Why Managers Fear a Remote-Work Future

 

Why Managers Fear a Remote-Work Future

The Atlantic – Like it or not, the way we work has already evolved. By Ed Zitron: “…Some of the people loudly calling for a return to the office are not the same people who will actually be returning to the office regularly. The old guard’s members feel heightened anxiety over the white-collar empires they’ve built, including the square footage of real estate they’ve leased and the number of people they’ve hired. 

Earlier this year, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, rolled out an uneven return-to-office plan for its more than 130,000 employees—the majority of workers must soon come back to the office three days a week, while others are permitted to keep working exclusively from home. One senior executive at the company has even been allowed to work remotely from New Zealand. Remote work lays bare many brutal inefficiencies and problems that executives don’t want to deal with because they reflect poorly on leaders and those they’ve hired. Remote work empowers those who produce and disempowers those who have succeeded by being excellent diplomats and poor workers, along with those who have succeeded by always finding someone to blame for their failures. It removes the ability to seem productive (by sitting at your desk looking stressed or always being on the phone), and also, crucially, may reveal how many bosses and managers simply don’t contribute to the bottom line…”

Keystroke tracking, screenshots, and facial recognition: “What workers should know about corporate surveillance software as companies consider permanent remote work policies…Workers have little power to control how and when they’re being monitored, especially if they are using work-issued devices. Experts advise workers to assume they are being monitored if they’re in the office or using company equipment and recommend that they read the fine print in contracts. Market research firm Gartnersays companies used more surveillance tools during the coronavirus pandemic to keep tabs on employees and monitor work productivity. The number of large employers using tools to track their workers doubled since the beginning of the pandemic to 60 percent. That number is expected to rise to 70 percent within the next three years, said Brian Kropp, chief of human resources research at Gartner…”

 

FRD writes to Hitler regarding threat of war in Europe 

(Source: The History Channel. This posting has motivated me to pull a dusty, neglected book from my shelves: The Glory and the Dream by William Manchester. Tidbits from my reading of that book will appear here regularly.)

On September 27, 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt writes to German Chancellor Adolf Hitler regarding the threat of war in Europe. The German chancellor had been threatening to invade the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia and, in the letter, his second to Hitler in as many days, Roosevelt reiterated the need to find a peaceful resolution to the issue.

The previous day, FDR had written to Hitler with an appeal to negotiate with Czechoslovakia regarding Germany’s desire for the natural and industrial resources of the Sudetenland rather than resort to force. Hitler responded that Germany was entitled to the area because of the “shameful” way in which the Treaty of Versailles, which had ended World War I, had made Germany a “pariah” in the community of nations. The treaty had given the Sudetenland, a territory that was believed by Hitler and many of his supporters to be inherently German, to the state of Czechoslovakia. Therefore, Hitler reasoned, German invasion of the Sudetenland was justified, as annexation by Germany would simply mean returning the area to its cultural and historical roots. Hitler assured Roosevelt that he also desired to avoid another large-scale war in Europe.

In his letter of September 27, Roosevelt expressed relief at Hitler’s assurances but re-emphasized his desire that “negotiations [between Germany and Czechoslovakia] be continued until a peaceful settlement is found.” FDR also suggested that a conference of all nations concerned with the current conflict be convened as soon as possible. He appealed to Hitler’s ego, saying “should you agree to a solution in this peaceful manner I am convinced that hundreds of millions throughout the world would recognize your action as an outstanding historic service to all humanity.” FDR then assured Hitler that the U.S. would remain neutral regarding European politics, but that America recognized a responsibility to be involved “as part of a world of neighbors.” 

In the end, Hitler ignored the international community’s pleas for a peaceful solution and invaded Czechoslovakia in March 1939. The invasion was just the first in Hitler’s quest to control Europe and create a “Third Reich” of German geopolitical supremacy.