I know you and I have talked about this. Just wanted to put this in writing - Companies (especially IT organizations) should get away from the traditional "you-have-to-work-during-these-hours" mindset. It's outdated and doesn't work with the generation-Y folks. The questions should be:"Are you getting the work done?" and "Are you available to help your team excel?" If the answer is "Yes" for both questions, who cares if the dude plays Halo for 4 hours during the day.
FD
6:32 PM
I had three emails in my inbox when I got to work this morning. The first two were a variation on a theme from one of our high-performing developers who doesn't report to me, but does an exceptional amount of work with my group. He told me that he doesn't normally play video games during the workday (he's remote). It wasn't really work hours, because he makes up all the hours depending on his meeting schedule. He'd just done 8 hours of training (over the phone) and needed to unwind. All of his stuff was up to date. Really. All of it. This wasn't a normal occurrence, but a result of the training and knowing he'd settle down to do some work later in the evening, which he usually does anyway. You get the picture. A lot of explanation and a bit of what can almost be described as groveling.
The last email was one informing me that one of the developers in my group had sent him an email, but not me, that basically said:
"Developer X:
Scooter the Manager was in my cube, looking over my shoulder, and asked about my Halo stats. When he saw you were my friend, he asked me to go to your stats site so he could appreciate your kill ratio. Really, 4 hours of gaming during work hours yesterday???"
"Workplace Hijinks"
1 Comment -
I know you and I have talked about this. Just wanted to put this in writing - Companies (especially IT organizations) should get away from the traditional "you-have-to-work-during-these-hours" mindset. It's outdated and doesn't work with the generation-Y folks. The questions should be:"Are you getting the work done?" and "Are you available to help your team excel?" If the answer is "Yes" for both questions, who cares if the dude plays Halo for 4 hours during the day.
FD
6:32 PM