Working From Home Megathread

MSVforever

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117840693#Comment_117840693

Fair play to Google!

kennethsmyth

As said before, anyone who is being forced back to office and it’s not necessary will no longer do additional hours. The commute time is now those hours. I would recommend all to stick to this.

astrofool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117842304#Comment_117842304

Up till now it's being mandated to work from home, this will change and people will have to learn how to effectively work from home. This means being overt in the work you've done, being over-communicative about what you're doing what problems you've hit and what you're going to do next, a good team lead would recognize this and have no problem with people WFH this way (and the WFH have to understand they won't be privy to the water cooler talk and that's something they have to solve, not the people at the office to solve for them).

If a team lead is asking some to come in and others not, there will generally be a reason for it, hopefully, if they're a good lead, but if they're not, why are you working for them?

Richard Hillman

We have been told we there won't be a mandatory attendance in work until November 1st at the earliest. I am public service, not necessarily civil service.

Mrs OBumble

Some interesting points about the increased interest in tattleware: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/05/covid-coronavirus-work-home-office-surveillance

WhiteMemento9

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117850757#Comment_117850757

What is interesting about it? You can't use any of this in Europe. It sounds like some dystopian nightmare. The blurb from the creator made me lol

"Every minute or so, the program would capture a live photo of David and his workmates via their company laptop webcams. The ever-changing headshots were splayed across the wall of a digital conference waiting room that everyone on the team could see. Clicking on a colleague’s face would unilaterally pull them into a video call. If you were lucky enough to catch someone goofing off or picking their nose, you could forward the offending image to a team chat via Sneek’s integration with the messaging platform Slack.

According to the Sneek co-founder Del Currie, the software is meant to replicate the office. “We know lots of people will find it an invasion of privacy, we 100% get that, and it’s not the solution for those folks,” Currie says. “But there’s also lots of teams out there who are good friends and want to stay connected when they’re working together.”

Mrs OBumble

You can't use any of this in Europe.

What makes you think that? It's fine to use provided the employees are aware of it, AFAIK.

All this snooping stuff, keystrokes, login time etc, is probably just as likely to be used in an office setting. Why’s it just a thing that will be imposed on WFH?

And if most of us will be hybrid working - 2 or 3 days at home and hotdesking the rest - which seems to be the likely norm, anything that is implemented in Mrs O’Bs dystopian fantasy will be for both office and home.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117851524#Comment_117851524

Any spy cam software on my laptop will be looking at the dog!

I would not tolerate that level of intrusion,

Most companies are logging employees screen time, internet history and login history. Its nothing new.

The thing with working from home though is will they start looking at this information in more depth now.

It wouldn't really bother me if they did. I use my own laptop for web browsing.

That level of intrusion is justified, taking random pictures of employees is not.

NIMAN

Was back in work this week after 16 months out.

It was like I was never away.

To be honest, it felt good to be back in and meeting people in the flesh again, rather than in virtual meetings and chats.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117851758#Comment_117851758

Never browse the web using the work computer, that's what the home PC is for. 😉

AdamD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117851758#Comment_117851758

Pretty sure most employers aren't logging employees screen time

Backstreet Moyes

Can they actually prove you are not working based on keystrokes.

I see a lot of people in my office including myself that when moving onto something new we print what we need to look at which is easier than looking at a computer screen.

During downtime like at the minute I am doing online training which includes videos where I wouldn't be touching the keypad for several minutes during videos.

If people were sacked over browsing the Internet nobody would be left at my place.

I mean if an employee is getting tasks done on time why would you bother trying to check how many keystrokes they take, it seems like something somebody with nothing to do and/or a control freak would like to do.

Even if somebody is underperforming would it not be best for a manager to first try find out why and help the employee.

If somebody got sacked over being monitored like that I am sure plenty of other staff would be looking for another job and people would be put off joining such a company.

I dont see any well run company even entertaining the idea to be honest.

For most jobs, keystroke logging would be completely pointless, the only jobs where it would make sense would be "data input clerks" type of a role, these days that is a rare job as almost all data arrives in various electronic formats and copied / pasted into the company format, sometimes fully automatic.

"Boss mode" was very common on some games in the past to hide the gaming during quiet periods, no need for that when WFH.

Management should be concentrating of the active productivity, not the idle times.

Jackben75

how are people getting on? What is the policy for modern office blocks with no open windows and solely dependent on aircon etc?

one armed dwarf

Even in the event of overtly meticulous stuff like keylogging you would hope that an employee's output would shut down accusations of idleness, that it'd only be brought up if there's a good reason to wonder about someone's performance.

I hate the whole thing though, I'm alright with VPN login monitoring and time tracking but I do so much of my work by looking up documentation on a separate computer anyway, cause it's way faster and plugged into a massive TV. I have a spinal abnormality so I appreciate the context switch of sitting back and viewing learning materials on a huge screen like that so would feel very unjustly treated if it was brought up in a performance review how I spent 90 minutes not 'doing anything' cause it wasn't tracked on the work system, even when that time is being invested in something which provides a big benefit to my output

Same as many mentioned, tracking software is only suitable for a very small amount of roles and is a very poor way to measure likely only utilised by places with very poor management.

Myself, I could have my head stuck in pdf's or industry publications for hours at a time which would look like nothing is being done according to tracking software.

Christy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117853286#Comment_117853286

Also if I get the same amount of output done in half the time as someone else then pay me more than them. If a crunch happens then the person doing less can up their game significantly. Someone doing overtime as a general rule has already maxed out. It will give an entirely backwards result if applied without prioritising the output. At which point why bother using it if you have the output to measure employees against?

Chris_5339762

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117852426#Comment_117852426

No change for us at all, just be in the office regardless.

Frank Bullitt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117850757#Comment_117850757

Why would anyone want to work for a company that did anything like this?

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117851758#Comment_117851758

Most companies aren't using those logs for HR management purposes. They may have gathered the information, but they can't do whatever they like with it.

Frank Bullitt

The company I work for, which is completely remote and async, are totally fine with me going back to Ireland and working while I am there. Just had to put my dates in the calendar. That is all.

No installing stalker software to make sure you are at the laptop and not making tea or anything like that 🤣

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117851546#Comment_117851546

Not my fantasy. Just a link to a real article about real things that real employers ARE doing.

I actually agree, most likely any monitoring that is installed will be applied in all work locations. However it will likely be more robustly monitored for people in remote-working locations.

One company I do work for actively looked at this stuff last year, but decided against it because they were concerned that the employees consent could not be freely given in a compulsory WFH scenario. If they offer on-going off-site working, I expect them to use it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117870204#Comment_117870204

I’m just glad I don’t work for the kind of companies that you seem to. Only bad managers and bad companies do this

Uproar in my place about been back two days a week mandatory from the 11th of October. People are not happy and I can see a mass exodus happening of the most talented people as most don't want to return.

How's yere workspaces doing?

jaffa20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117870484#Comment_117870484

I'd be delighted with that tbh. 2 days in office and 3 days at home.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117870484#Comment_117870484

That’ll be the standard I think. You’d all be lucky to find anywhere with full remote working long term.

Amadan Dubh

I went back in this week just gone, on the dart I think I saw 1 person in a suit and around Grand Canal Dock was deserted when I got off at 8:30am. Not a light on in the Google building, it felt a bit weird, like going in on a Saturday.

In the office I noticed some people wearing a mask away from the desk but others didn't so I just didn't bother. It's ridiculous walking around my place of work in a mask, doesn't make sense at all to want people in the office but then still want to claim that you think covid is still with us!

I was productive for about 3-4 hours over the 7 and a half hour day, but did take a long lunch with a colleague and spent a good bit of time having small talk chats as I hadn't met some people ever and others not for a while. Started work 30 minutes later than I would've at home and left dead at 5:30pm.

One observation I have and I feel this is going to be a big issue in a few weeks and months as people return to the office; the darkness and deteriorating weather during the commutes. People who have to commute on transport will quickly change their minds about wanting to go into the office when they find that they are leaving the house in darkness, wrapped up with an umbrella, at 7:30am to sit on a packed, sweaty bus or train, and then repeat in the evening. Even the managers who drive themselves into the job, their nice traffic-free drives will not be traffic-free and they too will find they need to leave earlier to get to work. People going to work will often be late and likely leaving early to catch the earlier bus/train quite frequently and they will be demotivated with the stress of the commute, so WFH policies will probably be reconsidered again.

Young_gunner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117870896#Comment_117870896

I think you could be dead right here.

Also people who have spent a cold dark morning commuting, to then sit down, plug in the laptop they carried with them and do precisely the same job they were going to do at home won't be long about thinking 'why am I doing this? what is the point?'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3492pIWsZs