[vvanpo]

> Hours worked is the #1 driver of any worker’s output: use your right to monitor.

I don't think hours behind a screen have ever had much of a correlation with productivity for me. Autonomy, stress, being tasked with solutions that actually make long-term sense, etc. must have a much stronger correlation. The enormous erosion of trust that having my hours monitored would have would certainly impact my output.

[pavlov]

Yes, it’s terrible advice if applied to engineering teams at least.

The number of hours that an individual spent staring at the IDE or punching commands into the CLI have no meaningful correlation with the organization’s long-term goals.

A manager who spends their time monitoring engineers’ screens is like a web developer who writes a CRUD back-end in x86 assembly. It’s the wrong level of abstraction for performing the job.

[cyrilgrislain]

People join forces in a Business, rather than working alone for ex, because they believe the collective sum of resources = inputs will produce greater collective sum of outputs. Responsible businesses are those who maximise the outputs. Otherwise, it is a waste of resources that are extracted from collectivity ($, labor, natural resources, infrastructure, etc). Inversely, that is also why the standard business forms are not best suited for artists to thrive.

So, as business is about maximizing output: no matter how much is your productivity, which is a ratio, if you apply it to one more hour of work, then you will produce more output. So there are 2 ways to go here for high-productivity workers: a) you are paid equal for same output, and allowed to work less. b) you work as much as others, then produce more, then are paid more.

There is plenty of science that proves that choosing option a) is a shot in own's foot on the long run. Note: 80% of harvard professors thing their students would rate them in the Upper half best professors. which is of course statistically impossible. Same for how anybody = we, self evaluate ourselves in anything: how good a driver, a parent, ... a worker we are.

How much hours one puts in is a fundamental parameter of how much one produces. Stays true even with diminishing returns, as long as productivity is >0.

There is this say, pardon my french: an idiot who walks will still gets further than a sitting genius.

[chenmike]

This is the weirdest sentiment out of the entire article. "Only hire A-players" and "monitor them". I know exactly 0 A-hire engineers who would tolerate being monitored. Why wouldn't they leave to go to one of the many companies that would love to have them and where they won't have someone breathing down their neck?

Perhaps it's a take on how bad the job market is right now, but I still disagree. There are far fewer job prospects out there but way more than 0.

[quickthrower2]

It also changes the focus: “what is good for the company” -> “what makes me look good and not get fired”. Following Elons antics I bet twitter LOC count is growing very fast!

[chrisweekly]

Yeah; code is a liability, not an asset.

[groestl]

I've spent years doing stuff that I'd better not done at all. So yeah, hours worked is not a good metric by any means.

[luckylion]

The problem is that you can only later tell what made sense long-term, who was able to handle autonomy etc.

I work for a company (as a contractor) that doesn't monitor hours worked for their employees and the team is incredibly unproductive. It feels like some have a second job while others are playing games. I'm sure you could get rid of 75% if the remaining people worked full-time for their full-time salaries.

[sirwhinesalot]

You'd think so but if people are playing video games or not working, adding monitoring won't increase your productivity, people will just do pointless busywork instead.

Cutting down the number of people will make everyone else more productive because they need to pick up the slack, but that doesn't mean the output will be higher quality, it will very likely be worse quality since you've taken a bunch of relaxed people and made them highly stressed.

To me it sounds like a failure of management and/or processes. The people are not motivated and their tasks are not being defined appropriately.

[wirrbel]

I’d still say that monitoring hours seems like a strange idea when the company itself has trouble setting expectations and delivering goals