsible and will do what I need to get the work done.  We had another employee a couple years ago who was not responsible, didn't deliver and always had excuses. He'd be out sick with the sniffles, take 3 hour lunches, etc.  He didn't perform and was fired.

But there are also companies that aren't flexible, managers who grill their employees asking about their symptoms (you can't do that) to decide if they think you are legitimately sick or not. Companies that think people's only purpose in life is to work for that company.  If you're missing out on your kids growing up, not taking care of your health because you're not allowed time off work or fear that taking allotted PTO will cost you raises or promotions that's a bad culture.

I think the major contrast in this thread between Vikas and the rest comes down to lifestyle vs compensation.

Vikas & his colleagues have chosen a profession that promises compensation levels that I suspect nobody else here comes close to matching. With that level of compensation comes a specific expectation when it comes to lifestyle.

I work in a knowledge based industry, and the lifestyle expectations are different. We are paid quite well, but not so well that it justifies a lifestyle where you live to work. I'm very committed, and work very hard, but the work is only one of my identities - not my sole identity.

I'm also a husband and a dad, and I want balance in my life. I would not want to work in the finance industry, the lifestyle cost is too great even though compensation would be incredible (if I was good at it anyway). So turn down the dial a bit, and I have a very handsome salary, will retire with 7 (maybe 8 if some startup side gigs break the right way) figures in my 401k, but I'll never be able to pay someone $100k just to be at my beck-and-call. 

Life choices. 

2 hours ago, NOTW said:

@UK_EaglesFan89 what's your experience?

In my experience... Yeah I think there's a lot of time wasting and a lot of personnel chat that goes on. Most offices are large and open plan and don't tend to have divides or partitions or walls. And yeah some just want to chat all day whilst others want to get on with work. 

I like the social side of being in an office but I think there's a lot to be said for working from home and the peace. I've worked from home for 11 months now with 2 visits to an office for a workshop. I much prefer that. Get together when you can but otherwise work from home and be more productive. 

18 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

pretty much.

if I tell my bosses I'm not working on a given day for whatever reason (I don't even have to give one, I'm an adult), then I'm not working. if they want to fire me for it they can, but they won't find a replacement readily.

they're good bosses who encourage me to take time off so I don't get burnt out. and they never ask why I'm taking time off. so it's a win-win.

but I deliver on the regular. my salary, bonuses, and the leverage I have with the company indicate that. 

am I replaceable? absolutely, everybody is. but the cost to the business would be high.

And I think more employers should look at it this way.  I agree you don't earn that trust right away and you can get a longer leash when you've proven yourself.

But there are also companies that start out from upon hire:  you don't have set hours, you have tasks and deliverables.  I knew a guy who worked in software project management for a large national health care firm.  He said their department had no set hours and worked from home.  Have an important meeting in the office?  You'll show up and participate.  Have an important client call?  You'll be on it.  But no set hours, just deliverables.

1 minute ago, NOTW said:

But there are also companies that start out from upon hire:  you don't have set hours, you have tasks and deliverables.  I knew a guy who worked in software project management for a large national health care firm.  He said their department had no set hours and worked from home.  Have an important meeting in the office?  You'll show up and participate.  Have an important client call?  You'll be on it.  But no set hours, just deliverables.

And this is absolutely how it should be. It should be output and deliverable based. If I can do that some weeks in 30 hours great. If others I need more than 40 then so be it. 

 

 

 

Here is an interesting conversation with the guy behind Wordpress.  His company has never had a physical office space.  They've been at it for over a decade.  He discusses five levels of remote work.  This from the perspective of a software company so can't be applied to everyone but there are some real solid insights and lessons learned in here.  I've just started to implement a few of the ideas in the company I'm working for right now.

 

Note: They did end up with a physical location in the end that they use sparingly for board meetings, investor meetings, etc.  They discovered the need when they had trouble when trying to raise funding for a special initiative and found the going tough sledding in Starbucks.  They also acquired Tumblr which had a downtown NYC office which they kept but use less and less.

 

9 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

I think the major contrast in this thread between Vikas and the rest comes down to lifestyle vs compensation.

Vikas & his colleagues have chosen a profession that promises compensation levels that I suspect nobody else here comes close to matching. With that level of compensation comes a specific expectation when it comes to lifestyle.

I work in a knowledge based industry, and the lifestyle expectations are different. We are paid quite well, but not so well that it justifies a lifestyle where you live to work. I'm very committed, and work very hard, but the work is only one of my identities - not my sole identity.

I'm also a husband and a dad, and I want balance in my life. I would not want to work in the finance industry, the lifestyle cost is too great even though compensation would be incredible (if I was good at it anyway). So turn down the dial a bit, and I have a very handsome salary, will retire with 7 (maybe 8 if some startup side gigs break the right way) figures in my 401k, but I'll never be able to pay someone $100k just to be at my beck-and-call. 

Life choices. 

Right.  A lot of Vikas' posts don't qualify the expectations of that industry or company.  Some of them seem to suggest every worker is a slave and who cares if you have kids just work that's all you're good for.  Reality for most people is work/life balance.

 

There's also the idea of being so important that you cannot take time off and you're expected to answer the phone or respond to email 24/7.  This mindset is that you are valuable and if you're not needed, you can be replaced.  But really no company should ever be so reliant on just one person that it will fall apart.  You have to be able to cross train and delegate and have backup for each other.

I always discussed this with my European colleagues.  They take a 2 week Annual Leave in the summer.  Everyone did it and the Americans would not understand how anyone can just be gone for 2 weeks at a time.  Here, you have to request time off and hope it gets approved.  A lot of people don't even dare ask for 2 weeks off at a time.  People continue to work while on vacation.  But when it's the culture and everyone does it, it's just how it is.  People cover for each other, the work gets done.

In the 4 hour workweek, Timothy Ferris talks about not being a bottleneck to decisions and holding things up.  He started a company and he had to respond to emails and calls to make decisions all the time.  He was working 16 hour days.  He realized that he can delegate decisions and authority and create better processes that don't need him to micro manage everything.

Obviously the more money you make it's because you bring higher value to the company and you have more specialized skills or experience.  But even so, people should be able to take a day off without things falling apart.  You can train others, have backups, delegate, etc.  

12 minutes ago, NOTW said:

There's also the idea of being so important that you cannot take time off and you're expected to answer the phone or respond to email 24/7.  This mindset is that you are valuable and if you're not needed, you can be replaced.  But really no company should ever be so reliant on just one person that it will fall apart.  You have to be able to cross train and delegate and have backup for each other. 

I've been in this situation. A great deal of our company is predicated on this very complex system that only I know how to use. On the one hand, I'm indispensable. On the other, its the primary reason I need to be available all the time. We finally hired someone who started this week to help me with it. He's still raw but knows the basics and can help with minor stuff when Im off, and can help with my work load. 

1 minute ago, NOTW said:

I always discussed this with my European colleagues.  They take a 2 week Annual Leave in the summer.  Everyone did it and the Americans would not understand how anyone can just be gone for 2 weeks at a time.  Here, you have to request time off and hope it gets approved.  A lot of people don't even dare ask for 2 weeks off at a time.  People continue to work while on vacation.  But when it's the culture and everyone does it, it's just how it is.  People cover for each other, the work gets done.

I'd say the norm here in Northern Europe is 3 weeks in a row and not 2.  Many will take 4 weeks in a row.  I'm not talking UK but rather France/Germany/Netherlands/Scandinavia/etc.  Executives will be expected to handle urgent calls/tasks and be part of key meetings, etc. but generally they are mostly free.  People further down in the hierarchy are nearly 100% free.

This works well as long as the business is within the region.  When the customers/partners are outside of the region things get interesting.  That is especially true if one has customers in Asia or North America.  I can't count the number of times I've heard from super peed off local field people in say Japan or the US when they can't get help from the central groups in Europe.  It is a real problem.  Of course try getting anything out of most of Asia during the couple weeks of Chinese new year.

 

edit: I remember one hilarious phone call I had with my head of Sales in South Korea who called me the morning of Swedish midsummer and said Samsung wanted one of my engineering teams to fix a defect and that it had to be done right away.  I politely explained that it was midsummer and...  he cut me off and yelled (with somewhat broken Korean accent) "Samsung know midsummer, Samsung no care".  We fixed the problem.

7 minutes ago, NOTW said:

From a financial perspective with hourly employees it can actually save money.  I've read about how people will get more done in less time if they think they have to.  Take an 8 hour day filled with coffee breaks, talking about personal lives, sports and TV shows and surfing the internet.  Now one day you have to leave 2 hours early for your child's whatever.  You now have 6 hours.  You quit the extras and time wasters and crack down and get the work done.  

Oh absolutely.  Give someone more time than is needed to complete a task, and they’ll stretch it out to use that time.

I experienced the same thing when I was boxing in college.  Boxing was basically like taking on an almost full time job.    Yet, even though I had SIGNIFICANTLY less free time, I actually got better at getting schoolwork done on time, minimizing cram and late night sessions.

Because I knew I had less time to get my schoolwork done, it forced me to make use of every ounce of free time I had during the day.  It forced me to get more organized.  So while my roommates were playing video games for their 1 hour break in between classes, I was studying or getting homework done. 
Then when boxing season would end in April, for that last month of school, oh man would I procrastinate.  I had more free time than I knew what to do with.  So when I had a homework assignment to get done, rather than just do it when I got home from class, I’d put it off going "ah I can get to this later”.   And I’d end up goofing off all day, and having to stay up late at night to finish assignments even though I had ample time to do them.

Can we also appreciate the irony of discussing productivity for our employers while posting all day on a football team message board?  

26 minutes ago, Gannan said:

I've been in this situation. A great deal of our company is predicated on this very complex system that only I know how to use. On the one hand, I'm indispensable. On the other, its the primary reason I need to be available all the time. We finally hired someone who started this week to help me with it. He's still raw but knows the basics and can help with minor stuff when Im off, and can help with my work load. 

I'm in that situation right now.  I'm the only one that knows our systems and they moved someone to support other projects and systems.  But at least she could help out if I were out. Well she quit and got a job at a friend's startup.  I was promoted to a Senior level position and they're taking someone who supports certain systems (but isn't that great tbh) and putting her and the new hire on my team so we can cross train.  I need people to handle the more BAU and tickets and things while I focus on the bigger software configuration.

Once they're cross trained, if I am out then they can handle help desk tickets and addressing minor things.  If something big were broken, they open a ticket to our software developer.  anything with new projects that needs my expertise would wait and I try to plan that stuff out and not be off when I'm out.  Example once I close this big project I'm on right now, I've said I need vacation (haven't taken any PTO in a long time and it's been built up).  Then can start a new project after.

4 minutes ago, NOTW said:

Can we also appreciate the irony of discussing productivity for our employers while posting all day on a football team message board?  

In a previous post vikas when asked what people do after they stop working at 5pm and I was about to say "post on the emb" but then I realized I do that all day, and not just after 5pm.

2 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

In a previous post vikas when asked what people do after they stop working at 5pm and I was about to say "post on the emb" but then I realized I do that all day, and not just after 5pm.

I usually do fly by's while I am waiting for a meeting to start, or Im waiting for something to download, or when I'm in a meeting where they are talking about areas of the company that have nothing to do with me 😛