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Comment by a456463 | Hacker News Reader

you can just send "hey you got 5 mins"? you have to do that in person. you do that on chat. nothing different. this is a made up reason. I do this all day, everyday

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I'm the manager. They do not send that message. They either are trying and never giving up, or... doing dishes.

I check in, and it ends up being story time about non-issues.

In person, its a 'hows it going?' and they say either 'good, still working' or 'stuck...'.

I would love if WFH was as effective. I could reduce my labor costs and probably have happier workers.

Considering it’s very easy to send a how’s it going Slack message or whatever this seems more like a issue of keeping the conversation on task than a slack issue

You're getting a lot of replies from other ICs that do well in a WFH setting, but I can say from a manager perspective, it's not always the manager or process. I've been managing remote teams for years since before covid and some people just don't do well without the in-person structure.

It's possible to build a high performing remote team, but it's not easy.

> some people just don't do well without the in-person structure

Structure is what makes remote work well. IME places that rely on everyone being together in-person to make sure things get done have poorly-defined structure.

You could reduce your labor costs and reduce the aggravation you are causing teammates if you changed your attitude.

It's possible to drive results and create a culture of accountability without dragging people into the room with you just so you can interrupt their work in-person.

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