5 thoughts on “If Work From Home Becomes The Norm”
Most federal agencies could make headquarters outside D.C. also. The few who had to be in the capital could telecommute to HQ in St. Louis or San Antonio or Cleveland…
Maybe in some future reconstitution of some nation, they should *require* their government to be finely dispersed, and all interaction to be formal and virtual, now that the technology for it exists.
The FAA was reluctantly “allowing” telework on an increasing basis, but the hostility towards it was manifest – and increasing with time, rather than decreasing. This despite an escalating federal mandate toward telework.
In my own office, AST, the animus toward particular individuals doing telework built, despite the fact that a substantial percentage of the office was dispersed around the country!
The root of it was the core philosophy of a federal regulatory agency: people can’t be trusted, and have to be closely “supervised.”
The stories I could tell…
I should think that depends rather a lot on the dominant personality type that winds up working for a given agency. Broadly speaking, these seem to fall into two large general categories and two much smaller ones.
The first large-category sort are the Plantation Overseers, or POs – which is a name that does at least double-duty because these people are often perpetually pissed off too. They go into government service because it’s a license to push people around. When they are still rank-and-file, on their way up, it’s the public that gets the pushing around. After a promotion, it’s their subordinates. These types are often the most ambitious and are often promoted.
The second large-category sort are the Goof-Offs, or GOs. These are the expert goldbricks who always endeavor to do the least possible and still collect a paycheck and pension. If you are, yourself, reasonably responsible, these are often very tolerable types to work for as they tend to favor people who do not, themselves, cause them to have to either expend effort or personally put out fires.
The first small-category sort are the Sergeant Bilkos, or SBs. These are the ones always looking to work an angle and/or find shady ways to augment their compensation. Their standard infraction is theft and covert sale of government property, but pretty much any form of small-time scam or penny-ante corruption is their meat and drink. You want to avoid these types like the plague because, when caught – and they usually are, eventually – they have a tendency to try roping in uninvolved parties, subordinates being most convenient and plausible for this purpose, in order to soften their own punishments. You don’t want to be a direct report to one these folks when that happens.
The last small-category sort are the Average Joes, or AJs. Just normal hard-working folks who want to do a good day’s work then go home to their families. In government service, these tend to be fairly rare, overall, but are much more commonly found in small governments – villages and towns. My only government employment was in such a place and roughly half of both the rank and file and the bosses were AJs. In bigger places I’ve been, the other three categories are much more normative.
I remember working at JSC, the vehicle and most of the engineers and technicians were at KSC, the design engineers were at Huntington Beach, and we had calls a few times each week. We’d have inclement weather. Stuff that local officials would be asking people “if you don’t need to be out and about, stay at home”. I worked in the Safety division. Yet, we were expected to make these calls from our desks, because the default position was that if you weren’t at your desk you weren’t working.
For those still in government and young enough to still learn; the reality is that the engineer always at there desk is probably the one least working. If you don’t believe me, go read a book by Kelly Johnson, and then get your butt to wherever the hardware is. Meet the technicians running the models, crafting the hardware, or conducting maintenance. And then, when you got enough information, find a place where you can cogitate.
I now work in oil and gas for one of the majors. Most of us learned to work from home because of Hurricane Harvey. Now our worldwide offices are working from home. We’ve announced a new model of working in which employees are classified in one of 4 ways:
Central, which is pretty much the old model that’s necessary for administrators with sensitive information and technicians with work that needs a large shop/warehouse. Some things you can’t do from home (which some politicians need to learn).
Teams that instead of always being in the office will have a meeting place to allow for as much face to face interaction as needed (some teams are still geographically diverse), because there is value in in-person interaction.
Home, most individual contributors and staff will fit this category and will be able to work from home with occasional (once or twice a month) visits to the office to support one of the other rolls.
Roamers, employees that will spend much of their time visiting the various business locations and particularly supervising contractors at their locations.
The majority of our workers will not be returning to an office environment.
In the civilian and commercial world; we aren’t concerned about the poor performers (it’s easy to measure work performance and fire those not providing value). However, there is some concern for training newcomers, particularly interns. Not because they can’t be trusted, but because they otherwise would miss out on the apprenticeship learning from observing a master. So the training cadre and new employees will still follow the older model. This will likely cause a reversion over time, but for now, it seems like a reasonable plan.
Most federal agencies could make headquarters outside D.C. also. The few who had to be in the capital could telecommute to HQ in St. Louis or San Antonio or Cleveland…
Maybe in some future reconstitution of some nation, they should *require* their government to be finely dispersed, and all interaction to be formal and virtual, now that the technology for it exists.
The FAA was reluctantly “allowing” telework on an increasing basis, but the hostility towards it was manifest – and increasing with time, rather than decreasing. This despite an escalating federal mandate toward telework.
In my own office, AST, the animus toward particular individuals doing telework built, despite the fact that a substantial percentage of the office was dispersed around the country!
The root of it was the core philosophy of a federal regulatory agency: people can’t be trusted, and have to be closely “supervised.”
The stories I could tell…
I should think that depends rather a lot on the dominant personality type that winds up working for a given agency. Broadly speaking, these seem to fall into two large general categories and two much smaller ones.
The first large-category sort are the Plantation Overseers, or POs – which is a name that does at least double-duty because these people are often perpetually pissed off too. They go into government service because it’s a license to push people around. When they are still rank-and-file, on their way up, it’s the public that gets the pushing around. After a promotion, it’s their subordinates. These types are often the most ambitious and are often promoted.
The second large-category sort are the Goof-Offs, or GOs. These are the expert goldbricks who always endeavor to do the least possible and still collect a paycheck and pension. If you are, yourself, reasonably responsible, these are often very tolerable types to work for as they tend to favor people who do not, themselves, cause them to have to either expend effort or personally put out fires.
The first small-category sort are the Sergeant Bilkos, or SBs. These are the ones always looking to work an angle and/or find shady ways to augment their compensation. Their standard infraction is theft and covert sale of government property, but pretty much any form of small-time scam or penny-ante corruption is their meat and drink. You want to avoid these types like the plague because, when caught – and they usually are, eventually – they have a tendency to try roping in uninvolved parties, subordinates being most convenient and plausible for this purpose, in order to soften their own punishments. You don’t want to be a direct report to one these folks when that happens.
The last small-category sort are the Average Joes, or AJs. Just normal hard-working folks who want to do a good day’s work then go home to their families. In government service, these tend to be fairly rare, overall, but are much more commonly found in small governments – villages and towns. My only government employment was in such a place and roughly half of both the rank and file and the bosses were AJs. In bigger places I’ve been, the other three categories are much more normative.
I remember working at JSC, the vehicle and most of the engineers and technicians were at KSC, the design engineers were at Huntington Beach, and we had calls a few times each week. We’d have inclement weather. Stuff that local officials would be asking people “if you don’t need to be out and about, stay at home”. I worked in the Safety division. Yet, we were expected to make these calls from our desks, because the default position was that if you weren’t at your desk you weren’t working.
For those still in government and young enough to still learn; the reality is that the engineer always at there desk is probably the one least working. If you don’t believe me, go read a book by Kelly Johnson, and then get your butt to wherever the hardware is. Meet the technicians running the models, crafting the hardware, or conducting maintenance. And then, when you got enough information, find a place where you can cogitate.
I now work in oil and gas for one of the majors. Most of us learned to work from home because of Hurricane Harvey. Now our worldwide offices are working from home. We’ve announced a new model of working in which employees are classified in one of 4 ways:
Central, which is pretty much the old model that’s necessary for administrators with sensitive information and technicians with work that needs a large shop/warehouse. Some things you can’t do from home (which some politicians need to learn).
Teams that instead of always being in the office will have a meeting place to allow for as much face to face interaction as needed (some teams are still geographically diverse), because there is value in in-person interaction.
Home, most individual contributors and staff will fit this category and will be able to work from home with occasional (once or twice a month) visits to the office to support one of the other rolls.
Roamers, employees that will spend much of their time visiting the various business locations and particularly supervising contractors at their locations.
The majority of our workers will not be returning to an office environment.
In the civilian and commercial world; we aren’t concerned about the poor performers (it’s easy to measure work performance and fire those not providing value). However, there is some concern for training newcomers, particularly interns. Not because they can’t be trusted, but because they otherwise would miss out on the apprenticeship learning from observing a master. So the training cadre and new employees will still follow the older model. This will likely cause a reversion over time, but for now, it seems like a reasonable plan.