I've operated remotely for the last number of years (for the most part) but know many people who only adapted to remote working once the pandemic hit. Many of these people are business owners and senior managers who had to adapt on the fly once offices were closed and employees stayed home. I heard lots of stories from them about things going wrong. One story stood out when a company with an older staff struggled to adapt to new remote work routines right when they took on a large, fresh project. The company was unable to operate in this new setting without a large amount of training and every step of the new project was a failure. Employees seemed unwilling to learn new processes and the managers seemed unable to get them on board. Fortunately, the managers were able to onboard new team members who jumped into action and were more willing to make the new routine work for everyone. The major project was delayed, but things could have been much worse.
I've seen a friend who worked fully remotely for a very long period of time and it got to the point when he just couldn't switch off. He did make a few famous remote work sins, such as working in his own bedroom, and what followed were roughly three months of him struggling with his work-life balance because he was just used to it. Almost everything reminded him of work, which many would argue is a real horror.
As people began working at home, some realized they could take advantage of the situation by getting a second job. Since they were remote it was easier skip meetings, turn off the camera during zooms, and balance the demands of two full time jobs. An organization in my community found a large number of their team members were "double dipping" with two full time jobs and immediately let that portion of their workforce go.
Being in the midst of a tornado zone is bad enough. But when you're working from home in the early days of the pandemic, a tornado causes even more undue stress and hardships. In April 2020, our town was ravaged by an EF3 tornado. Even though we didn't get the brunt of the storm, power was knocked out at our house and throughout the town. I couldn't work from home, and going to a local coffee shop was out of the question because of downed trees and heavy debris. I missed critical client deadlines due to a lack of power and internet. I couldn't call clients because communications were out. And even though my clients were understanding of the situation, it took me several days to play catch up. Our family couldn't reach us because of the fallen trees, so we were largely isolated during this time. Neighbors came together to help each other, but fears about COVID put a damper on the spirit of community.
One particular horror story I've run across was a mid-sized company I was familiar with running a facial recognition program on their computers to ensure that employees maintained an adequate level of face time with their laptops. You were only considered "green" in terms of time tracking if you were at your computer and the program could recognize your face. Naturally this meant that you were always on camera, which is not only extremely dubious from a moral perspective, it flirts with a lot of legal issues in most parts of the world. That's one pandora's box that I'd recommend not opening, regardless of how much you want to time track your employees.
The workplace has many horrifying stories among which the scary story for me about remote working is that some of the employees may feel isolated and disconnected from their colleagues and the company culture, leading to feelings of loneliness and burnout. When you feel isolated and left out for the team members you feel lost and demotivated so when this goes on for some consistent days it makes you feel depressed and the loneliness will affect your mental health. It is a known fact that remote workers may struggle to separate their work and personal lives, resulting in overwork and decreased work-life balance. Additionally, employees who feel isolated will not be comfortable working around and most of the time their morale is low.
In the 1990s, I worked in Customer Service at Pacific Bell. We got a bomb threat one day, but they didn't inform us! We were startled to see firefighters combing the office, between and beneath the desks. We couldn't even inquire about what was happening because we were all chatting with consumers. When they realized it was all a fake, they issued a statement. When we inquired, in astonishment, why we hadn't been evacuated immediately, we were informed it may have been unsafe to go outside because there could have been a bomb or a shooter. That's when it hit us, and we started feeling a little unsteady. "All's well that ends well," they say, but I would have liked to be given the option of leaving or staying!
As more companies have chosen to move to remote work environments, the desire to be able to monitor performance has risen. For many companies, they believe the only way to ensure the employee is providing value to the company is through monitoring their activity. Unfortunately, this will lead many employees to look for other positions. Immediately, it promotes a sense of distrust of employees by the organization. A better way to address productivity is through production goals or project deadlines. Employees who spend their working hours in other pursuits will reveal themselves by the lack of work being produced. There really isn’t the need to invest in monitoring software. As deadlines pass and productivity declines, addressing the issues with the underperforming employees will provide much better results and ensure company morale doesn’t decline.
A colleague of had a remote position in marketing. Since the company was founded during the pandemic, it was about 90% remote. Unfortunately this led to a lack of oversight and as a result, multiple employees in our colleagues' department collected months paychecks for barely any output on their end. Thank you for your consideration! Best, Jeff Pollak jeff@radioactivemedia.com
Double dipping. There are multiple reports about people working multiple jobs when working from home. This seemingly innocent phenomenon introduces a number of conflicts of interest including information and data sensitivity, not to mention, a lack of focus on the employee’s part. If a remote employee is working two full-time jobs from home, chances are they aren’t going to be able to perform well at either. Working remotely is great, but it’s best to stick to one job at a time for the best results.
One horror story I heard about remote work was a case of a remote worker who was constantly overwhelmed with tasks and projects. They were given too much work with too little time and were not given the resources they needed to complete their work efficiently. The worker eventually burned out, feeling like they were not set up for success and unable to handle the workload.