Working From Home

[garbon]

I have staff who are off on a building Easter egg hunt. I guess CC would have them up on charges.

[Tamas]

I fail to see the significance for the WFH/office question though: The place were you do not fulfill your obligation seems irrelevant.

I think CC's original point was that the employees he heard about may be unawares that their absences from in front of their laptops can be legal grounds for termination.

And I guess the way this feeds into the topic is that the boss can see the employee sitting in front of the laptop pretending to be busy, so won't be thinking about unleashing the law on them.

I think such bosses need to judge their employees work by its end results, not by the punch clock. And instead of trying to make the punch-clock system somehow work in the 2020, introduce systems that can verify employee performance in the new environment.

[Jacob]

Yeah, I'm very much of the "end results" school of management, though I'm aware it's not a universal attitude.

In my particular field of work there's also real value in being able to call on staff to go the extra mile at critical times, and to nurture and support those who are highly motivated and passionate about what we do. Neither of those are facilitated by applying concepts like "time theft" or micro-managing behaviour and attendance.

That said, it's true that there are some folks who are more effective and happier in office, some who are more effective and happier working remotely, and some for whom hybrid works best. From my point of view that's best handled by flexibility that suits individual needs (and to be clear, that's not just "what the employee prefers" but also "what generates the best results for that employee). One size fits all usually doesn't.

[crazy canuck]

I fail to see the significance for the WFH/office question though: The place were you do not fulfill your obligation seems irrelevant.

I agree, except for the detrimental effect it has on junior people, and the caveat that some work functions cannot be done from home. 

But we got off on this tangent when people said one of the benefits of working from home is not actually devoting their full time and energy to their work while they are working from home. 

[Jacob]

But we got off on this tangent when people said one of the benefits of working from home is not actually devoting their full time and energy to their work while they are working from home.

Since I'm the one who brought it up: In the context of my workplace, we allow similar flexibility for people working in the office. If you need to go to a doctor's appointment, pick up a kid, drop off your car, take an extra long coffee break to clear your mind, go to the gym for an hour, or whatever that's totally cool while you're working in the office.

Our basic assumption is that you're an adult who's taking your job responsibilities seriously and are committed to meeting your deliverables. If you are not, we'll work with you to get there. But typically we trust people to manage their own time. Presenteeism is basically an anti-value.

In that sense, there's basically no difference between WFH and WFO, though for some people the value of that flexibility is greatly enhanced in a WFH context.

[Josquius]

Yeah, I'm very much of the "end results" school of management, though I'm aware it's not a universal attitude.

In my particular field of work there's also real value in being able to call on staff to go the extra mile at critical times, and to nurture and support those who are highly motivated and passionate about what we do. Neither of those are facilitated by applying concepts like "time theft" or micro-managing behaviour and attendance.

That said, it's true that there are some folks who are more effective and happier in office, some who are more effective and happier working remotely, and some for whom hybrid works best. From my point of view that's best handled by flexibility that suits individual needs (and to be clear, that's not just "what the employee prefers" but also "what generates the best results for that employee). One size fits all usually doesn't.

I guess the problem with this let people decide way though is that if everyone isn't the office it essentially means remote work for all- even for those coming into the office they're still on teams calls and don't get most of the actual benefits of in-office work.

[crazy canuck]

But we got off on this tangent when people said one of the benefits of working from home is not actually devoting their full time and energy to their work while they are working from home.

Since I'm the one who brought it up: In the context of my workplace, we allow similar flexibility for people working in the office. If you need to go to a doctor's appointment, pick up a kid, drop off your car, take an extra long coffee break to clear your mind, go to the gym for an hour, or whatever that's totally cool while you're working in the office.

Our basic assumption is that you're an adult who's taking your job responsibilities seriously and are committed to meeting your deliverables. If you are not, we'll work with you to get there. But typically we trust people to manage their own time. Presenteeism is basically an anti-value.

In that sense, there's basically no difference between WFH and WFO, though for some people the value of that flexibility is greatly enhanced in a WFH context.

Sure, but you also brought up changing diapers and doing errands. 

The concept of judging people only on their deliverables makes good sense for people who are contractors.  Contractors do not owe a legal duty to work set hours, or in the case of salaried people, to devote all of their "time and energy" -  that is the phrase that comes from the cases - to their work during working hours.

The fact that employees seem to be want to be treated like contractors in terms of flexibility but also get all the benefit of being an employee is legally problematic.

 

[garbon]

But we got off on this tangent when people said one of the benefits of working from home is not actually devoting their full time and energy to their work while they are working from home.

Since I'm the one who brought it up: In the context of my workplace, we allow similar flexibility for people working in the office. If you need to go to a doctor's appointment, pick up a kid, drop off your car, take an extra long coffee break to clear your mind, go to the gym for an hour, or whatever that's totally cool while you're working in the office.

Our basic assumption is that you're an adult who's taking your job responsibilities seriously and are committed to meeting your deliverables. If you are not, we'll work with you to get there. But typically we trust people to manage their own time. Presenteeism is basically an anti-value.

In that sense, there's basically no difference between WFH and WFO, though for some people the value of that flexibility is greatly enhanced in a WFH context.

Sure, but you also brought up changing diapers and doing errands. 

The concept of judging people only on their deliverables makes good sense for people who are contractors.  Contractors do not owe a legal duty to work set hours, or in the case of salaried people, to devote all of their "time and energy" -  that is the phrase that comes from the cases - to their work during working hours.

The fact that employees seem to be want to be treated like contractors in terms of flexibility but also get all the benefit of being an employee is legally problematic.

 

Maybe it depends on industry as in my project based world, evals have always been on did you get assigned tasks done or not. You aren't punished by being given more work if you are efficient.

[Sheilbh]

Maybe it depends on industry as in my project based world, evals have always been on did you get assigned tasks done or not. You aren't punished by being given more work if you are efficient.

Yeah - similar in my experience (and broadly, being efficient is good), not sure it's just project based. And the other side is that you're expected to work beyond your hours, or maybe you need to work over lunch if necessary - if that's always happening, or if you've always got loads of time there's probably a problem.

[garbon]

Maybe it depends on industry as in my project based world, evals have always been on did you get assigned tasks done or not. You aren't punished by being given more work if you are efficient.

Yeah - similar in my experience (and broadly, being efficient is good), not sure it's just project based. And the other side is that you're expected to work beyond your hours, or maybe you need to work over lunch if necessary - if that's always happening, or if you've always got loads of time there's probably a problem.

[Tamas]

Apparently Amazon has 34% empty office space and expect to save 1.3 billion by reducing office space.

[Sheilbh]

Apparently Amazon has 34% empty office space and expect to save 1.3 billion by reducing office space.

My "favourite" on this was Jacob Rees-Mogg walking round Whitehall leaving notes to civil servants who weren't at their desks as a culture war issue. But government has been at the very front of WFH since way before the pandemic. Not least because they've sold off large parts of the government estate (and needless to say are, broadly speaking, not building new departmental buildings) so there's literally not enough desk space for the number of civil servants.

Edit: But I've heard anecdotally of a few law firms making big savings from cutting their floorspace. I imagine they also used the extended break from the office/"how we use our space" to radically re-jig some of the more traditionalist departments.

[Josquius]

Yes, even dating back to pre covid the big mega Corp I worked for at the time, was going through a big office rebuild where there'd be less (hot) desks than workers as they accepted remote work to at least some degree was the future.

Covid didn't completely upend things. It merely moved things forward a decade or two overnight.. And then post covid we've pulled back half of that.

[crazy canuck]

Maybe it depends on industry as in my project based world, evals have always been on did you get assigned tasks done or not. You aren't punished by being given more work if you are efficient.

Yeah - similar in my experience (and broadly, being efficient is good), not sure it's just project based. And the other side is that you're expected to work beyond your hours, or maybe you need to work over lunch if necessary - if that's always happening, or if you've always got loads of time there's probably a problem.

I agree with all of that, and I'm not sure what I said that is different. 

One thing that is important to differentiate is that employment standards laws apply to different types of employment differently.  so for example, lawyers are excluded from the protection of employment standards, and so it would be very usual to expect a lawyer, who is an employee to work as many hours as needed without any additional pay.


That is also true in some high-tech sectors, as well as other sectors, consult your local employment standard law, for all of the exceptions to the general protections given to employees.


My point is related to employees who are protected by employment standards, and for whom employers have no flexibility to require employees to work as many hours in a day as is required to meet their objectives.

In those circumstances, time theft becomes an issue, because productivity will necessarily drop as the employee is working less than anticipated by the employer.

[Jacob]

Sure, but you also brought up changing diapers and doing errands.

Yup. And what I'm saying is that doing occasional errands is thought to be fine, whether you're WFH or WFO. And if you take 15 minutes to change a diaper or 15 minutes to go grab a coffee across the way, both are fine.

Because conversely, sometimes the work greatly benefits from people deciding to put in some extra hours to meet a deadline or to unblock someone or something critical - meaning the employer is looking for flexibility from the employee. In my experience, that works best long term when it's a two-way street.

The concept of judging people only on their deliverables makes good sense for people who are contractors.  Contractors do not owe a legal duty to work set hours, or in the case of salaried people, to devote all of their "time and energy" -  that is the phrase that comes from the cases - to their work during working hours.

The fact that employees seem to be want to be treated like contractors in terms of flexibility but also get all the benefit of being an employee is legally problematic.

Thank you for the legal insight

If things break down, it's good to know what the legal baseline is.

One note though - you seem to assume the flexibility is driven by employee demand. It is not really, it is applied by the employer based on what appears to provide the best results for us in our business. That we legally could be much stricter is good to know, I suppose, but isn't super relevant.

You seem to be framing the conversation in terms of who is entitled to what and guarding against one side taking advantage of the other. For us, if we're engaging with our employees in that framework that's already a failure state.