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Fast Company: Fellow CEOs, here's why your employees are angry

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TxTarpon
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9:38a, 6/30/21
Has anyone read this before today?[url=https://www.fastcompany.com/90650545/how-to-avoid-a-disconnect-with-employees-on-return-to-work-plans][/url]
Quote:
Fellow CEOs, here's why your employees are angry about being asked to return to the office

As a CEO, this is the time to consider how your experience may differ from that of your team. To make a sweeping decision for everyone at your company glosses over the reality that each and every one of us endured the pandemic in our own way, and we all figured out the set-up that worked best for us.

What's clear is that our employees have been through a huge event. As their boss, it would be a mistake not to take a measured break and gather the lessons learned over the last momentous year.
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When I look at the future of work, it seems clear we've been stuck in a rut for decades because we relied on tradition and didn't listen to what people really wanted. It's taken this global upheaval for us all to thoroughly examine our past approach. I don't just want to go back now because we've had two vaccinations, and I don't want people to stay remote just because it saves office space. The future of work is more about communication and compassion, rather than rigidly dictating where and how people do their jobs.
I am curious about everyone's thoughts on this.
----------------------------------
Texans make the best songwriters because they are the best liars.-Rodney Crowell

We will never give up our guns Steve, we don't care if there is a mass shooting every day of the week.
-BarronVonAwesome

A man with experience is not at the mercy of another man with an opinion.
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lotsofhp
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9:54a, 6/30/21
AG
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I know everyone is different, but I personally like the traditional office set up. I like having a place that I go to where the work is done, and then I leave that place at the end of the day. I don't want my home being that place. I like them separate l. Maybe I'm a dying breed.
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LOYAL AG
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10:11a, 6/30/21
AG
The work ethic that's made America the richest nation is world history is fading. That's all this really is. "Hey, Mr. CEO. I liked sitting at the house in my pajamas and giving you 5 hours of work for an 8 hour check. Oh, you want me to come back to the office? Sorry, that's not really in my plans. Keep paying me though."

"We all experienced this thing differently..." I'm certain that's true. But your company is a team and teams require some unity in how problems are approached and solved. It's impossible for a company with 1000 employees to have 1000 outcomes in the wake of this thing. At some point there has to be a one-size-fits-none approach or the company will likely find itself spinning out of control. You don't have to like that approach but you don't have to work there either.

Of course in modern day America we'll see a never ending barrage of Facebook posts telling us how evil their company is for not creating a special circumstance for "me". At the end of the day if you want to set your own course and you want a unique world created specifically for you then create that world and take on the risk that comes with it. If you don't, get your ass back to the office when they tell you it's time to come back. It's really that simple.

/ a guy that took on that risk and is now reaping the rewards.
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YouBet
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10:18a, 6/30/21
AG
I tend to agree with his sentiment. One thing I've witnessed and lived first hand are execs complete lack of awareness how their employees reacted to, adapted to, and dealt with the change. Not all but some certainly took the path of "f'em and feed'em fish heads" regarding their own employees.

I think a lot of them are just now reconciling their own lack of awareness and incredulity that many people don't want to go back to 9to5 on the office. Many are just aghast that some people want a different arrangement. You can see the whiplash of change back and forth as people deal with this by using someone like Google as almost a canary on the coal mine.

They have changed their return to work policy at least three times in the last six months as they wrestle with employee needs/wants and push the envelope of what they can get employees to do. My former company went through the same cycle. It's a demographic / generational issue at the end of the day. Older you are (and male) the less flexible you want the arrangement to be.

At this point, many of those older and less flexible leaders are simply being overrun by the number of younger folks demanding it especially at larger corporations.
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TXTransplant
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In reply to lotsofhp • 10:27a, 6/30/21
lotsofhp said:
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I know everyone is different, but I personally like the traditional office set up. I like having a place that I go to where the work is done, and then I leave that place at the end of the day. I don't want my home being that place. I like them separate l. Maybe I'm a dying breed.


Same here. I don't see it as "work from home". It's "live at work", and I don't want that for myself.

I also appreciate needing to have the motivation to get up, make myself look presentable, and go into a setting where I have to have face-to-face interactions with other people. There is a social aspect of working in an office that is valuable to me.

I'm fortunate, though, in that I have a very short commute (only about 15 min).

I do think people who work in an office need to be better about prioritizing their time. What about office hours where people actually work from 7-8 and 4-5 and that's the norm? When you're out of the office, you're out, and you'll take care of whatever needs attention when you get back to the office (I realize that doesn't apply to every single job, but I think it does for most. Managers are great about manufacturing "urgent" situations and "crises" just so they can look like a hero).

People need to be able to leave work at work, whether it be for evenings or weekends or vacation time.

I think WFH gives people who feel pressure to work long hours an "out" without actually dealing with the issue at hand. They say they are "always available" if given the flexibility to work wherever they want. I don't think that's healthy for families and personal relationships.
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planoaggie123
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10:33a, 6/30/21
AG
Heard from a friend that their Chief HR Officer, in an "off-record" statement, said he expects employees to be back in the office. He said if not, he would rather just pay people in India for most of the lower level positions if lower level people choose to not return and feel that their jobs can be done 100% remote....

Obviously more relates to accounting / IT type of roles but an interesting thought...
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YouBet
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In reply to planoaggie123 • 10:43a, 6/30/21
AG
planoaggie123 said:
Heard from a friend that their Chief HR Officer, in an "off-record" statement, said he expects employees to be back in the office. He said if not, he would rather just pay people in India for most of the lower level positions if lower level people choose to not return and feel that their jobs can be done 100% remote....

Obviously more relates to accounting / IT type of roles but an interesting thought...


He will also get low quality work that way. Bad take. I've lived that as well as have many others.

Personally, I'm for the hybrid model and have been pretty much since day one. If I was still in corporate, I would probably find myself in the office 4 days a week even if I wasn't mandated to be just purely out of a personal need to be there for my employees that would work more diverse schedules.
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John Francis Donaghy
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10:43a, 6/30/21
I think the article is spot on, even of the language is a little on the soft side. I don't think it's about "compassion" as much as it is a much-needed rebalancing of work and personal life.

Companies have been slashing costs for the last 20 years. That means lower headcount, and more work expected per employee. That's been a one-way street for many companies for a long time now. Employees lost their family time a little bit at a time over years, and eventually found themselves working long days, plus nights and weekends as a matter of course just to stay afloat all at the expense of personal life. The flexibility of WFH swung the pendulum a little bit back the other way for a lot of office workers for the first time in a long time.

The deliverable work expectations may not have changed, but people were able to reclaim commute time, lunch time, office small talk time, etc. and redirect that non-productive time to family and personal hobbies.

Even during times when workloads were high, I could be much more flexible about balancing work and family during WFH. Like taking my "off" time in the afternoon while my kid is home and playful, and then going back to work after the kid is asleep to finish whatever needs finished for work when I don't have any competing family priorities.

Some jobs cannot be done remotely and employees will have to be on site, but for jobs that can be done flexibly without issue, why would a company needlessly withhold the ability of employees to balance work and family as they see fit so long as they remain effective and productive as emplyees?
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planoaggie123
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In reply to YouBet • 10:47a, 6/30/21
AG
YouBet said:
planoaggie123 said:
Heard from a friend that their Chief HR Officer, in an "off-record" statement, said he expects employees to be back in the office. He said if not, he would rather just pay people in India for most of the lower level positions if lower level people choose to not return and feel that their jobs can be done 100% remote....

Obviously more relates to accounting / IT type of roles but an interesting thought...


He will also get low quality work that way. Bad take. I've lived that as well as have many others.

Personally, I'm for the hybrid model and have been pretty much since day one. If I was still in corporate, I would probably find myself in the office 4 days a week even if I wasn't mandated to be just purely out of a personal need to be there for my employees that would work more diverse schedules.

I agree. As a manager I wouldnt want a team of India. Obviously you have the off-hours work but also the communication is obviously terrible. I worked with them when i was at a public acct firm and it was a headache.

I think hybrid / flex is 100% the way to go. Not a full one way or the other. How those parameters are set I am not sure but someone smarter than me can likely work out a few options that many corps could implement. You also have the problem of "field" vs "office" workers and do you increase other benefits to "field" who have no choice but to "go to the office"....
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YouBet
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In reply to John Francis Donaghy • 10:49a, 6/30/21
AG
John Francis Donaghy said:


Some jobs cannot be done remotely and employees will have to be on site, but for jobs that can be done flexibly without issue, why would a company needlessly withhold the ability of employees to balance work and family as they see fit so long as they remain effective and productive as emplyees?


I would not want to but the primary talking point many companies have to combat this is degradation of company culture the more people are away and not physically present.

It's absolutely a legitimate concern, but most people simply weigh their personal life over work culture. For companies who are high touch, high culture institutions this change is going to be especially impactful. They will have to figure out creative ways to maintain that culture and continue to nurture it.
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jtraggie99
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10:50a, 6/30/21
AG
I know not every company is like this, but I've been working from home for several years now (manager for a software company). There is absolutely nothing I can do at the office that I can't do at home. Of course we're also scattered around and most of the people I am typically involved with are not in my office (or what use to be my office). My company has also had more of a results-driven attitude. They don't expect us to be sitting in front of a computer from 8-5 every day. We come and go as we need to and yes, that sometimes leads to me working on some things in the evenings or weekend when I feel it's necessary. Want to take a break during the day to mow my lawn or go to a yoga class? Sure. At the end of the day, its about getting what we need to done. That's what matters. And it's worked very well for us. There is so much time wasted commuting to an office (not to mention the stress of fighting traffic and all of that), I would honestly hate to go back to it.
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John Francis Donaghy
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In reply to planoaggie123 • 10:54a, 6/30/21
planoaggie123 said:
Heard from a friend that their Chief HR Officer, in an "off-record" statement, said he expects employees to be back in the office. He said if not, he would rather just pay people in India for most of the lower level positions if lower level people choose to not return and feel that their jobs can be done 100% remote....

Obviously more relates to accounting / IT type of roles but an interesting thought...


This a nonsense take IMO and suggests a venting/yelling at clouds comment by the exec more than anything.

If the work can be done effectively in India at a much lower cost, it will be. Whether the high-cost US employees are in an office every day or working remotely won't matter one bit when it comes to that decision.
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JDCAG (NOT Colin)
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11:01a, 6/30/21
AG
Having worked in office for the first 12 or so years of my career, and full time remote the last 5 or so, I can say that my personal preference is to stay full time remote.

That said, I'm in software engineering and the places I've worked remote are full time remote companies and are set up to operate effectively as such...they're not companies that only know in-person and are trying to force a round peg into a square hole.

Additionally, I will say that of all the places I've worked, I've seen folks worthlessly pulling paychecks to be FAR more common at in person gigs. Why? Because for the most part, being in your office is proof you are there, which is good enough for some folks. The notion that remote work is some ploy to avoid earning a paycheck, but everyone driving in to an office is pulling their weight for 8 hours is kind of laughable and the sort of straw man argument that comes from a mindset unwilling to believe there could be alternatives to what they experienced.

The fact is, there are different circumstances that will determine how things go for each employer/employee. Different industries have different needs. Different companies have different needs. It's silly to think everyone could go remote and be successful, but it's equally silly to think it is just a bunch of stupid, lazy employees trying to grift their employers.

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JDCAG (NOT Colin)
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In reply to jtraggie99 • 11:03a, 6/30/21
AG
jtraggie99 said:
I know not every company is like this, but I've been working from home for several years now (manager for a software company). There is absolutely nothing I can do at the office that I can't do at home. Of course we're also scattered around and most of the people I am typically involved with are not in my office (or what use to be my office). My company has also had more of a results-driven attitude. They don't expect us to be sitting in front of a computer from 8-5 every day. We come and go as we need to and yes, that sometimes leads to me working on some things in the evenings or weekend when I feel it's necessary. Want to take a break during the day to mow my lawn or go to a yoga class? Sure. At the end of the day, its about getting what we need to done. That's what matters. And it's worked very well for us. There is so much time wasted commuting to an office (not to mention the stress of fighting traffic and all of that), I would honestly hate to go back to it.


This is my experience as well.

Of course, we're all mostly senior level or better, but in general if you have a team of self-driven folks (which is much easier to build if you can literally hire from anywhere in the entire country), it's a pretty great set up.
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TxTarpon
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In reply to LOYAL AG • 11:08a, 6/30/21

Quote:
That's all this really is. "Hey, Mr. CEO. I liked sitting at the house in my pajamas and giving you 5 hours of work for an 8 hour check. Oh, you want me to come back to the office? Sorry, that's not really in my plans. Keep paying me though."
Excellent way to word that.
----------------------------------
Texans make the best songwriters because they are the best liars.-Rodney Crowell

We will never give up our guns Steve, we don't care if there is a mass shooting every day of the week.
-BarronVonAwesome

A man with experience is not at the mercy of another man with an opinion.
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TxTarpon
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11:14a, 6/30/21
I am reading posters that in the software world that agree with the software CEO who penned the article.

I am curious about a few things.
How do new hires get onboarded with company culture and practices when it is 100% WFH position?
Do they have a temporary "come into the office" process for that?
Is there a different process for entry level vs experienced workers?

----------------------------------
Texans make the best songwriters because they are the best liars.-Rodney Crowell

We will never give up our guns Steve, we don't care if there is a mass shooting every day of the week.
-BarronVonAwesome

A man with experience is not at the mercy of another man with an opinion.
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Proposition Joe
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11:20a, 6/30/21
Many execs don't get it and think that just because they have large physical office space presence that "my employees are going to be coming in!" is going to fly. It won't.

Many employees don't get it that just because you've been enabled to work from home doesn't mean you are deserving of it.

The employees that are valuable will be able to dictate where they want to work. If Company X has a dinosaur CEO that doesn't believe in remote working, cool... There will be a dozen other companies that are lining up to poach that employee that do offer it. Adapt or die.

The employees that aren't that valuable (and can't be trusted to be productive on their own) will still have to drag their asses into the office. Where that will eventually change is when these leases start expiring and employers dangle the carrot of "sure you can work from home... here is your company-owned webcam that must always be on and here is your company-owned laptop that has software that monitors very precisely how often you are working."

Many of those employees will be dying for the days where they could shop online in the office and do about 1 hour of real work a day.
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jtraggie99
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In reply to TxTarpon • 11:27a, 6/30/21
AG
TxTarpon said:
I am reading posters that in the software world that agree with the software CEO who penned the article.

I am curious about a few things.
How do new hires get onboarded with company culture and practices when it is 100% WFH position?
Do they have a temporary "come into the office" process for that?
Is there a different process for entry level vs experienced workers?

In the past, we have had training sessions, from a week to 3 weeks, in one of our offices, to get people up to speed on our software. Or, in the case where the new employees come in with no industry experience (meaning they are software people who are coming from another industry other that what our software is used for), then that training also is to get them up to speed on the industry they are coming into. That's really about it. We don't typically hire a lot of entry-level, most have either significant industry or software experience, or both.

With us, most either love or hate the independence. And those that don't like it, don't typically stay long. Those that do, often stay for years.

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TxTarpon
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In reply to Proposition Joe • 11:28a, 6/30/21

Quote:
The employees that are valuable will be able to dictate where they want to work.
That has always been the case.
Top salesperson of the previous month gets to park next to the door the next month.
Rainmakers show up on their own schedules.
The issues arise when the "D" word is used.
----------------------------------
Texans make the best songwriters because they are the best liars.-Rodney Crowell

We will never give up our guns Steve, we don't care if there is a mass shooting every day of the week.
-BarronVonAwesome

A man with experience is not at the mercy of another man with an opinion.
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Proposition Joe
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In reply to TxTarpon • 11:35a, 6/30/21
TxTarpon said:

Quote:
The employees that are valuable will be able to dictate where they want to work.
That has always been the case.
Top salesperson of the previous month gets to park next to the door the next month.
Rainmakers show up on their own schedules.
The issues arise when the "D" word is used.

Yeah, but it won't just be the top sales people anymore. If you're a competent employee that consistently gets your job done (valuable), then you will have opportunities to work remotely if you want to.

Now that doesn't mean those employees will exercise that opportunity -- there's still a very large swath of the valuable workforce that never realizes their value (either because it's ingrained into them just do what they are told and be thankful they have a job, or because they never make the eye-opening logic leap that you are selling hours of your life for money) and will toil away until the end of time.

I think we all know a few people that are always "going to demand that raise" or "going to apply for that job opening at the new company" yet they sit there and take their modest raise never truly realizing how underpaid they are.
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JDCAG (NOT Colin)
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In reply to TxTarpon • 11:36a, 6/30/21
AG
TxTarpon said:
I am reading posters that in the software world that agree with the software CEO who penned the article.

I am curious about a few things.
How do new hires get onboarded with company culture and practices when it is 100% WFH position?
Do they have a temporary "come into the office" process for that?
Is there a different process for entry level vs experienced workers?



In the places I've worked, it's not much different than when I would go in to an office.

There are usually typical orientation meetings, they're just on zoom instead of in a conference room.

The biggest thing is use of slack/meet/zoom/etc. - on our team, when you first get here, you'll have at least one person assigned as your onboarding person who will help you get things set up and help you familiarize yourself with everything. We also have a WIKI of sorts that helps with most of this stuff. If you have questions, it's just as easy to hit somebody up on slack and have a quick video call/screen share as it would be to walk over to a desk and ask somebody if they can help you out.

There is no question that you don't build the same depth of relationships that you might in an office (mostly due to the non-work related time at things like lunch, grabbing drinks after work, etc.), but it's not like you're strangers. I know my co-workers and can ping them for their thoughts just as easily as I could in an office.

Are there specifics that you are thinking of as impossible to do in a remote situation? I'm not saying they don't exist, cause again - different companies & industries will have different things they need.

At the places I've been, the entire staff was mostly senior, so I can't speak to entry-level folks, but we have discussed hiring some in the near future and the only change we would likely make is to be a little more aggressive on the onboarding/mentor side of things. Probably do more pairing sessions where we work through things together, but other than that, I doubt the process would be much different.

Again, just one perspective from my experience.
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Noble07
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11:41a, 6/30/21
AG
I personally hate working from home. I'm looking for a new job because my employer made the decision to make us all work from home permanently. Dream come true for some, but it's a nightmare for me.

To me, the biggest thing that work from home neutralizes is all of the woke diversity stuff at a large corporation. If I don't ever see anyone, what does diversity really matter? Someone's life experience doesn't really shine through in an email.
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cgh1999
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11:47a, 6/30/21
AG
Our employees who were average in the office are below average at home. 100% No exceptions.

Our below average employees in the office are worthless at home.

Our employees who are new/young and hungry are doing ok, but not learning as quickly as expected because the feedback loop is not as tight.

Our top performers are all performing, but everyone wants to be in the office with some flexibility. But frankly, no one ever asked where they were because they got everything done quickly even if it meant working late at night or early in the morning. This is the 5%-10% of people who excel no matter what.
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superunknown
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In reply to TxTarpon • 12:06p, 6/30/21
AG
TxTarpon said:
I am reading posters that in the software world that agree with the software CEO who penned the article.

I am curious about a few things.
How do new hires get onboarded with company culture and practices when it is 100% WFH position?
Do they have a temporary "come into the office" process for that?
Is there a different process for entry level vs experienced workers?



We re-did our entire onboarding and training regimen for new hires to be over ms teams/zoom etc. A lot of our training was one on one with someone else remote anyway, so this isn't a change for us.

The biggest benefit so far? The caliber of applicants has skyrocketed since going remote and we can pick people who know the business and know the software and plug them in with not much set up time at all. We're about to bring on 3 or 4 more new people, and they all have experience with the software and all but one is an internal hire, so we don't even have to do much at all with company type stuff like HR policies.

We have trained people with minimal experience even in a WFH environment and it's worked out well with exclusively online training (either real time one on one or recorded training sessions we used to onboard a lot of people at once) and it worked out well enough, but I am incredibly excited to bring in people who know this side of the business from day 1. Effectively, we'll never ever have to have "entry level" employees ever again.
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lotsofhp
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In reply to planoaggie123 • 12:07p, 6/30/21
AG
planoaggie123 said:
Heard from a friend that their Chief HR Officer, in an "off-record" statement, said he expects employees to be back in the office. He said if not, he would rather just pay people in India for most of the lower level positions if lower level people choose to not return and feel that their jobs can be done 100% remote....

Obviously more relates to accounting / IT type of roles but an interesting thought...


This was a natural thought for me when this all started happening. I didn't go as far as to think out source to India. But it just makes since to me that if we really do go to majority WFH, why pay someone Southern California or Manhattan living wages when maybe some guy/girl in Arkansas with an internet connection will do?
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TxTarpon
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In reply to JDCAG (NOT Colin) • 12:20p, 6/30/21

Quote:
Are there specifics that you are thinking of as impossible to do in a remote situation? I'm not saying they don't exist, cause again - different companies & industries will have different things they need.
Culture is huge one.
I walk into your company I bring with me the culture of every place I have worked before.
How would you assess the culture penetration timeline in the remote environment?
Is it about the same as in person? Maybe takes an additional 90 days to penetrate and resonate?
About a third of business owners I work with are proud of their company culture and concerned that too many remote workers would kill that.

I am glad you mentioned slack.
That seems to be a software glue for many places now.
Companies that used to monitor IMs are not able to now with that I believe.

You have some great insights in your post covering all this. Thank you!
----------------------------------
Texans make the best songwriters because they are the best liars.-Rodney Crowell

We will never give up our guns Steve, we don't care if there is a mass shooting every day of the week.
-BarronVonAwesome

A man with experience is not at the mercy of another man with an opinion.
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TxTarpon
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In reply to lotsofhp • 12:23p, 6/30/21
That as been happening in Texas for a while now with some professions.
I know five women that are Interior Designers working for west coast commercial firms while living Texas.
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Texans make the best songwriters because they are the best liars.-Rodney Crowell

We will never give up our guns Steve, we don't care if there is a mass shooting every day of the week.
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TxTarpon
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In reply to superunknown • 12:34p, 6/30/21

Quote:
The caliber of applicants has skyrocketed since going remote and we can pick people who know the business and know the software and plug them in with not much set up time at all. We're about to bring on 3 or 4 more new people, and they all have experience with the software and all but one is an internal hire, so we don't even have to do much at all with company type stuff like HR policies.
That is spectacular!
Quote:
Effectively, we'll never ever have to have "entry level" employees ever again.
That is a big "ah-ha".
Have you found that your pay scale is less volatile with the WFH pool?
Are you finding that WFH will work for less than in office?
Some people consider WFH a perk.

The big small business struggle I hear is that a small company has an in office worker that makes $60k.
She is probably unpaid for what she does, but she has an excellent attitude, reliably shows up and never really complains about anything. Now the company needs to add another worker like her. A candidate emerges, everyone votes "yes" to hire, but this candidate only wants WFH. This candidate will take $50k a year so that she can WFH because, we found out, she watches her grandkids three days a week. Situations like this blow the every loving mind of 55+ year old business owners. What is your observation?
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Texans make the best songwriters because they are the best liars.-Rodney Crowell

We will never give up our guns Steve, we don't care if there is a mass shooting every day of the week.
-BarronVonAwesome

A man with experience is not at the mercy of another man with an opinion.
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YouBet
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In reply to Noble07 • 1:09p, 6/30/21
AG
Noble07 said:
I personally hate working from home. I'm looking for a new job because my employer made the decision to make us all work from home permanently. Dream come true for some, but it's a nightmare for me.

To me, the biggest thing that work from home neutralizes is all of the woke diversity stuff at a large corporation. If I don't ever see anyone, what does diversity really matter? Someone's life experience doesn't really shine through in an email.


Good point. Seems like a great cost savings idea for companies to cut all the unnecessary D&I staff and overhead. However, corporate whites should probably be on standby for the eventual micro aggression talk they will get because they are somehow harming non-whites on MS Teams because. reasons.
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Proposition Joe
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In reply to cgh1999 • 1:13p, 6/30/21
cgh1999 said:
Our employees who were average in the office are below average at home. 100% No exceptions.

Our below average employees in the office are worthless at home.

Our employees who are new/young and hungry are doing ok, but not learning as quickly as expected because the feedback loop is not as tight.

Our top performers are all performing, but everyone wants to be in the office with some flexibility. But frankly, no one ever asked where they were because they got everything done quickly even if it meant working late at night or early in the morning. This is the 5%-10% of people who excel no matter what.

Anecdotal, but from what I've seen out of many top performers is that they are actually working/producing MORE.

It's the dirty little secret of working from home -- hard workers will continue working hard even outside of office hours because that work is always accessible to them. Sunday afternoon and it's raining? You're not driving up to the office to finish that proposal.

But Sunday afternoon and it's raining and you are WFH? Well I might as well finish up that proposal.

WFH is coming whether the dinosaur CEOs (and/or those with heavy investments in commercial real estate) want it to or not. It won't completely take over, but when the companies start losing out on top talent because other companies are offering the ability to WFH, the shift will be forced.
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superunknown
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In reply to TxTarpon • 1:18p, 6/30/21
AG
TxTarpon said:

Quote:
The caliber of applicants has skyrocketed since going remote and we can pick people who know the business and know the software and plug them in with not much set up time at all. We're about to bring on 3 or 4 more new people, and they all have experience with the software and all but one is an internal hire, so we don't even have to do much at all with company type stuff like HR policies.
That is spectacular!
Quote:
Effectively, we'll never ever have to have "entry level" employees ever again.
That is a big "ah-ha".
Have you found that your pay scale is less volatile with the WFH pool?
Are you finding that WFH will work for less than in office?
Some people consider WFH a perk.

The big small business struggle I hear is that a small company has an in office worker that makes $60k.
She is probably unpaid for what she does, but she has an excellent attitude, reliably shows up and never really complains about anything. Now the company needs to add another worker like her. A candidate emerges, everyone votes "yes" to hire, but this candidate only wants WFH. This candidate will take $50k a year so that she can WFH because, we found out, she watches her grandkids three days a week. Situations like this blow the every loving mind of 55+ year old business owners. What is your observation?


There's been a few a-ha moments for sure and more to come. One employee that left is in her mid 20s, just finished up her master's degree and is leaving to join a Healthcare group as a traveling recruiter. I told her..."yeah staring out your window working for me can't compete with getting paid to see the country on an expense account. Good luck! If you want to come back some day and we have an opening, we'll be here." So we know for certain people WFH has allowed us to keep some employees who we definitely would have lost if we went back to the office. Daycare seems to be even harder to come by, so I personally do not care what someone's doing at home as long as their job is being done. We recently added/clarified a section in the employee handbook regarding "outside" employment and while I wouldn't consider watching the grandkids outside employment, we do make it clear that people are expected to be available at all times during work hours. The overwhelming majority of my 25+ direct reports have said to me that since leaving the office, they've figured out a better pace with their work and can concentrate more without the office hubbub/murmur. As a manager I feel it's made me better because I can allocate my time to my employees more efficiently. I've got scheduled meetings with each of them regularly and they all know they can reach me on-demand as well. Some of them even feel guilty for being "done" with their day early so they work ahead. I tell them...yup that's the ideal.

As far as payscale goes, all new hires regardless of location are being offered the same. This one's interesting. Apparently Colorado has rules on putting the salary on job postings.

https://www.westword.com/news/equal-pay-work-colorado-ban-help-wanted-12018624

So, I definitely can't offer someone in Seattle a higher salary than someone in Starkville. At the same time though, our new WFH policy says if you plan on moving more than 50 miles away, you need to inform your supervisor. Hasn't happened yet but I'm sure it will. One of my Denver based employees got a Denver salary (before we went officially WFH) and moved to Wyoming. Pretty smart, if you ask me. I dont know how much a base salary will affect us, though. While we did get applicants that wanted 1.5x - 2x what we were offering and we definitely couldn't match, I'm also ecstatic for the 3-4 we are bringing on board. I feel overall it won't be an issue. Prior to the creation of my division, these jobs were locally based. So we were paying SF and NYC salaries to people to do the jobs that can be (and are being) done remotely. No idea how much we saved going to a remote/regional system vs local but I am sure it was a lot.

Not sure how well that answers your questions but overall, WFH has done us well. Offering a lower pay scale (this is the pay rate we offered for our regional offices anyway) hasn't caused us to have a poorer quality of applicants and I honestly feel because it's WFH it opens up our talent pool nationwide.
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Pepper Brooks
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In reply to TxTarpon • 1:21p, 6/30/21
AG
TxTarpon said:

Quote:
That's all this really is. "Hey, Mr. CEO. I liked sitting at the house in my pajamas and giving you 5 hours of work for an 8 hour check. Oh, you want me to come back to the office? Sorry, that's not really in my plans. Keep paying me though."
Excellent way to word that.
If the employee can still hit or exceed expectations on their precovid objectives does it really matter whether they work 5 or 8 hours a day?

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planoaggie123
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In reply to Pepper Brooks • 1:23p, 6/30/21
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NTXAg10 said:
TxTarpon said:

Quote:
That's all this really is. "Hey, Mr. CEO. I liked sitting at the house in my pajamas and giving you 5 hours of work for an 8 hour check. Oh, you want me to come back to the office? Sorry, that's not really in my plans. Keep paying me though."
Excellent way to word that.
If the employee can still hit or exceed expectations on their precovid objectives does it really matter whether they work 5 or 8 hours a day?


I would say depends.

What if they met known objectives after 5 hours and took off to go play golf.

Hour 6.5 rolls around and management needs some sort of report / analysis / other action.

Now what?

Dedicated employee will likely sprint home or figure out someone else that can do it but then you have caused a delay for management and maybe burdened a co-worker.

So maybe work 5 hours but promise to be home the other 3?

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Pepper Brooks
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In reply to planoaggie123 • 1:28p, 6/30/21
AG
planoaggie123 said:
NTXAg10 said:
TxTarpon said:

Quote:
That's all this really is. "Hey, Mr. CEO. I liked sitting at the house in my pajamas and giving you 5 hours of work for an 8 hour check. Oh, you want me to come back to the office? Sorry, that's not really in my plans. Keep paying me though."
Excellent way to word that.
If the employee can still hit or exceed expectations on their precovid objectives does it really matter whether they work 5 or 8 hours a day?


I would say depends.

What if they met known objectives after 5 hours and took off to go play golf.

Hour 6.5 rolls around and management needs some sort of report / analysis / other action.

Now what?

Dedicated employee will likely sprint home or figure out someone else that can do it but then you have caused a delay for management and maybe burdened a co-worker.

So maybe work 5 hours but promise to be home the other 3?

That's fair and the odds of that kind of scenario happening likely vary by industry, company, etc. In my industry, very rarely will I ever get a 3 hour turn around request and not know it's coming ahead of time. If I were to take off and go play golf anything that came up is something I could do when I got home or the next day.

My company phone allows me to stay in touch with management and answer emails via teams so I can pretty much still handle the low touch admin stuff while I'm doing other things.
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YouBet
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In reply to Proposition Joe • 1:37p, 6/30/21
AG
Proposition Joe said:
cgh1999 said:
Our employees who were average in the office are below average at home. 100% No exceptions.

Our below average employees in the office are worthless at home.

Our employees who are new/young and hungry are doing ok, but not learning as quickly as expected because the feedback loop is not as tight.

Our top performers are all performing, but everyone wants to be in the office with some flexibility. But frankly, no one ever asked where they were because they got everything done quickly even if it meant working late at night or early in the morning. This is the 5%-10% of people who excel no matter what.

Anecdotal, but from what I've seen out of many top performers is that they are actually working/producing MORE.

It's the dirty little secret of working from home -- hard workers will continue working hard even outside of office hours because that work is always accessible to them. Sunday afternoon and it's raining? You're not driving up to the office to finish that proposal.

But Sunday afternoon and it's raining and you are WFH? Well I might as well finish up that proposal.

WFH is coming whether the dinosaur CEOs (and/or those with heavy investments in commercial real estate) want it to or not. It won't completely take over, but when the companies start losing out on top talent because other companies are offering the ability to WFH, the shift will be forced.
True in my case as well as as my wife's. My team was more productive from home than they were at work. My wife said last year was the best year her department ever had.
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