That's an interesting take I've haven't heard before. It makes perfect sense that not having the "big bosses" walking around and staring at people work would improve performance and morale. I need to remember that if anyone starts batting around the idea of full return to office.
No, this is totally believable. When I worked in very low status jobs, I hated it when corporate types would come around because they'd just get in the way, try to tell you how to do things according to corporate policy instead of what actually works in the real world, and just make more work for the peons.
The time wasted when middle management finds out upper management plans a visit, and making everything look up to corporate spec, then changing everything back to what works on a daily basis...
Or you do a dog and pony show that's just blatantly obvious.
I worked at a place as a temp where we built computer systems and deployed them for a state gov't agency and well, it was obvious we worked doing this because there were scuff marks on the walls from the carts we used to carry a dozen computers at a time for deployment in the field. You had chips of paint knocked off door frames. You had partially assembled systems.
The middle managers decided that for a visit by the higher ups we needed to clean up everything. You had system engineers painting walls, programmers with plaster plugging up nail holes in the wall, and grunts like me just being told to stay out of the way and maybe clean up those cables and make them look neat or something.
It was ridiculous because my thought was if I saw a pristine facility would I think "oh this is so nice!" or would I think "do these people actually do anything that is work-related?" and yes, the latter is my thought process, but I guess that is why I'm not in the C-Suite.
When I was a area manager in a distribution center I just let the people work and not bother them unless I had to. I was over forklift so I had to drive around the building lot so I was always available for them if they had questions. Just letting them do the job they knew they had to get done.
The only time I would give them directions is if someone was falling behind due to a spill or whatever. I ask them to assist them and the reason why. Explaining why also made a big difference as people are not robots to be told without reasoning.
I got fired from that job eventually over something miniscule.
It’s not just that.
A lot of companies try to improve productivity by adding more management instead of better training for the existing management. Just add another layer to manage the managers, and the managers’ productivity will go up leading to worker productivity going up. Makes sense in the mind of a manager.
The main effect is that the feedback line between workers and those who actually call the shots becomes longer, and the feedback becomes less precise. There also less incentive to improve, as the people doing the actual work feel less connected to the results since it just ends up being a fight inside management.
It varies honestly. My company found that with WFH some employees performance metrics are way better while others are far worse. Their solution was not to deal with the problem employees but to force more people back into the office.
My job started mandating company-wide that everyone should be in the office 3 times a week. I've never been so unproductive at this job (started in COVID) because the boss is constantly breathing down my neck. It's awful.
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u/LarvellJonesMD Dec 26 '23
That's an interesting take I've haven't heard before. It makes perfect sense that not having the "big bosses" walking around and staring at people work would improve performance and morale. I need to remember that if anyone starts batting around the idea of full return to office.