Most people think their colleagues aren't being productive while working from home

[midian182]

In brief: Most people might believe they are more productive working from home than when they were chained to a desk in the office, but it seems a lot of us don't hold our colleagues in equally high regard.

A report by Cisco (via ZDNet) sheds some light on people's attitudes towards remote and hybrid working. From a survey of 1,050 UK employees, 75% said their manager trusted them to be productive while working from home. Whether this really is the view held by their bosses or just what the workers believe is debatable.

The most interesting finding is that while most people consider themselves more productive when working remotely, 61% said their colleagues could not be trusted to do the same. Maybe a lot of people don't like their co-workers? It was also discovered that 43% of respondents believed their bosses micromanaged more when working remotely or in a hybrid scheme.

Miss this? Probably not

As with other reports, the findings here suggest that the benefits of not being in the office full-time outweighed negatives, such as less engagement with colleagues, bosses, and the company in general. A massive 79% of respondents said they were happier with this arrangement, and 57% said both productivity and the quality of their work had improved.

Elsewhere, almost three-quarters of people said aspects of their emotional, financial, mental, physical, and social wellbeing had improved through remote and hybrid working, and 78% said it had improved their work-life balance. Just under half said their stress levels were down, and around 65% said their physical fitness and relationship with family members had improved.

Jen Scherler-Gormley, head of people and communities, Cisco UK & Ireland, said: "It is clear that hybrid working is here to stay, and for good reason as employees and businesses alike see tangible benefits across key indicators – from improved overall employee wellbeing to better productivity and work performance."

A similar report from last month found that most workers don't want to return to the office and could quit their jobs over a lack of flexibility, much like Apple's former director of machine learning. An earlier study also found people are willing to take pay cuts and lose benefits to keep working from home.

Masthead credit: Telecommuting by Creative Lab; center image: Christina Morillo

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https://www.techspot.com/news/94743-most-people-think-their-colleagues-arent-productive-while.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Q: How many people work at your place of employment?

A: "About half of them"...

 

[antiproduct]

Our executive director mandated all staff return to work in full... except for herself. Her reasoning is that she doesn't think staff actually do their work while remote. We're all pretty sure that she's really the one not doing work and that's why she suspects that. I think all the other staff I work with really did a lot while we were remote and I've advocated for giving all the staff who can work remotely the ability to do so.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Currently, here in NYC, we (quietly) shortened the length of a positive COVID report quarantine from 10 days to 5.

I have employees right now who I know are lying to me - and they used their kid's (or another person's) positive Covid test in order to call out sick. Since my business can be done remotely and they work on commission, it doesn't bother me too much.

I get more productivity out of them because they know I can see their daily output and I have metrics of measurement.

However, let's not fool ourselves.

Most of them are sitting home half-naked, in their bed, on an ipad or desktop, possibly drinking (alcohol) or getting high while they are working - maybe even fornicating.

So long as my work gets completed, that's the only way they avoid a meeting with me an human resources (which may have to be done remotely due to Covid).

 

[Prosercunus]

Depends on the person. However, as an IT/Systems Admin individual. I can indeed confirm that many people are taking advantage of their employer, but in my mind, that is a managerial issue with the lack of auditing of their employees workload and such.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Depends on the person. However, as an IT/Systems Admin individual. I can indeed confirm that many people are taking advantage of their employer, but in my mind, that is a managerial issue with the lack of auditing of their employees workload and such.

Management are the worst offenders by FAR. Even in person they cant do their jobs properly.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Management are the worst offenders by FAR. Even in person they cant do their jobs properly.

The beauty about being a manager (or owner) is never having to answer to wage slaves.

 

[Aceseven]

I worked at home for a short time as a system admin when covid first hit and I'll admit I didn't do much, but that was honestly the jobs fault cause they had no plan, once people got situated at home and the kinks with their gear worked out...wasn't much to do but wait.

Woke up, turned on the laptop, cranked its volume to max so I could hear notifications then flopped on the couch and played games all day, watched movies, annoyed the dog, got a new job that needed me on site pretty quick cause that was not fun, wfh just wasn't my thing.

The beginning of the covid days was nuts, just looking out the window and seeing all those kids wandering around during "school hrs" and waves of food delivery vehicles in my apt complex was interesting to say the least.

 

[VaRmeNsI]

I think simple solution is pay by output.

 

[NicktheWVAHick]

Yes, COVID is a little worse than the seasonal flu. But the damage it has done to society is irreparable. And the power it has given governments over their people (ehr, subjects) is transformational. Given the option, most people will do less, not more. And when this is combined with “free money” courtesy of the US Mint, then the result is inevitably the toxic current state of our Union and economy. The Great Depression required a few good World Wars for us to climb out of our own fetid squalor. This will require ALOT more than that.

 

[psycros]

Yes, COVID is a little worse than the seasonal flu. But the damage it has done to society is irreparable. And the power it has given governments over their people (ehr, subjects) is transformational. Given the option, most people will do less, not more. And when this is combined with “free money” courtesy of the US Mint, then the result is inevitably the toxic current state of our Union and economy. The Great Depression required a few good World Wars for us to climb out of our own fetid squalor. This will require ALOT more than that.

This is the most insightful post I've read on here in a while. I just wish to God it wasn't. No-nonsense Mountaineers swing that truth hammer as hard as John Henry..

 

[wiyosaya]

The beauty about being a manager (or owner) is never having to answer to wage slaves.

Unless, of course, the "wage slaves" go to HR.

 

[VitalyT]

And guess what - reading all the TechSpot news does not help at all.

 

[Dimitriid]

Co-workers think what their boss or manager wants them to think and they will drop not-so-subtle clues about the team not being as productive and such, very likely unsubstantiated claims.

But this is of course, just flat out false: all studies show that remote work during the pandemic *increased* productivity, not decreased or stayed the same, increased. In fact it has made so much of a difference for many people that have to take care of their families, cut down on expenses and commute time than most people that can probably will demand to continue on remote or shop around for some other job and that is the key here: Just managers trying to fight back about a very big shift in the way people think of jobs mostly because well, people working remote and still being able to manage their work and be productive just fine has shown that it's *the managers* that are often fairly unnecessary.

 

[VitalyT]

I will tell it first hand - the number of people I came across over the last 2 years who would do absolutely nothing from home is unbelievable. At my current work, we fired one more person just 2 days ago, again for being as useless as tits on a boar.

I do not recall this many people fired during pre-covid era over loitering.

 

[p51d007]

I know for a fact!
Our sales staff "works from home" but I know that at least a couple of them don't do much while they are at home. Oh they might send an email or make a phone call, but they aren't doing much of anything. But the service & support staff is in the office 5 days a week.
About once a week, one of the sales guys might show up to check on some equipment but that's about it.

 

[p51d007]

Yes, COVID is a little worse than the seasonal flu. But the damage it has done to society is irreparable. And the power it has given governments over their people (ehr, subjects) is transformational. Given the option, most people will do less, not more. And when this is combined with “free money” courtesy of the US Mint, then the result is inevitably the toxic current state of our Union and economy. The Great Depression required a few good World Wars for us to climb out of our own fetid squalor. This will require ALOT more than that.

My parents went through the depression & WW2 and children. Just before covid hit, my father passed away, and six weeks later so did my mother. Married almost 63 years. Couldn't be without him. I thank God they aren't here to see what has happened. I think you are correct. We are heading for another depression, and a global war to either blow up the entire planet, or set it back on course.

 

[Burty117]

Working from home depends on the person. I legit feel more productive at home because the work I'm supposed to be doing actually gets done. When in the office I'd be pulled from pillar to post and the work I was supposed to be doing gets pushed.

On the other hand, I for sure know colleagues that do a lot less when working from home. I see them playing video games all day or they don't respond to me until certain times (usually just before lunch and just before they finish for the day coincidentally).

I personally like the new hybrid setup, definitely a better work to personal life balance for sure. Nice to not sit in traffic everyday or ride the world's loudest trains (looking at you London Underground jubilee line). It's nice to not have to get up super early everyday or get home late and starving.

But that's just me, if they want to convince people to come to the office everyday, give them incentive to do so, pay rise? Nicer offices? Just spit balling

 

[George Keech]

Yes, COVID is a little worse than the seasonal flu. But the damage it has done to society is irreparable. And the power it has given governments over their people (ehr, subjects) is transformational. Given the option, most people will do less, not more. And when this is combined with “free money” courtesy of the US Mint, then the result is inevitably the toxic current state of our Union and economy. The Great Depression required a few good World Wars for us to climb out of our own fetid squalor. This will require ALOT more than that.

"A few good world wars" is the stupidest statement I have seen for some time.

Also the US only made money during both wars because it only got involved later on so made loads of money out of selling guns and loans first. Both world wars bankrupted most of the rest of the world.

The world economy goes up and down every 20-10 years or so, this is no ways as bad as the great depression. It isn't even as bad as 2008.

Unfortunately your just in the past was always better mindset.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

Got two people at my work that claim they are able to work from home because they can remote into the system and they can reply to emails.

Well, damn.....I can do that too! But, my work requires me to be on site and so does theirs.
They have to do invoicing and book keeping and backing up this info on the sever with the scanner at work. They're not allowed to take invoicing paperwork home (last time one of them did that they lost it) and they don't have full access to everything in the system from remote access.

Yet, the owners won't say a damn thing to them about it. Invoicing is weeks behind. Customers call and complain they're not getting their invoices in a timely fashion, yet owners don't care.

However, when product comes out on the floor they're at the shipping office complaining that material isn't shipping immediately! Screw the fact that customers aren't getting invoiced for 2-4 weeks after they get their material delivered to them.....making money to cover the costs of material isn't important, it seems.

Yeah, no one can do their work remotely at the place I work, but for some reason the two ladies that work in Accounts Payable can, even though they are not allowed to take invoicing home with them. These two ladies will be out 3 or 4 days a week sometimes as they "work from home".

I'm sure there are many people that can do work remotely, but not one single position at my work can, yet two people are allowed to do it.

 

[RudyBob]

No way someone can be as or more productive working from home. If productive means putting in as much time as you would if you was at work

 

[bandit8623]

Currently, here in NYC, we (quietly) shortened the length of a positive COVID report quarantine from 10 days to 5.

I have employees right now who I know are lying to me - and they used their kid's (or another person's) positive Covid test in order to call out sick. Since my business can be done remotely and they work on commission, it doesn't bother me too much.

I get more productivity out of them because they know I can see their daily output and I have metrics of measurement.

However, let's not fool ourselves.

Most of them are sitting home half-naked, in their bed, on an ipad or desktop, possibly drinking (alcohol) or getting high while they are working - maybe even fornicating.

So long as my work gets completed, that's the only way they avoid a meeting with me an human resources (which may have to be done remotely due to Covid).

I finally fully agree with you on something

 

[bandit8623]

I think simple solution is pay by output.

then you have to have more trackers depending on the job.how are you going manage that as well? its doable, but adds layers

 

[hahahanoobs]

If the majority of remote workers are as or more productive then there is no problem. Working from home is cheaper and safer for both employers and employees as well as other benefits.

 

[Sathi43]

"Most people think their colleagues aren't being productive ̶w̶h̶I̶l̶e̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶I̶n̶g̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶h̶o̶m̶e̶"

FTFY