When last I wrote about WFH, I was upset at the radio, but I have now returned to being continuously upset about what someone said on the Internet. I am a creature of habit. As to subject matter, I was complaining about Work From Home, WFH, also known as Working Remotely. I had spoken about "hard metrics" and was about to discuss "soft metrics". Allow me to reestablish the rant, uh, conversation.
In the classic goal-setting process of management-by-objectives (MBO), the emphasis is on specific and measurable goals (part of the larger "S.M.A.R.T." framework for goal setting). A classic goal is "deliver a report to the customer by the end of the quarter". This is much more useful than "be a good employee" or "do good work" and it has the welcome attribute that there is little argument because the report gets delivered on-time or it does not. What can one argue with?
Well, one can argue with this because of the soft metrics. I can deliver a "report", even a long report, that is on-time but full of garbage. The word "report", even qualified with some number of pages, is a soft metric, and so we see that metrics can be misleading and metrics can be gamed.
WFH or remote work has virtually the same problems as SMART. It is overly fixed on things that can be measured and these things are often a narrow part of the job. If the job is full of rote processes, then WFH can be perfect. A customer service agent (first-line) can answer calls and reset passwords or refund orders with little supervision needed. The rare problems can be handled with voice recordings of the customer transactions and depend on the customers to escalate situations to higher levels of support. But not all jobs are rote and simple metrics are usualy inadequate. Engineering, software, business and accounting positions require at least spreadsheet or database work, and art positions require lots of computer interactivity, thus many positions now include some sort of computer programming. All of these (engineering, software, business, accounting, art) require some degree of originality and inventiveness, perhaps within bounds but still require novelty. The behavior we want to encourage is more than just words and formulas on a page, requiring human judgement beyond simplistic metrics.
But that human judgement often requires exposure and observation. Management can often tell a difference in actions when practiced at the office that is not visible when working from home. I management cannot see the individuals as they practice their expertise, it rapidly becomes hard to evaluate the level of expertise.
And that is why WFH only works for rather rote role and starts to fail as one moves through a career.
Note: I got stalled and distracted by this note. It took multiple tries to edit it down to something readable and focused. Therefore, there are multiple dates on the title line.
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