RE: Teleproductivity

Subject: RE: Teleproductivity
From: "Carnall, Jane" <Jane -dot- Carnall -at- compaq -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 14:48:05 -0000

Tom Murrell wrote:
>Frankly, I think that needs to be done whether someone is telecommuting or
not.
But in all honesty it probably isn't happening in most places. I do think
that
if you are establishing measureable, reviewable, objective criteria for
performance and success, a manager and the employee will know early if
they're
meeting those criteria. If they're not, figure out what the factors are and
address them. If the factor turns out to be the employee's productivity,
well
you know what to do. Either the employee's productivity must improve or the
employee needs to be replaced.<

Right. And if the employee's productivity is down, it's not necessarily the
employee's fault: there may be circumstances affecting productivity beyond
that employee's control.

>I think that those managers who automatically assume the problem is the
employee 'goofing off' might look at whether or not they have set
expectations
and objectives for the employee and the project and then followed through on
monitoring the work toward those objectives. But that is harder than just
blaming all employees as lazy good for nothings who need to be watched all
the
time.<

Dead right! I worked for a company once that had a strict policy of 9 to 5
hours, 1 hour for lunch, ideally to be taken between 12:00 and 1pm. If you
came in at 9:10 you had to stay till 5:10, no exceptions, no excuses (except
for legally incontrovertible time off for doctors or dentists). One night I
was working till nearly 7pm to get something finished. The next day, I came
in at 9:30, and left at just after 5. The day after that, my team leader
took me aside and warned me that I had a problem with my hours: she'd
noticed, and so had other people, that I came in late and left on time.
(This pattern had occurred before: I lived an hour's travel from work.)

"But quite often I come in on time and leave late."

"Yes, but if you stay late, how does anyone know when you leave? Anyway,
it's supposed to be the same day."

I took it to my manager, who took it to her manager, who passed down the
instruction that everybody was to be at their desks and working from 9 to 5,
no flexitime whatsoever permitted, and by the way, people were getting far
too flexible about their lunchbreaks recently, unless you had a special
reason, lunch break was noon to 1pm.

I asked whether that meant I was prohibited from working after 5pm, and my
manager said No, not if you want to, but that time doesn't count. Her
experience was, she said, that if people were given half a chance, they
cheated. Maybe... but I can't say that I ever again felt like going that
extra mile to get work done.

Jane Carnall
Technical Writer, Compaq, UK
Unless stated otherwise, these opinions are mine, and mine alone.

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