WFH mandates bad for staff morale and stunt innovation
- Reference: 1686586992
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/06/12/wfh_mandates_bad_for_staff/
- Source link:
Never one to miss a good marketing opportunity, the Aussie business was speaking out after several weeks of Meta, Dell, Google and others talking up in-person work.
Atlassian's 10,000-plus workforce is allowed to choose where they work, and co-CEO and co-founder Scott Farquhar thinks that around 40 percent live more than two hours from their nearest office.
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"Companies tying butts in seats to performance, or guilting their employees into charitable behavior, is not only disingenuous but harmful," he said. "By making these decisions, companies are stunting innovation, limiting opportunities to the hands of the few, and degrading the one thing they care about – connection."
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Around 78 percent of Atlassian's software engineers meet in an office once a quarter, and about half visit the office at least once a month. Some 75 to 90 percent that live within two hours of the office come in once a month or more.
Farquhar says 91 percent of his staff cite flexibility to work remotely or from an office as "important reasons" for sticking with the organization; 92 percent say it lets them do their best work; and spending just a few days together boosts team feelings of connection for four to five months.
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Amazon asked its 300,000 corporate workers in February to get back into the office for "at least" three days a week. CEO Andy Jassy [5]said at the time it is "easier to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture when we're in the office together most of the time and surrounded by our colleagues. It's especially true for new people."
Mark Zuckerberg told his Meta underlings this month that he also wants bums on seats in the office as " [6]engineers perform better in person ." Dell has similarly asked workers to [7]return for three days a week , despite previously saying during the pandemic that it anticipated the [8]majority of employees working remotely .
[9]Three quarters of UK tech pros are ready to leave their jobs
[10]Workday sued over its AI job screening tool, candidate claims discrimination
[11]Results are in for biggest 4-day work week trial ever: 92% sticking with it
[12]Bias toward office staff will cost you: Your WFH crew could walk, say execs
[13]Microsoft highlights 'productivity paranoia' in remote work research
Google is [14]tightening up WFH home policies and will monitor more closely who is coming into the office and how many times a week they do, with this contributing toward annual pay reviews. And Salesforce is [15]donating $10 to charity for each day a worker goes into the office for a fortnight from today.
Atlassian believes, unlike some of its larger and older tech siblings, that internal product data indicates "no evidence of decreasing productivity" of employees that work remotely.
"We're not taking attendance and it's working for us," said Farquhar. "Employee productivity, retention, and happiness are up. From our perspective, strict mandates miss what work should be about: good work."
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Is he right? Tell us in the comments. ®
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[5] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/20/amazon_mandates_return_to_office/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/02/meta_return_to_office_mandate/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/10/dell_remote_work_revision/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/28/dell_q2_2021_work_from_home/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/11/three_quarters_of_uk_tech/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/23/workday_discrimination_lawsuit/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/21/4_day_work_week/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/21/proximity_bias_workforce_productivity/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/23/microsoft_highlights_productivity_paranoia/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/08/google_three_day_week_enforcement/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/07/salesforce_to_staff_10_donation/
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[17] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
I look at what Salesforce is not doing, which is obliging people to come to the office. I don't work for Salesforce but if I did, I wouldn't care that the carrot is small, only that they're not using a stick.
It's only for a fortnight. You could go into the office just for that fortnite to get the $100 donated (assuming you actually want to support their choice of charity) and then go back to what you were doing before. Unless of course the costs of your going in (minus costs saved by not working at home, plus Gift Aid or equivalent tax, and accounting for how much you value your time if you can't do what you want on the way), amount to more than $10 per trip, in which case it is more efficient to give your own money to the charity, which probably means you get more choice of charity as well.
The company I work for keep trying to guilt-trip us if we don't donate to charity using the "corporate social responsibility" scheme they signed up for, that lets them add extra to employees' donations. It doesn't seem to have occurred to them that I support a charity that's too busy doing its good work to have time to go through the bureaucracy of adding themselves to that corporate donation scheme just to catch the small number of donors who would work that way. So I just support them directly with bog-standard UK Gift Aid and the company doesn't get to brag about it, sorry. If you really want me to use the corporate scheme, you should trust the UK Charities Commission to have vetted the charity already, without requiring it to use its precious time for loads of extra hassle all over again just so you can feel good about having checked something. /rant
Having a good WFH policy means a company can recruit and hire the best talent anywhere. Not just the best talent where the office is.
Some people work better WFH
others don't.
It ain't rocket science genius.
Personally, I did more WFH for the last 12 years of my career. Luckily, I had bosses who were only concerned about what you delivered and when. Do it right, do it once was my mantra.
Some bosses love to micro manage their drones. They will be on your tail if you spend too much time in the toilet, are late (matters not if you stay late) and everything else.
Presenteism at its worst.
These numpties can't get it into their thick heads that this can make your drones work less as they spend time worrying about the boss and not the job in hand.
Re: Some people work better WFH
Yes but if you can’t be visibly seen to manage your serfs and be visibly seen and appreciated to be brown nosing your superiors how will you ever get on ?
The problem is not the the low level who have jobs to do, or the highest level, who also have jobs to do, but all those in between who have to justify their existence by presiding over their mini empires ….
Re: Some people work better WFH
I find it depends what I’m doing - if I want to motor through something, WFH can let me get on without as many interruptions as when I’m in the office.
On the other hand, working in the office reminds me that the people I promised some work for still exist and that I should actually do something for them instead of just the other projects that are more interesting.
“Bad for staff morale and stunt innovation”
Very true - I think up my most innovative stunts while I’m in the office.
Re: “Bad for staff morale and stunt innovation”
Are they cunning?
Ah, yes, the oh-so-productive Atlassian
https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/03/atlassian_cloud_6999_negative_feedback/
Mind you, stopped clock & all that...
Salesforce is donating a pittance to charity for people who come in to work, instead of just giving that money to the people who make the huge effort to make their own lives worse by showing up so they can continue to have an excuse for paying for massive commercial real estate holdings.