Google and JPMorgan have each told staff that office attendance will be factored into performance evaluations. The US law firm Davis Polk informed employees that fewer days in the office would result in lower bonuses. And Meta and Amazon both told employees they’re now monitoring badge swipes, with potential consequences for workers who don’t comply with attendance policies – including job loss. Increasingly, workers across many jobs and sectors appear to be barrelling towards the same fate.
In some ways, it’s unsurprising bosses are turning back to attendance as a standard. After all, we’ve long been conditioned to believe showing up is vital to success, from some of our earliest days. In school, perfect attendance is often still seen a badge of honour. The obsession with attendance has also been a mainstay of workplace culture for decades; pre-pandemic, remote work was largely unheard of, and employees were expected to be physically present at their desks throughout the workday.
Yet after the success of flexible arrangements during the pandemic, attendance is still entrenched as a core metric. What’s the point?
Unpopular opinion: Teams collaborate better in presence. Remote attendance is inferior to being in the same room even with the most expensive Cisco board or meeting owl.
However if you’re working on your own, processing to-dos, a team around you will be a hindrance. However, creative processes just don’t work that way and require interaction and variability to occur.
If teams collaborate better im presence, why does everyone work in separate spaces? Even cubicles don’t make sense from your statement, get those people at picnic tables!
If your argument is “teams collaborate better with instant access,” then yes, but technology has bridged that gap.
That isn’t stopping executives from offshoring more and more functions… and yet, “you’re more creative in the same room”… yeah thought luck my devs are in fucking bengalore… 8000 km from our offices…
