Oh dear. I read in the Australian Financial Review recently that some corporations, who now have people working from home due to the social distancing rules, have been panic-buying spy software. The kind that counts keystrokes, reports the web sites you visit, measures levels of activity to see if you’re busy or idle. That kind of thing.
Here we have two golden opportunities, being spectacularly missed. First, we could start redefining our work in terms of results, outcomes, the good we do in the world, instead of defining work in terms of hours, inputs, superficial busyness. Second, we could take our workforce into our confidence, and start a conversation about what the true contribution of each task is, and how it makes a difference, and how to structure these tasks into a satisfying working day.
Instead, we have employers time-travelling back 100 years, and trying to micromanage a virtual workforce as though they were all locked in a sweatshop for the day. What a sad way to miss the point entirely.
Here’s my tip: the nature of work is one of the things that is not going to “snap back” to its previous state when this is over. People who’ve had a taste of autonomy and responsibility in their work won’t go back.