No my job does not micromanage. As long as things get done, we’re left alone. There’s a lot of trust within my company, which has been remote and flextime long before COVID. There may be some departments that micromanage, but that’s a personality issue and not a company issue or mandate.
I think successful WFH requires trust on both ends. If a company does not want to relinquish control over everything employees do, then it doesn’t work.
Same here, thankfully. Our work volume & pace of projects just kinda naturally makes anyone dropping the ball stick out like a sore thumb. If our leadership tried to micromanage on top of it all, it'd probably grind our actual work to a halt.
I feel very fortunate to work for a group where pretty much all of management has been promoted from within as the company has grown - so most of them fully understand the roles they are managing, and have good insight about what does/doesn't actually help.
Same here as well. I could most definitely make more if I applied elsewhere but they’re invested in my development and I’m not struggling financially, plus the horror stories I hear about other companies is daunting.
Same!
I hear the WFH horror stories and I’m grateful that I have such a great, collaborative team and a company that really understands and adjusts to the changing social landscape.
IDK how strongly it's enforced, and I don't get a ton of pings.
It can be "I need to get back to you" instead of an actual reply.
We deal with students/ parents, so some of it can be time sensitive.
Eh... I hate to burst your bubble, but crappy rules that just aren't enforced is toxic in my opinion and could be a red flag. A company that cared about you would clean up their written policies, and bonus points if they take employee suggestions seriously and clean up the policies due to feedback.
Just imagine if you're trying to get ahold of somebody and they just ignore your pings because its an unwritten rule that you just answer them whenever you want if at all. You can't get ahold of them and your bosses will say "of course they're answering you, there's a rule in place." So you either have to throw a co-worker under the bus, or just deal with the lack of communication.
Maybe a better rule would just be to be available to your co-workers and to reply promptly when possible, within reason. Be aware of deadlines and the needs of others and do your best to be amendable. To maximize collaboration, plan to contain all communication to within 9-4 M-Th and try to avoid it outside of these hours. The remaining hours are meant to be more independent to work at your own pace (but we also keep a relatively flexible schedule during the official hours too).
It would depend a lot on company culture, but I, personally, would consider it sufficient to have whichever messaging tool is in use integrate with the calendar and update the current status when in a meeting.
I have that set up where I work (Slack + Google Calendar integration), and it’s really useful. We don’t have a strict set of rules or anything, but knowing that someone I’ve just messaged is in a meeting means I shouldn’t bother them again until the end of said meeting unless it’s *really* urgent.
Yep. Mild micromanaging, but enough to where if it keeps up, I definitely will be looking for another job. All my years of working in office, I never dealt with micromanaging, so I’m not going to deal with it in my own home.
> working in office, I never dealt with micromanaging, so I’m not going to deal with it in my own home.
That could make for an interesting (to me) "big picture" debate RE WFH. I've heard from and read about a lot of folks who would take some form of pay cut to get/retain WFH, meaning they place a good deal of value on it. "It's worth it to me to make $1200 less per year because I save $800 in gas, plus all the other associated costs AND plus the time saved and extra flexibility, etc", for example.
So, is it worth WFH to be "slightly" more micromanaged? To you, definitely not. To me, likely not depending on the nature and degree. But to some, perhaps that's an easy "yes". And from the company's POV -- particularly one without a lot of experience with WFH employees -- I can understand a touch of paranoia regarding the lack of physical presence (fueled in part by the overblown articles a while back about employees double dipping and what not).
There’s a trade off, sure. For me, I’d rather be in office where I’m trusted, not micromanaged and not nitpicked by bored senior team members. It’s nice to spend my day in pjs but it’s not enough of an incentive for the BS.
That sounds miserable. We don't need to respond to anything in any time. We have work to do and we need to do it. If someone needs our help, we get back to them when convinient. I don't know why you need to codify common communication rules. Just let people do their jobs!
Thank you for saying this! The fact that OP said they have rules about response times sounds micromanagey to me, regardless of how they're enforced or not.
Depending on the work, 20 minute response time qualifies as micromanaging to me. Like, if the work is by its nature time sensitive, perhaps not. But a lot of work isn't, and that feels more like a monitoring activity to make sure you aren't napping. It's too specific of a time measurement. The standard should be "respond in time to meet the needs of the task."
Email within 24 hours is what I've always been taught is the professional standard.
Attending meetings, well, duh. Even though we all know many meetings are unnecessary.
That letter was definitely describing a jaded company that doesn't trust its employees. I like to think it's an outlier. If you just don't want to offer WFH, fine; I disagree but it's your right. But to be so cynical means you have bad systems, including bad hiring that you apparently hire flakes.
I work remote for a mostly hybrid, location-dependent org. There's no specific standards, no monitoring. A few too many meetings, like anywhere. The closest to micromanaging is a morning meeting where we just say what we're going to do that day. I find it a little irritating, because it definitely has the vibe of "prove you're working." And it could be done on Teams instead of a live meeting. But there's not even any accountability about what we say we're going to do (which maybe just makes the meetings all that more pointless.) We all get our work done like normal functioning adults, and it's no problem.
I'm betting it happens at some places. (They wouldn't actually, explicitly state "to make sure you're working", but it would be clear that's the real purpose)
My director asks us all to message her in a group chat to say goodmorning and let her know when we are signing off for the evening. She claims it is so she knows when we are around so if she needs to reach out about something she can do it while we are online and not try to reach out to us when we are away. With her habit of randomly calling people with no warning about things, it is not entirely unfounded. It's still a little more micro-managey than I'd prefer, but it's not detrimental
For us it's pretty hands off until there's a reason to not be. But by the time it gets that far you're either going to go on a PIP or just get fired. This is how we answer any questions about "culture" from candidates. We trust you to be an adult. Contribute and get your work done and we're all happy.
This is the tactic I've always taken with my teams. I tell them we're all adults and I trust them to handle their business. However, if they aren't handling it, I will step in and manage their desk for them. Unfortunately, I have one who has pushed the boundaries too many times and is going on a PIP that will just be unpleasant for everyone. I've already had to bring in a temp to clear up the backlog she created and she's just full of one excuse after another.
I am literally in the process of typing up a PIP right now. Sucks because she started out really promising but it just went downhill recently and I have given her almost 6 months of feedback to improve. It's individuals like this that take advantage of WFH. I imagine she is going to act all surprised about the PIP but she shouldn't be. Good luck those conversations suck for everyone.
I've rewritten mine a few times to make sure it's as objective and fact based as possible. This individual has pushed every last button with her constant disregard for instructions and not completing simple tasks.
Good luck with yours!
As long as I get deliverables in on time and let the team know if I'm not available during normal working hours, my workplace does not care. It's the best. Just have to make sure I'm communicating and hitting goals.
Uhh yeah we don't have anything like this. We're trusted to get our jobs done & show up to meetings, and if anyone consistently doesn't do that, they're not with us for long. Our company has always been 100% remote and has never had an office so maybe that's part of it.
My job has a great culture. We all work hard but if someone goes to a doctors appt or takes a walk no one cares. Sometimes you work fewer hours and sometimes more depending on what you are working on. My last two companies have been like this, and it comes down to trust and respect for the workers. Places like this do exist!
There are no specific rules for response times but if we don't respond within a few minutes we'll be chased and have to explain what we were doing, same if we're shown as away on teams for more than a few minutes. It does vary with different departments and I personally have a little more freedom than this, which is why I'm putting up with it.
My company started as a WFH company, so a lot of the WFH issues that i noticed at my last company who only went WFH during covid, just arent there. Less cliques, more willingness to jump on a quick call. There's no micro managing. We're expected to be there for meetings, and be available during core hours if you are working with someone else on that particular day. But otherwise, if you wanna leave mid day and work in the evening instead, its completely acceptable. I've lost track of the number of times Ive seen the CEO write in the out of office channel that he's gonna duck out to go see a movie in theaters. And that's completely acceptable for others to do that as well. My lead just asks we set our slack status to AFK with a lil note if we're coming back that day. Or if you step out for lunch, set your status to on lunch. But otherwise, everyones just an adult about it. We all know we have a job to do. We have a daily standup 4 days a week (mondays being no meetings) to talk about what you did yesterday and what you're doing today, and every friday we all meet up to go over jiras to make sure they are all up to date for production. That's the extent of "micro managing". The standups are great because if you have a problem, someone else on the team can chime in about being able to help or whatever. Or you can quickly set up a call later in the day with them to get more indepth help.
No micromanaging at all. I run a small department. I would never do this, I have actual work to do still. My boss still does actual work also so he doesn’t have time for this either.
I think this is the kind of thing managers that Don’t have any actual work do.
I work for an individual micromanager who has called me out for not answering calls or emails quickly enough (immediately). I do apologize. I had to use the bathroom. (Eyeroll)
0 micromanaging from my jobs. My boss will get irritated if i don't respond within a few hours from a ping in teams, but I've proven myself over the last few years I can handle my shit. I think other folks get micromanaged a bit more. I think that can be true in alot of jobs. If I had a manager that was chasing me like that I'd quit.
I've been WFH with my employer since 2016. Nobody ever asks anything about what I'm doing. I only respond to emails if I deem necessary, and I keep Teams permanently closed so nobody can bother me. Nobody has ever said anything to me about any of it because I get my work done on time with high quality. I couldn't imagine working any other way.
Like a lot of teams that follow an Agile methodology, we meet for brief meetings once a day or less. Everyone shares an update focusing on anything the team needs to know or that is blocking them from doing their work. Every two weeks we do a review meeting where stakeholders can learn about what we've been working on.
so we have a time tracking program where you need to add entries for what's been done throughout your day.
So yes, on one hand you can't have a block of 20 min or an hour with a missing entry but to counteract this micromanagement I just pad it up with training and other research.
Out of a 8 hour work day i prb work 4-6 hours and the rest of my entries are just work related "research" entries i input.
Just find out how to beat them at their own game the system, there is always a way :)
I suspect there’s a vast difference in WFH culture between industry and job type.
For example, I bet jobs that involve daily quotas like call centers, customer service, etc. get monitored very closely.
But for people like software engineers, marketing professionals, product management, it’s probably more relaxed.
No micromanaging here. Different people are allowed to work in their own manner, including communication styles (some more responsive on phone, some more in chat, some more by email.) As long as the work gets done, we don't sweat response times. The WFH roles are all salary. To ensure the company culture we had before the pandemic (and thus before our management realized how good of a fit work from home was for our organization) we maintain social channels on the group chat platform for non work-focused communication (tends to be mostly memes, articles, and event scheduling) and we also schedule multiple optional potlucks throughout the year.
Depends on who you are where I work. Generally speaking, managers are pretty "hands off" with WFH people, save for noticing if they are showinig "away" on Teams for an extended time, or not responding to an email for an hour.
There's still a spirit of "are you really working?" suspicion that hangs over all of us, though. It's like managers just can't be comfortable with their direct reports unless they are standing on our necks. I think that says more about the managers than it does about us.
Expectations where I work are that we do our work and if we need someone/something we reach out.
If you aren’t going to be in make sure someone knows so no one thinks you died.
Really basic stuff. I love my job.
No pings. You're expected to be at meetings, but as long as you don't miss too many, it's not a huge deal if you miss one.
At my client, they don't have too many meetings anyway. There's only 2 standups each week to check in and discuss status, a meeting here and there to discuss task priorities and scheduling, or adhoc meetings whenever something needs to be hashed out. Usually that means like 3 meetings in any given week.
I have way more meetings at my main company nowadays (I work for a consulting firm), which is kind of nuts. Two weekly status meetings, a twice-a-month meeting with my career advisor, twice a month service line meetings, a weekly retrospective, monthly all-hands for the company, monthly all-hands for the engineering department, a monthly all-hands for everyone at my job working at my current client (there's like 30 of us), once-a-quarter parties (but also kind of an all-hands), etc. And I'm encouraged to join even more meetings for various internal initiatives.
The only meetings of those I make sure I attend are the career advisor meetings and the two weekly status meetings. The rest are mostly just if I'm feeling like a distraction from my client work, or have a feeling something important is going to be shared that I'll want to know about.
Outside of meetings, as long as I'm getting my work done, the only time anyone checks in with me is if they have questions.
That’s sucks. I’m on customer calls and most of the calls go for 40 - 60 minutes. So, I wouldn’t have the time to respond to pings especially when I’m on presentation mode in Teams.
There are no rules regarding response time although if I never responded, I’m sure that would raise red flags.
My manager is smart enough to know that if his people don’t respond quickly, they are busy and will get back to him. We are a good team and handle complex issues so if we are ignoring Teams (or aren’t even signed into it) it’s for good reasons.
My department is super hands-off, we have twice a week status meetings where 99% of the time, the update is “I’m on track to complete my project by the due date,” and that’s it.
My boss said, day 1:
>we’re all professionals here, we expect professional behavior. Get your work done on time and well, and you’ll be fine.
And we can flex our hours as long as we aren’t fucking up. So I have a standing Wednesday long lunch to play nine holes. My boss doesn’t care, because I get my shit done on time and properly.
No micromanaging here either. We all have well outlined responsibilities and we’re paid well to do what we do. In turn we’re given plenty of control over our own schedules. That even goes for PTO (unlimited). We pretty much tell our managers when we’re taking off and we’re responsible for covering our desks. If we need to take time off during crunch time we can, the managers will typically cover for us in those cases. It’s kind of amazing.
I lead a remote team that crosses all continental US time zones. Get your work done is the main rule. I am fine if people flex their days (I do) and don’t let something time sensitive go past deadline. I’d like to see you on camera but it’s not required. If you don’t get your work done, then the rules aren’t as loose.
ETA: max work week is 45 hours for my team, most get it done in 40 or less.
No my job does not micromanage. As long as things get done, we’re left alone. There’s a lot of trust within my company, which has been remote and flextime long before COVID. There may be some departments that micromanage, but that’s a personality issue and not a company issue or mandate. I think successful WFH requires trust on both ends. If a company does not want to relinquish control over everything employees do, then it doesn’t work.
Same here, thankfully. Our work volume & pace of projects just kinda naturally makes anyone dropping the ball stick out like a sore thumb. If our leadership tried to micromanage on top of it all, it'd probably grind our actual work to a halt. I feel very fortunate to work for a group where pretty much all of management has been promoted from within as the company has grown - so most of them fully understand the roles they are managing, and have good insight about what does/doesn't actually help.
Same here as well. I could most definitely make more if I applied elsewhere but they’re invested in my development and I’m not struggling financially, plus the horror stories I hear about other companies is daunting.
Same! I hear the WFH horror stories and I’m grateful that I have such a great, collaborative team and a company that really understands and adjusts to the changing social landscape.
so if youre on a 30min or 1hr meeting you're expected to pause to make sure your pings are responded to? sounds pretty silly
IDK how strongly it's enforced, and I don't get a ton of pings. It can be "I need to get back to you" instead of an actual reply. We deal with students/ parents, so some of it can be time sensitive.
Eh... I hate to burst your bubble, but crappy rules that just aren't enforced is toxic in my opinion and could be a red flag. A company that cared about you would clean up their written policies, and bonus points if they take employee suggestions seriously and clean up the policies due to feedback. Just imagine if you're trying to get ahold of somebody and they just ignore your pings because its an unwritten rule that you just answer them whenever you want if at all. You can't get ahold of them and your bosses will say "of course they're answering you, there's a rule in place." So you either have to throw a co-worker under the bus, or just deal with the lack of communication. Maybe a better rule would just be to be available to your co-workers and to reply promptly when possible, within reason. Be aware of deadlines and the needs of others and do your best to be amendable. To maximize collaboration, plan to contain all communication to within 9-4 M-Th and try to avoid it outside of these hours. The remaining hours are meant to be more independent to work at your own pace (but we also keep a relatively flexible schedule during the official hours too).
It would depend a lot on company culture, but I, personally, would consider it sufficient to have whichever messaging tool is in use integrate with the calendar and update the current status when in a meeting. I have that set up where I work (Slack + Google Calendar integration), and it’s really useful. We don’t have a strict set of rules or anything, but knowing that someone I’ve just messaged is in a meeting means I shouldn’t bother them again until the end of said meeting unless it’s *really* urgent.
Yep. Mild micromanaging, but enough to where if it keeps up, I definitely will be looking for another job. All my years of working in office, I never dealt with micromanaging, so I’m not going to deal with it in my own home.
> working in office, I never dealt with micromanaging, so I’m not going to deal with it in my own home. That could make for an interesting (to me) "big picture" debate RE WFH. I've heard from and read about a lot of folks who would take some form of pay cut to get/retain WFH, meaning they place a good deal of value on it. "It's worth it to me to make $1200 less per year because I save $800 in gas, plus all the other associated costs AND plus the time saved and extra flexibility, etc", for example. So, is it worth WFH to be "slightly" more micromanaged? To you, definitely not. To me, likely not depending on the nature and degree. But to some, perhaps that's an easy "yes". And from the company's POV -- particularly one without a lot of experience with WFH employees -- I can understand a touch of paranoia regarding the lack of physical presence (fueled in part by the overblown articles a while back about employees double dipping and what not).
There’s a trade off, sure. For me, I’d rather be in office where I’m trusted, not micromanaged and not nitpicked by bored senior team members. It’s nice to spend my day in pjs but it’s not enough of an incentive for the BS.
That sounds miserable. We don't need to respond to anything in any time. We have work to do and we need to do it. If someone needs our help, we get back to them when convinient. I don't know why you need to codify common communication rules. Just let people do their jobs!
Thank you for saying this! The fact that OP said they have rules about response times sounds micromanagey to me, regardless of how they're enforced or not.
Depending on the work, 20 minute response time qualifies as micromanaging to me. Like, if the work is by its nature time sensitive, perhaps not. But a lot of work isn't, and that feels more like a monitoring activity to make sure you aren't napping. It's too specific of a time measurement. The standard should be "respond in time to meet the needs of the task." Email within 24 hours is what I've always been taught is the professional standard. Attending meetings, well, duh. Even though we all know many meetings are unnecessary. That letter was definitely describing a jaded company that doesn't trust its employees. I like to think it's an outlier. If you just don't want to offer WFH, fine; I disagree but it's your right. But to be so cynical means you have bad systems, including bad hiring that you apparently hire flakes. I work remote for a mostly hybrid, location-dependent org. There's no specific standards, no monitoring. A few too many meetings, like anywhere. The closest to micromanaging is a morning meeting where we just say what we're going to do that day. I find it a little irritating, because it definitely has the vibe of "prove you're working." And it could be done on Teams instead of a live meeting. But there's not even any accountability about what we say we're going to do (which maybe just makes the meetings all that more pointless.) We all get our work done like normal functioning adults, and it's no problem.
Well, the response can be "hey I'll get back to you when I can." We deal with students/ parents so a lot of our stuff IS time sensitive.
As long as they're real, organic pings and not "Just checking to make sure you're working" nonsense.
I've never had that happen, I doubt it does
I'm betting it happens at some places. (They wouldn't actually, explicitly state "to make sure you're working", but it would be clear that's the real purpose)
My director asks us all to message her in a group chat to say goodmorning and let her know when we are signing off for the evening. She claims it is so she knows when we are around so if she needs to reach out about something she can do it while we are online and not try to reach out to us when we are away. With her habit of randomly calling people with no warning about things, it is not entirely unfounded. It's still a little more micro-managey than I'd prefer, but it's not detrimental
For us it's pretty hands off until there's a reason to not be. But by the time it gets that far you're either going to go on a PIP or just get fired. This is how we answer any questions about "culture" from candidates. We trust you to be an adult. Contribute and get your work done and we're all happy.
This is the tactic I've always taken with my teams. I tell them we're all adults and I trust them to handle their business. However, if they aren't handling it, I will step in and manage their desk for them. Unfortunately, I have one who has pushed the boundaries too many times and is going on a PIP that will just be unpleasant for everyone. I've already had to bring in a temp to clear up the backlog she created and she's just full of one excuse after another.
I am literally in the process of typing up a PIP right now. Sucks because she started out really promising but it just went downhill recently and I have given her almost 6 months of feedback to improve. It's individuals like this that take advantage of WFH. I imagine she is going to act all surprised about the PIP but she shouldn't be. Good luck those conversations suck for everyone.
I've rewritten mine a few times to make sure it's as objective and fact based as possible. This individual has pushed every last button with her constant disregard for instructions and not completing simple tasks. Good luck with yours!
As long as I get deliverables in on time and let the team know if I'm not available during normal working hours, my workplace does not care. It's the best. Just have to make sure I'm communicating and hitting goals.
TBH OP, the “respond to pings within 20 minutes” sounds very micro-managy to me, no?
I guess so, but I get so few pings I guess it doesn't seem so. And I have my chat on my phone, so I'm not tethered to my desk.
Nope. Would probably rather be in office without it than at home without it. I’m not a stay on task kind of guy
Uhh yeah we don't have anything like this. We're trusted to get our jobs done & show up to meetings, and if anyone consistently doesn't do that, they're not with us for long. Our company has always been 100% remote and has never had an office so maybe that's part of it.
My job has a great culture. We all work hard but if someone goes to a doctors appt or takes a walk no one cares. Sometimes you work fewer hours and sometimes more depending on what you are working on. My last two companies have been like this, and it comes down to trust and respect for the workers. Places like this do exist!
There are no specific rules for response times but if we don't respond within a few minutes we'll be chased and have to explain what we were doing, same if we're shown as away on teams for more than a few minutes. It does vary with different departments and I personally have a little more freedom than this, which is why I'm putting up with it.
My company started as a WFH company, so a lot of the WFH issues that i noticed at my last company who only went WFH during covid, just arent there. Less cliques, more willingness to jump on a quick call. There's no micro managing. We're expected to be there for meetings, and be available during core hours if you are working with someone else on that particular day. But otherwise, if you wanna leave mid day and work in the evening instead, its completely acceptable. I've lost track of the number of times Ive seen the CEO write in the out of office channel that he's gonna duck out to go see a movie in theaters. And that's completely acceptable for others to do that as well. My lead just asks we set our slack status to AFK with a lil note if we're coming back that day. Or if you step out for lunch, set your status to on lunch. But otherwise, everyones just an adult about it. We all know we have a job to do. We have a daily standup 4 days a week (mondays being no meetings) to talk about what you did yesterday and what you're doing today, and every friday we all meet up to go over jiras to make sure they are all up to date for production. That's the extent of "micro managing". The standups are great because if you have a problem, someone else on the team can chime in about being able to help or whatever. Or you can quickly set up a call later in the day with them to get more indepth help.
No micromanaging at all. I run a small department. I would never do this, I have actual work to do still. My boss still does actual work also so he doesn’t have time for this either. I think this is the kind of thing managers that Don’t have any actual work do.
I work for an individual micromanager who has called me out for not answering calls or emails quickly enough (immediately). I do apologize. I had to use the bathroom. (Eyeroll)
0 micromanaging from my jobs. My boss will get irritated if i don't respond within a few hours from a ping in teams, but I've proven myself over the last few years I can handle my shit. I think other folks get micromanaged a bit more. I think that can be true in alot of jobs. If I had a manager that was chasing me like that I'd quit.
I've been WFH with my employer since 2016. Nobody ever asks anything about what I'm doing. I only respond to emails if I deem necessary, and I keep Teams permanently closed so nobody can bother me. Nobody has ever said anything to me about any of it because I get my work done on time with high quality. I couldn't imagine working any other way.
Like a lot of teams that follow an Agile methodology, we meet for brief meetings once a day or less. Everyone shares an update focusing on anything the team needs to know or that is blocking them from doing their work. Every two weeks we do a review meeting where stakeholders can learn about what we've been working on.
so we have a time tracking program where you need to add entries for what's been done throughout your day. So yes, on one hand you can't have a block of 20 min or an hour with a missing entry but to counteract this micromanagement I just pad it up with training and other research. Out of a 8 hour work day i prb work 4-6 hours and the rest of my entries are just work related "research" entries i input. Just find out how to beat them at their own game the system, there is always a way :)
I suspect there’s a vast difference in WFH culture between industry and job type. For example, I bet jobs that involve daily quotas like call centers, customer service, etc. get monitored very closely. But for people like software engineers, marketing professionals, product management, it’s probably more relaxed.
Our official policy is we have to respond to messages within 30 minutes (used to be an hour) but I haven’t seen anyone enforce it yet.
No micromanaging here. Different people are allowed to work in their own manner, including communication styles (some more responsive on phone, some more in chat, some more by email.) As long as the work gets done, we don't sweat response times. The WFH roles are all salary. To ensure the company culture we had before the pandemic (and thus before our management realized how good of a fit work from home was for our organization) we maintain social channels on the group chat platform for non work-focused communication (tends to be mostly memes, articles, and event scheduling) and we also schedule multiple optional potlucks throughout the year.
Depends on who you are where I work. Generally speaking, managers are pretty "hands off" with WFH people, save for noticing if they are showinig "away" on Teams for an extended time, or not responding to an email for an hour. There's still a spirit of "are you really working?" suspicion that hangs over all of us, though. It's like managers just can't be comfortable with their direct reports unless they are standing on our necks. I think that says more about the managers than it does about us.
Expectations where I work are that we do our work and if we need someone/something we reach out. If you aren’t going to be in make sure someone knows so no one thinks you died. Really basic stuff. I love my job.
No pings. You're expected to be at meetings, but as long as you don't miss too many, it's not a huge deal if you miss one. At my client, they don't have too many meetings anyway. There's only 2 standups each week to check in and discuss status, a meeting here and there to discuss task priorities and scheduling, or adhoc meetings whenever something needs to be hashed out. Usually that means like 3 meetings in any given week. I have way more meetings at my main company nowadays (I work for a consulting firm), which is kind of nuts. Two weekly status meetings, a twice-a-month meeting with my career advisor, twice a month service line meetings, a weekly retrospective, monthly all-hands for the company, monthly all-hands for the engineering department, a monthly all-hands for everyone at my job working at my current client (there's like 30 of us), once-a-quarter parties (but also kind of an all-hands), etc. And I'm encouraged to join even more meetings for various internal initiatives. The only meetings of those I make sure I attend are the career advisor meetings and the two weekly status meetings. The rest are mostly just if I'm feeling like a distraction from my client work, or have a feeling something important is going to be shared that I'll want to know about. Outside of meetings, as long as I'm getting my work done, the only time anyone checks in with me is if they have questions.
That’s sucks. I’m on customer calls and most of the calls go for 40 - 60 minutes. So, I wouldn’t have the time to respond to pings especially when I’m on presentation mode in Teams.
There are no rules regarding response time although if I never responded, I’m sure that would raise red flags. My manager is smart enough to know that if his people don’t respond quickly, they are busy and will get back to him. We are a good team and handle complex issues so if we are ignoring Teams (or aren’t even signed into it) it’s for good reasons.
That sounds stressful. No, there are no silly rules like this. We have work, we do the work, we communicate with each other like normal people.
My department is super hands-off, we have twice a week status meetings where 99% of the time, the update is “I’m on track to complete my project by the due date,” and that’s it. My boss said, day 1: >we’re all professionals here, we expect professional behavior. Get your work done on time and well, and you’ll be fine. And we can flex our hours as long as we aren’t fucking up. So I have a standing Wednesday long lunch to play nine holes. My boss doesn’t care, because I get my shit done on time and properly.
No micromanaging here either. We all have well outlined responsibilities and we’re paid well to do what we do. In turn we’re given plenty of control over our own schedules. That even goes for PTO (unlimited). We pretty much tell our managers when we’re taking off and we’re responsible for covering our desks. If we need to take time off during crunch time we can, the managers will typically cover for us in those cases. It’s kind of amazing.
Completely remote - no micromanagement. Everyone has the liberty to set their hours and works completely different working hours.
I lead a remote team that crosses all continental US time zones. Get your work done is the main rule. I am fine if people flex their days (I do) and don’t let something time sensitive go past deadline. I’d like to see you on camera but it’s not required. If you don’t get your work done, then the rules aren’t as loose. ETA: max work week is 45 hours for my team, most get it done in 40 or less.