But how do I know they're working?

Photo by Kelly L.

We were part of the first wave of internet-enabled, globally distributed work. The first time we managed we weren’t in the same office as the people on our teams. Often we weren't even in the same country. And when we talked about working with folks all over the globe, one question came up more than any other. At the time it always seemed silly.

But how do you know they’re working? If you aren’t in the same place and those people are working at home, how do you know they’re actually working?

Our response was always the same: if they’re sitting at a desk in your office, how do you know they’re working? How do you know they aren’t just daydreaming or researching their next vacation?

There’s a lot of bosses trying to figure this one out right now. Their people aren’t where they can see them. So they ask the very silly, surface level, unexamined, first-time-working-with-remote-folks question. How do I know they’re working?

And the answer some bosses have come up with is to fix the “I can’t see them” part. To solve their own management discomfort at the expense of their employee's privacy.

Employee surveillance isn’t a new idea but it’s finding new fans. There is software out there that bosses can buy that will track your activity. Which apps you have open. Which websites you visit. How long you take to go to the bathroom.

A reporter at The New York Times tried it out with his own boss a few weeks ago. The results were so creepy that his boss bailed out of the experiment. How nice it must be, to be able to opt out. To have the power in the organization to treat this kind of thing as a curiosity you're tired of. Most people don't get that chance. For many people, this is just the latest little indignity they have to endure to keep their job.

It doesn't even work, of course. Management by surveillance rarely does. And you already know why. When you track bathroom breaks, you have employees bring their laptops to the bathroom. Does that sound healthy? When you track mouse movement, you get employees who are super adept at keeping a mouse moving. Or who have figured out that an oscillating fan and a pair of chopsticks can do it for them. Is that the business you're in? Mouse moving? If not, we suggest measuring something that actually matters.

The truth is that it's a trap to even approach this kind of tool on its merits. To argue over whether it's effective is to accept the premise that if it were effective, it would be a good idea. It isn't.

The Third Category

We've had a thing stuck in our craw for a few weeks now. Can two people have a shared craw? A common set of hackles? Anyway it came from the loveliest of all places, which is (obviously) Anne Helen Peterson's newsletter.

In the middle of an otherwise on-target essay, she writes:

"And I get it: these massive, massively profitable companies are trying to survive. They are simply following the logic of capitalism, which demands that profit trump consideration for human life. All companies that treat its workers like humans do so either because they’re forced to (by unions and labor laws and regulations) or because of leadership that’s figured out that treating workers like humans actually makes them more productive and profitable."

Do you see the trap again? The effectiveness framing? This idea that treating your workers well either happens because you're forced to, or because you realized it was profitable.

Yes, it's more profitable to treat your people well. There are whole books on this subject. And yes, unions and labour protections are vitally important. But so is having a spine and some fucking decency.

There's a third category of boss, here. Leaders who treat their employees well because their employees are human beings. Because no business exists except for the labour of its people. Fuck the effectiveness argument. There needs to be dignity in work regardless. And as leaders it's on us to ensure that we protect that.

We know there's a third category, because we meet them every day. Bosses who are uncomfortable with the power they have but are trying to be responsible with it. Bosses who recognize their impact is not something they can pretend away, or delegate to an app.

The week we launched Managing 2020, we had bosses ordering it on their personal credit cards. For themselves. And for the managers on their teams. Because they needed help supporting their people, but didn't want to ask their company to fund it in the middle of a fucking pandemic. So they just did it cause it needed doing. Not gonna lie, when we figured out what was happening, we had a little cry here at RSG WFH HQ. 😭

There is a third category of bosses and we need a LOT more of them. We need leaders who recognize the trappings of power, without abdicating it. We need bosses who show up with empathy and kindness, and don't see that as somehow at odds with profitability or getting shit done. It's not. Our whole gig is about growing the third category. But we need help. We're not getting there nearly fast enough. And the result is that the two types of shitty bosses conundrum persists.

Red-Rover style, we need to find people from the cynical bossing groups, and call them over. And we need to lift up skilled new leaders who will straight up out-perform their lazy, surveillance-dependent peers. We can't let those fuckers off the hook. It's very very hard to prevent power from accumulating in organizations. But we can and should expect that the people wielding that power to do so with empathy, and kindness.

Treat your people well. Invest in them, instead of tools to spy on them. Not just because it is more profitable. But because it's the right fucking thing to do.

- Melissa and Johnathan