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Comment by pavon | Hacker News Reader

Mostly, but if they aren't, is it because they keep getting tasks that are genuinely hairier than we expected, or because they are slacking and then making excuses? If you distribute work completely randomly then eventually it should all even out, but if you let people specialize, or self-select work, then it isn't unreasonable for someone to be more likely than others to get "surprises".

With on-site (and open-office even more so), it was much easier to differentiate these two. I don't want to give someone a luke-warm performance review because their work was taking longer, when in reality they were solving harder problems. I also don't want to push things like pair-programing on someone who really doesn't like it (and I assume it is worse over Teams or what not than in person).

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This is one of the understanding gaps I've seen in these discussions.

If you have an employee who is producing very little work, you're face with a decision about whether to put in a ton of effort to try to turn the situation around or put a ton of effort into firing them and hiring a replacement.

If you know the person has been showing up and doing normal office stuff that's a huge signal in favor of "this person is making a genuine effort so I need to go the extra mile on my end." It's harder to get that kind of signal remotely.

This isn't to suggest remote work is wrong. It's just that, for managers, dealing with these kind of situations was a big part of the job and now has gotten much harder.

Yep this has been my experience as well, and it has popped up more than I expected, honestly. And this is the type of thing to affect a team's productivity for months at a time since it requires taking action, and then finding a backfill, all before the team gets the support they need

That sounds like it's a time when it's the responsibility of the manager to start communicating clearly with their colleague, rather than thinking they need to figure everything out just by looking at the situation from the outside.

Treat your employees/subordinates/colleagues like they're responsible adults, and they're more likely to act like it. That means, among other things, talking to them when you notice something that seems off, rather than just thinking it's your job as the Big Important Manager to solve all problems in your own head.

Treat them like they're bad children, or like they're all constantly looking for every way possible to get more money for less work, and you're more likely to get disinterested, frustrated, and rebellious employees. There's nothing more likely to make someone act like a child than treating them like one.

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