📰 What’s wrong with the Washington Post? | Ep3 OoO

🗞 Washington Post: CEO complains about WFH

📱 TikTok hacks: Stories that concern employers

🕵️‍♀️ HR Magazine: Employee feelings on monitoring

Hey! Welcome Back -

It’s episode 3 of Out of Office and leading the headlines this week is a top story from The Washington Post - who has just announced huge losses this year. 

Thanks for joining me for another epic episode exploring the world of remote work. 

Let’s get started -

Washington Post: The Misplaced Blame Game

The Washington Post CEO, Fred Ryan, has announced substantial losses this year for the popular daily newspaper.

But what is most surprising is his reason for these losses: remote work. 

There are dozens of more logical explanations for the company’s slide into the red - but Ryan is convinced his company is failing because people are working from home.

 Jane Thier writes for Fortune,

“...a declining readership…an industry wide move away from print journalism (and the ad sales therein) or the company’s lack of a diversified portfolio…”

These valid reasons pale in comparison to an empty office, according to Ryan. The metrics he cited to reach this conclusion, made as much sense as a broken vending machine.

• Recording who was in the office (particularly on Friday) was one metric measured

You don’t need a graduate degree from MIT to know that only 30% of the current workforce is at the office on Fridays in 2022 - that’s a global fact.

Not having people in-office on Fridays is not a Washington Post problem.

• He measured people in-office on Fridays who had the most video calls

Since when did a lot of meetings amount to productivity? We can all agree - on days when there are dozens of meetings, everyone is much less productive. 

There have to be better measures for team productivity than this.

Working Remotely or Remotely Working

On further inspection of the damaging remote work policy at WP, what you actually find is a hybrid work setup!

In a hybrid work environment your team is sometimes at the office, and sometimes not. 

Among other things, Ryan insists that no-one wanting to come into the office on a Friday is a factor contributing to WP’s losses. 

But the issue he’s facing involves the hybrid model, not the remote work model. 

Before the pandemic, many companies were strictly remote only - because they knew how hard hybrid models sucked for everyone.

😓 They suck because:

• Brick and mortar offices feel a bit empty when half your workforce is at home

Fred Ryan is watching that tumbleweed roll through the office and is interpreting it as a lack of productivity. 

“He’s reportedly incensed that some workers aren’t abiding by the company’s three-days-per-week in-office policy.”

• They’re missing out on the greatest benefit of remote work - the increase in talent quality

Limiting your job search to people who live close to your office, even for just 3 days a week, misses the point.

You’ve expanded your radius by half an hour vs anytime, anywhere.

A truly remote model gives companies the ability to hire the best person in the world - not the best person who lives near the office. 

• Hiring in different time zones means that teams can be productive 24/7

The amazing writers at his own paper published an entire list of companies that are fully remote and how it’s causing their cultures to thrive (instead of shrivel and die with a hybrid model).

That article was published a day before the loss announcement - ouch!

I’d like to personally salute the genius who published that one.

(We’re looking at you Danielle Abril)

I like to believe it was just for Fred Ryan, and his many half-baked conclusions. 

TikTok Stories: Weighing In on Measuring Output

There’s a more important conversation to be had off the back of a story like this one. We need to talk about how remote worker output is being measured. 

Some experts say:

• Remote workers should be measured on the output they produce, not hours they put in

There’s a guy on TikTok who says he can do an 8 hour workday in 30 minutes - but unless he has Hermione’s time turner, that’s impossible. 

He’s not a bad guy. He’s efficient and industrious, and has worked out that he can do his job smarter and faster. I give him credit where credit is due. 

The reality of course is that if he was at the office, and his bosses saw him -

• They would see his work is done in half an hour
• They would give him more work
• They may offer him a pay rise or promotion

He’s not being honest about the amount of time that his work takes. As a result his capacity has freed up.

Whether that’s right or wrong is a question for ethics professors, not me. 

It does seem shortsighted in the context of his career, right?

HR Magazine: Monitoring is Fine, Just Fine

Just last week, HR magazine published a report that showed that most employees are happy to have their output monitored. 

They only ask for two concessions - full transparency on what’s being recorded, and the ability to review and query it, just in case there’s something they disagree with.

• 61% of employees are totally comfortable with output monitoring
• 81% of employees say data must be available to challenge

Sounds fair to me.

In fact, it sounds like a great middle ground where people’s work performance will be judged based on their output, and the work being produced. Awesome!

At the same time some checks and balances on inputs are needed as well. 

• Are they putting in the hours they say they are?
• Are they working or pulling the wool over your eyes?

That feels fair too. 

So where does that leave The Washington Post?

📢 Fred Ryan - lean in - this advice is for you.

Your problem is not remote work - it’s hybrid work

You have mismanaged expectations of what constitutes a day of good work

You have flaws in quality control and in your checks and balances

You need better ways to tell if your people are doing what they say they are!

If you can’t wrap your head around that - just follow advice published by your own paper, the day before you complained that remote work was ruining your company. 

That’s all for today - and remember the future of work is Out of Office. 

Andrew

This Week’s Shareable

• Fred Ryan blames remote work for The Washington Post’s decline. “He’s reportedly incensed that some workers aren’t abiding by the company’s three-days-per-week in-office policy,” says Jane Their for Fortune. Read more on OOO this week.