my team wants to work from home, but some of them are terrible at it

by Alison Green on April 6, 2026

A reader writes:

I oversee a medium-sized department who are all required to be on-site, although we were remote for quite a while following the pandemic. My staff is pushing very hard for hybrid working, and while I am open to it, I have concerns.

In the past, when that the majority of our team worked from home, some of the staff really excelled at it, while others were frankly awful. Literally, the staff who were excellent outperformed the worst by a factor of ten to one. Unfortunately, the lower performers didn’t always recognize that they were not being productive.

The culture in my organization is very much one of equity, and I am trying to balance that with the knowledge that some staff just did not excel at working from home. If Andrew and Beth worked effectively from home, but Charles and Deanna did not, how can I be fair?

I answer this question — and two others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

  • I wish my team had more diversity of ages
  • I don’t want to talk to coworkers while they’re driving
{ 108 comments }

{ 108 comments… read them below }

  1. Rusty Shackelford*

    Equal is not the same as fair. Don’t punish people who *can* effectively work from home.

    1. Yup*

      This. Don’t start the adult equivalent of “If one of you misbehaves no one goes to the zoo!”

    2. FunkyMunky*

      this! and why is that even a question, really? you *can* set up a policy that you’d like to see certain people in office more

  2. WellRed*

    I’m, spell it out for them? Kindly. Though I’d also consider how much of an impact Covid at the time of performance.

    1. Nesprin*

      +1

      If Deanna and Beth struggled with working from home during the pandemic but Andrew and Charles excelled, it may be that there were other factors at play, like care giving responsibilities.

      1. On Eagle's Wings*

        Remarkable coincidence on your naming structure.

        It’s quite likely that Deanna & Beth struggled with care responsibilities during Covid, more than Andrew and Charles.

        Hopefully, post Covid, there are professional carers at work again.

        aaand… spill chick does not believe that carers is a real word. It wants to swap for careers. *sigh* so do Deanna and Beth, most likely.

  3. The Rural Juror*

    For #3 – my company has a strict no-calls-while-driving policy, even for hands free. I think it’s a very good thing. We’re in a field where people often go to site visits and then make phone calls while driving between them and the office. When the policy was introduced, there was some grumbling, but ultimately most people support it and agree with it. If anyone has been breaking the rule, I haven’t heard about it.

    1. Scientist*

      I’m in a slightly different field, but have friends who have published on this (including the famous “invisible gorilla”). The big thing is that even with hands free, a call requires attention and concentration, which are limited resources, where we tend to have something in a “spotlight” and things outside that get less/no attention. Talking to a passenger in a car is different because they see what you do, so if you hit sudden traffic/construction/more complicated driving conditions, your passenger tends to know to stop talking– whereas on a phone call, they don’t have that information. At a minimum, drivers need to be able to tell the caller “I’m driving so I may need you to pause if I need to focus” and actually say “hang on”/ have the caller understand if the driver likewise needs to stop talking mid-sentence. It’s possible that if the call is (1) more akin to a podcast, where someone needs to listen without participating and just walk away with broad awareness or (2) one-on one with a peer where they really can and do stop either side talking as needed, it would be OK to be on a hands free call. But a blanket org ban is also a decent idea given how rarely those conditions are true.

      2. The Rural Juror*

        Great point. Phone calls are so different than other situations like someone else being a passenger, especially if it’s a conference call!

        Though, I have one colleague who was once a passenger while I was driving who kept talking and talking when I repeatedly told them to HANG ON so I could hear my GPS giving me directions haha. My vehicle at that time didn’t have a screen so all I had were audible instructions. I missed a turn on a one way street and had to drive pretty far before I could loop around. I was NOT happy.

        1. Jay (no, the other one)*

          Yes. My kid was always remarkably mature and responsive except when we said “I need quiet so I can concentrate on the traffic/navigation/weather.” Without fail that was when she ABSOLUTELY HAD TO TELL US THIS INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT THING even if she’d been silent for hours until that moment.

          1. Rocket Raccoon*

            My kids also have the ability to ask what 6^4 is right as we are entering 4 lane traffic in a rainstorm.

            1. umami*

              I have the opposite problem, when my spouse is driving, he always seems to pick the tricky maneuver time to open a soda/point out something he can see out the driver side window/decide to change the podcast, etc. I’m like I WILL DO THAT YOU FOCUS ON DRIVING OMG

      3. Bathyphysa Conifera*

        Talking to a passenger in a car is different.
        I really noticed this as cell phones became prevalent: Talking to an adult in the front seat, conversation automatically lapses for a few seconds when you are merging. We have some hard programming around responding to the person with whom we are speaking, and so you don’t distract the driver while they maneuver around the 2000 lb moving objects.

        1. absolutely not*

          OMG, my spouse and one of their parents are so bad at taking the cue of when to let the conversation pause when traffic stuff is going on–and this is them as the passenger or the driver. I have been training them by just not looking at them (they like to make a lot of eye contact during these car conversations). The spouse has improved a lot and seems to have shifted the attention balance toward driving and away from talking, but their parent still gets so focused on talking that they do things like come to a full stop at a green light. I can tell they are perplexed that I don’t look at them if we’re having a conversation in the car but I think it helps a bit; it seems like after a while they do start to keep their eyeballs on the road more if they’re the one driving.

      4. B’Elanna*

        Do you know if there’s any research on the impact of podcasts/audiobooks on driving? (This isn’t meant as a gotcha question—I’m genuinely curious but a Google search turns up too much “noise” to find anything actually relevant.)

        1. Strive to Excel*

          I don’t know about research, but anecdata – I cannot have anything too brain-intensive on as car audio, or I struggle to drive. I’ve also seen more than one person mention that they will turn the volume of their music down if they’re driving somewhere tricky.

          I did try a google and found a hit on a study regarding audiobooks while driving – I’ll post a link in a follow-up comment. It seems to say the effect of audiobooks on drivers is negative in complex situations, but if you’re an individual with a high executive function capability, audiobooks can be a positive impact in less complex situations. That’s just my recap of their recap though.

          2. Scientist*

            I don’t specifically know about other audio, it’s a good question! (I do recall that there was a study where they had participants eat a sandwich while driving because at the time 20+ years ago, there was a lot of argument around “why does a phone need to be hands-free if people can eat a cheeseburger while they drive” Turns out that cheeseburgers, being inanimate, don’t do as much to distract you.)

            The “it depends” makes a lot of sense to me. My friends said that if the major risk when driving is falling asleep/daydreaming (e.g., long, flat, straight stretches of sparsely populated interstate), things like phone calls may actually be a net positive if they are keeping you from drifting off.

            Obviously, one of the risks of all of this is that no one knows when the truck 100 yards ahead of you will suddenly have a tire blow and fly toward you while the truck fishtails– even if it’s the only other car on the road– so it’s really hard to predict when you will need to pay full attention.

            1. Strive to Excel*

              Personally, I’ve found food/drinks to be more of a distraction, purely because they require me to have a hand off the wheel to do something else. That is again my anecdata though!

            2. maelen*

              I don’t often listen to audiobooks in the car, but when I do I listen to books that I’ve already read. That way I can easily ‘tune out’ and not worry that I’m missing something.

              1. SarahKay*

                I’m the same, I listen to audiobooks or radio plays that I’m already familiar with – and even then, I mute them when I hit heavy traffic and need to concentrate on driving.

        2. Bathyphysa Conifera*

          I’d expect “radio replacements” like podcasts and books on tape to be quite different from phone calls, unless it’s the sort of podcast where I fell the need to emphatically weigh in on the things. (And in general, this would be because it was so irritating and thus not a thing I would choose to listen to. Says You is right there!) I don’t have that expectation that the podcast will ask me a question to which I must respond in a conversational manner, like I do in a back and forth with a live human.

          I normally do books on tape just for long drives, where drowsiness is a threat and the book helps with mental engagement and alertness.

          1. WheresMyPen*

            I used to enjoy listening to the podcast Futility Closet on a long, regular drive and it had a segment where they’d solve a lateral thinking puzzle and I’d play along, but I’d only do it while I was on long stretches of road I knew well and didn’t have to do much manoeuvring on

    2. Lifelong student*

      In the early days of cell phones our state banned being on a phone while driving. Not sure if that is still the case. In any event, more than once I would get a call from an employee while they were driving. I always challenged them if I was aware of it. I hoped both the policy and my challenge would at the least protect our organization from any liability if there were a problem. I would think that if an entity did not have such a policy, there could be some libility for the entity. Wonder if there are cases on this.

    3. Bike Walk Bake Books*

      Speaking as someone who works in transportation safety, this is 100% a good policy. The lag time in cell phone audio signal processing uses more brain power than a conversation with a passenger who’s in the same space/time the driver occupies. The brain just has to work harder for a cell phone call, and you need that attention for the task of operating a multi-ton steel box that kills people on impact.

  4. Charlotte Lucas*

    As a high performer, one of the best things management can do to support me is to address performance issues with coworkers who are struggling. They often don’t know they’re not performing up to standards unless someone tells them!

    I don’t expect people to all be high performers, but I don’t know if management realizes that they can affect everyone else, too.

    1. Distracted Librarian*

      100%. It’s frustrating to be limited by the behavior of others, whether it’s privileges that don’t get offered because some people will misuse them or my work slowing down because others aren’t keeping up. And don’t get me started on people who don’t even do the bare minimum getting the same salary and raises as outstanding employees.

    2. MassMatt*

      This. And one of the WORST things a manager can do is have an all-staff meeting to address issues with low performers.

      LW says low performers are not aware of their poor performance–why not? This is what a manager should be doing. LW needs to address poor performance with the poor performers 1-on-1 and not in a general meeting or memo. When it’s a general meeting the poor performer never recognizes that HE is the one the manager is talking about and the high performers are all wondering “WTH am I in this meeting when manager needs to address this with Bob?”

      Managers need to stop being timid about having difficult conversations.

  5. I see you Doris Burke*

    If the poor WFH performance was during the height of Covid, that might be a mitigating factor. If you’re going to start hybrid i’d give a clean slate but with tight guidelines as per the advice

    1. Marie*

      Well, LW# 1 does mention they were remote for “quite a while” after the pandemic. When did they go back to the office – 2022? 2023? I think that does make a difference. If it was that long after the worst part of the pandemic, kids were back in school, etc.

      1. Ellis Bell*

        Depending on location, the return to normality happened sooner for some people than others. So, for example older kids may have been back in school sooner than daycares for young children were accepting placements. Though, I have to think OP must have been having those conversations if people were not performing…?

        1. Marie*

          There could be a variety of mitigating factors. Maybe the low remote performers had kindergartners or younger kids at home during the pandemic. Those kids are now probably in full day school. Maybe they had to share WFH space with a spouse who is now back in the office? And frankly, a lot of us just weren’t in a good place mentally during the pandemic even if we didn’t have little kids or bad WFH space issues.

          But some people just don’t work well from home or need in-person supervision.

        2. iglwif*

          This, and also for many of us, there has been no real “return to normality” because someone in the family has long COVID, because everyone gets sick more often, because we or a family member are now immune compromised, because a family member died …

          1. Biff*

            I would also add that in smaller towns across the USA, covid is still hitting people hard. I used to live next to a daycare. It was open through Covid, but in 2024 and 2025, it had to close regularly due to how many staff or children were out due to covid. When it’s the only daycare in town, people can’t do anything.

  6. Richard Hershberger*

    No. 2 is curious. Are the employees older because the department tends to hire older, or because there is no tourover? If the latter, then the question really is about firing the olds to replace them with Young’s. Yes, this is ageist.

    If the former, why is this? If the job requirements include many years of exp, you have your answer. Alison gives the answer: create junior positions. Otherwise you are looking for someone working in the field since they were ten. If you tend to hire old for no particular reason, then reexamine your process.

    1. E*

      Sometimes it’s just a lack of younger people interested in the job/industry. I work for a civil contractor and we have a hard time finding younger people that want to work in the field. Many of the trades have this problem and there’s been a lot of focus in the past few years promoting these industries to high school students. We want to hire young people to train for the future but not as many are interested as in the past.

      1. Eden*

        Yep. I’ve been dealing with a similar problem. There aren’t enough people being trained in my specialty and there are fewer and fewer training programs available. If we want someone who was officially trained, there is literally one school still offering it.

    2. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

      Our office tends to run old or very young. Why? We are underpaid. Most of us have a reason beyond money that we work here. (for me, flexible schedule, short commute, great benefits). But there is hardly anyone who works here who doesn’t have either an SO with a larger income, or a second job.

      Young people come here out of college, stay for 1-2 years and leave for better pay. Older people stick around for either benefits or lack of incentive to leave.

      1. Michelle*

        My workplace has two unofficial categories of workers: younger ones who are gathering experience and will undoubtedly move on, and older workers who want to stay and eventually retire from this company.
        It is a hellish variable schedule for parents of young children (weekends, evenings, occasional nights).

    3. Dido*

      Could just be that it’s a dying industry or field that young people aren’t champing at the bit to go into in the first place. My team is basically the opposite, it skews younger because my industry didn’t exist anywhere close to the scale it does today 20+ years ago. Not much to do about that, same way we can’t force more men to want to be nurses or more women to want to be construction laborers just so these fields can be diverse

      1. bird in the hand*

        My current industry is similar (most universities didn’t even offer it as a major until less than 20 years ago) and the topic is decently popular with young people, but we still have similar issues where there’s not enough junior staff to pick up the mantle once the senior staff start retiring.

      2. Reluctant Mezzo*

        Men get paid more than women in nursing anyway, they get administrative jobs a lot more for Some Reason Or Other.

    4. Strive to Excel*

      I don’t think OP is thinking about “Firing the Olds to replace with Youngs” – it sounds more like they’re concerned that most of their office will likely be leaving in the next few years and/or will be leaving en masse, resulting in a lot of knowledge gaps.

      Apart from junior positions, it’s also worthwhile looking at where you’re advertising for new jobs. If it’s always through the same few channels, you might just be targeting the same demographic over and over unintentionally.

      1. Bee*

        Yeah, it seems very clear to me they’re mostly concerned about the massive brain drain about to happen when half their department is *already* over retirement age and the other half is 5-10 years out.

    5. iglwif*

      It sounds to me more like OP would like to have a deeper bench because they’re looking ahead to a time when half their team potentially retires at the same time. At no point did they mention firing anyone!

      I’ve worked at places where turnover was low overall because everyone was happy with their work and satisfied with their pay. I’ve also worked at places where turnover was constant in entry-level roles and extremely low otherwise. At one place, it was kind of the Lore that once hired, you would either leave within 2-5 years, or stay for 15+ years. (I did the latter, hitting 20 years before I left to do something else, and MANY people who were there when I started either have retired from there since, or are still working there.) This tends to happen in smaller or niche industries/sectors where there aren’t a lot of other places to work in your area — or at least, it used to happen before COVID, idk about now.

      Anyway, I am very sympathetic to this OP because in my volunteer work with my congregation, getting younger people more involved is a constant struggle but also really extremely necessary for the continuity of the organization! We’re not trying to get rid of older people; we’re recognizing that the older older people get, the more likely they are to get tired of doing all the work, decide to move somewhere warmer, get sick, etc., and if there’s nobody younger learning the ropes, it’ll all fall to pieces.

  7. Bathyphysa Conifera*

    For #1, agree on the clear metrics for remote work.

    e.g. “Robert did a great job composing the 47 llama obstacle descriptions, and turned them all in on time. When there was a holdup because of a vicuna sidebar, he communicated early and clearly about what was going on, what would resolve the issue, and possible impact on deadlines.” Even if you cannot discern the location of the employee’s butt at this moment (in the office chair, gazing thoughtfully at a screen, reading AAM), usually there is a regular schedule of submissions that make it clear work is getting done.

  8. BofaOnTheSofa*

    My workplace has very specific performance metrics, measured quarterly, and if you fall into the “needs improvement”, you have to return to the office until your productivity improves. All staff were told about this prior to working from home, so everyone knows the expectations. We’ve had people return to office permanently; others for a short time & when they met productivity requirements they were allowed to return to WFH again.
    Because the expectations are clear & applied to all, I think it works pretty well. (Our productivity is easily tracked in our jobs. It’s not probably as easy to measure in other jobs.)

    1. allathian*

      This undoubtedly works for some people but not all. An office environment can have a very high negative impact on some people’s productivity, especially open offices.

      1. Olive*

        If someone is not productive at home OR in the office, the role might not be right for them.

        1. allathian*

          True, but if they have to prove they’re productive at the office before they’re allowed to WFH, they’re stuck.

          I’m mainly thinking about WFH as a disability accommodation for people with some forms of neurodivergence or, say, chronic fatigue syndrome. They might be great or at least good employees if they’re allowed to WFH even if going to the office is a burden. A work friend has CFS and she goes to the office when it’s absolutely essential. She has a standard 45 minute commute, and as soon as she gets there she goes to a nap room for 15 minutes, does some work, and takes at least another rest before going home. She’ll attend in-person meetings, but if her boss wants more than that, she’ll get it done the next day when she can WFH again. She helps provide an internal service and she’s always friendly and quick and her work product’s great, at least I think so and I have no reason to believe she goes above and beyond for me just because we’re work friends. But she wouldn’t be able to work FT if she had to go to the office every day.

          1. Another Kristin*

            If an employee needs a medical accomodation to WFH, that’s something else, though, isn’t it? This is a group of employees where some are productive when WFH and some are not, and the LW is trying to figure out how to make a hybrid schedule work in that situation. It doesn’t have anything to do with accomodations for disabilities/medical conditions.

          2. MassMatt*

            Sorry, not agreeing with this logic. Several employees who are working from home are terrible at it. This isn’t about “prove you can work in the office to earn the right to WFH” so much as these employees needing supervision and corrective action. Are they goofing off, doing errands and watching movies? Simply not able to budget their time well or stay focused? Then WFH is not a good fit for them.

            It often seems as if much of the commentariat thinks WFH should be the default in every case, and only controlling micromanagers insist on butts in seats. That’s not the case here.

      2. Davey*

        The point, though, is that the company made their expectations known explicitly, so those for whom it doesn’t work are free to, and should, find another job. I quite like that the company was straightforward from the outset; that’s how it should be, and then employees can decide if they are aligned with that particular policy. It’s a very fair approach to company policy.

  9. Capybara*

    The good performers get to go home. The bad performers need to be in office to be supervised.

    1. A. Lab Rabbit*

      Unfortunately, it’s not exactly that simple because OP states “the lower performers didn’t always recognize that they were not being productive”. Hence the need for some easily identifiable and quantifiable metrics in order to be fair.

      And this really isn’t “good” versus “bad”. The lower performers can still be doing a good job, it’s just that they’re doing a lot less of it.

      1. Eden*

        I agree. I think that there need to be clear metrics. And they could have some sort of build up to work from home to prove that their performance will not suffer. Start with one day a week from home and increase to fully remote if metrics are being hit. And decrease work from home days as they are being missed. This would keep it equitable so long as everyone is being held to the same standard. If Ethan is stellar in office but average from home he should not be given fewer work from home days than Pam who is average in both locations.

      2. MassMatt*

        “the lower performers didn’t always recognize that they were not being productive”.

        This is a manager problem! Employees should know whether they are doing a good job or not.

    2. London Calling*

      I was well aware that I was underperforming during WFH in lockdown because of being in a one bedroom flat with no office set up – and I’d been a VERY good performer pre-pandemic. Once I was allowed back into the office (August 2020) even on the first day I could feel the improvement in both mood and productivity. And I had no supervision from then until I left in the following March.

      So it’s not always as simple as WFH being a reward for being a good performer. I was, as I said, a very good performer and I hated it.

      1. Another Kristin*

        You could just choose not to WFH, though. Allowing hybrid work if you meet performance targets is a pretty good idea, as long as the targets are realistic and well-defined and the employees are getting consistent feedback. You don’t HAVE to take your company up on the offer, though, any more than you have to use the company parking lot if you don’t drive.

    3. Festively Dressed Earl*

      Agreed. I wonder how many of LW 1’s reports had markedly better or worse performance in-office vs. WFH? I suspect that the high performers are high performers no matter where they are, and the low performers aren’t any better at working independently in the office than they are at home.

      1. Peanut Hamper*

        This is an odd comment to me because LW didnt’t say anything about their in-office performance. If that were an issue, this would be a very different letter.

      2. Tau*

        I assure you that people who are perfectly fine, even high, performers in the office but dramatically worse WFH exist – I’m one of them. It can be hard to realise this about yourself, especially when people believe that high performers are high performers everywhere and WFH *ought* to work just fine for you and has so many advantages… but I’m so much more productive, and also happier, now that I’m voluntarily back in office 5 days a week it’s unreal.

        Not to say that LW shouldn’t check all their reports’ performance carefully regardless of location, but your expected conclusion seems like a reach given the facts as described I’m the letter.

  10. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

    Ugh, my sister uses her drive time to call. It’s actually about the only time she calls. Drives me nuts. But I am glad to be reminded of this because I am going to visit her next week and need to be prepared to shut that down when I am in the car.

    1. BigBaDaBoom*

      The same with my mother. It drives me absolutely nuts but I haven’t had the guts to say so.

      And it’s not just that it’s unsafe. It’s also so annoying to try to hear them well over the road noise, or when the signal inevitably drops because she’s in frickin rural Vermont.

      So please, y’all, even if you don’t care about the safety of yourself or others (which you should), at least care that it’s an awful call experience for others.

      1. Not Everyone Can Wear Sandwiches*

        I have been trying to break my mother of the habit of getting on the phone during a drive. I keep telling her that it sounds like she’s shouting into a tin can at the other end of a wind tunnel (It does: car bluetooth picks up OUTSIDE noises on the highway!) but I have not been completely able to do it.

    2. Dancing Otter*

      My daughter, too, driving home from work late at night (theater). Initially, I thought, “How nice that she wants the chance to talk while I’m still awake.” Then I realized she was using me to keep herself awake. No matter what I say, or how obviously I yawn, she will *not* let me off the phone until she arrives home.

      Regarding the discussion up thread about audiobooks — I once set off on a 10-hour drive with a new translation of Beowulf and an unabridged, untranslated, Canterbury Tales. That did not work out well. After half an hour, I realized I had not absorbed anything, and switched titles. Nope, nothing. Good that I gave driving priority, I guess? I stick to the audio equivalent of beach reads since then.

  11. Darcy Mae*

    Piggybacking on the part of the answer that mentions (paraphrasing): “some people may have previously been bad at WFH during because they had kids at home” – if you start allowing WFH again, set up your expectations when it comes to allowing WFH with children in the house. Think through the circumstances (if any) where you’d allow that to happen. You presumably don’t want anyone thinking “WFH is back! We can cancel daycare for the summer!”

    1. It's Marie - Not Maria*

      We literally had to put in our WFH Policy that it could not be used as a substitute for daycare once the world started opening back up in 2021.

      We still have people who try to do it, but since we added a Collaboration Software with cameras all company provided computers, the number of people we suspected were not using daycare for their children went way down. We also ended up firing a couple employees who had previously been logging a lot of Overtime for time theft with the monitoring provided by this software.

  12. EarlGrey*

    to the first letter, I understand metrics are absolutely fair for having a *regular* hybrid schedule. but i think as an effort to make things equitable / less harsh for the poorer performers, they could still do one-off WFH days to deal with a midday appointment / plumber in the house / babysitter called out sick / etc. When all the systems are in place for the team to WFH, it would feel overly punitive to me to not have that even if I knew I needed to step up my game for (for example) getting every Monday and Tuesday at home.

    1. Another One*

      And if people show that they can be successful with WFH, who previously, couldn’t- acknowledge that.

      WFH doesn’t work for everyone. I have friends who love it and friends who opt to work in office.

  13. Jaunty Banana Hat I*

    Equity is not everyone gets the same thing. It is being fair in a way that takes account of existing inequalities. It is ensuring that all individuals have the tools and support to succeed based on their unique circumstances/needs.

  14. KHB*

    On Q1, I think the “work from home” part of the equation is actually a red herring. We have a team with a quantifiable performance metric (that allows LW to say things like “ten to one”), but where individual team members are apparently unaware of how well or how poorly they’re doing. Why is that? Why hasn’t LW, the manager, been having conversations with them about their performance all along?

    I’d say step 1 is to have those conversations, so that everybody knows where they stand. Step 2, perhaps, is to let everyone work from home as much as they want, but with a stated understanding that this job requires everyone to achieve a performance standard of at least X – and if they can’t do that going forward, whether at home or in the office, then they no longer have a job here.

    There you go: equality. And the added bonuses that nobody’s being judged for whatever chaos the pandemic wrought on their home life, and nobody’s being treated like a kindergartener who needs adult supervision.

    1. clever nickname TBD*

      I had the impression that the performance issues really showed up during full time WFH, but you are right that if there is still a clear difference now with hybrid it should be addressed right away.

      1. KHB*

        There should always be an ongoing feedback process between management and all employees about how well the employees are performing relative to management’s expectations. That’s just an essential element of good management.

        For this specific situation, the employees who have a history of underperforming (while working remotely or under any other circumstances) should be made aware of that fact. They can still go back to working remotely if they want to – but they’re responsible for doing what they need to do to keep their performance at an acceptable level.

    2. sofar*

      I agree completely. It looks like everyone is local and everyone has the option to WFH or come into the office. So, ideally, if someone is struggling b/c they don’t WFH effectively, they’d be self-aware enough to come into the office. Or vice-versa. If they don’t, use the performance metrics to start the PIP process.

      I had a team member who excelled in the office (I suspect she benefited from body-doubling). But the moment my company officially decided everyone could WFH as much as they wanted, her performance plummeted. On anchor days (when everyone had to come in), she was productive. She was not self-aware enough to come in every day, her performance suffered, she wound up on a PIP. Because of performance, not for WFH preference.

    3. Leenie*

      I have the feeling some employees would rather keep their jobs in-office than get fired if they can’t do well with WFH. They have both options so there’s no compelling need to fire people who perform well under circumstances that are completely available to them.

      Some people do best in office. Others do best WFH. Hybrid is ideal for a lot of people. We have options. Your absolutist idea of equality, if put into practice, could wind up hurting people who don’t need to be hurt.

      1. Leenie*

        Or maybe I misunderstood you when you said “whether at home or in the office.” I thought you were suggesting that they need to perform equally well in both circumstances. But seeing the other comments and your subsequent response, it sounds like you meant they should have the freedom to choose what works for them, as long as they’re meeting their metrics. I totally agree with that.

  15. Yes And*

    LW2: During the Great Recession, my white-collar/passion-tax industry realized it could get people with a few years’ experience for the price of an entry level employee, and promptly got addicted to paying substandard wages for early-mid-career employees. As a result, a lot of people dropped out of the field, or never got started in the first place. Now, almost twenty years later, surprise surprise, the field is graying, and upper-mid-level positions are hard to fill because too few people made it through the pipeline.

    Long term, the answer is that we need to create entry level positions. Not just junior positions coded young. Real entry level positions, meaning we’re committing ourselves to proper training of new employees. (Of course the best applicant for an entry-level position might be an older worker, and if so, great. But that’s not the most likely outcome.) But it’s urgent that we do it, as an investment in the future of the industry.

    1. learnedthehardway*

      Amen!!!!

      (Parent with university age kids who are struggling to get jobs and get relevant experience)

  16. Im going to Lemkin*

    Statistically im sure it’s a good idea to ban even hands free calls, but some of us have been doing this for decades so it seems like overreach

    1. Dandelion*

      I’ve worked at companies that ban work calls while driving. I’m pretty sure those people still called their personal contacts while on the road, which isn’t great but can’t really be policed.

      However, it did create a culture within the company where all of us knew that we weren’t required to be on the phone when travelling, and that we could end a call with someone who was driving, even our managers or grand-bosses. I didn’t really travel much for that job (aside from a conference every year or so), but I appreciated knowing that the company would back me up when I took my own safety seriously, or if I didn’t want to be complicit in someone else being unsafe on the road.

  18. AnotherSarah*

    I didn’t necessarily think the LW with the age question was a manager or responsible for hiring. If that’s the case–they just want more coworkers close to their own age–I think that’s okay! We’d all like to have a cohort at work, I think. The issues are 1) if you assume you will get along better with people your own age and don’t give older people a chance or 2) if you start to obsess about how old your office is. I’ve been the one younger person and it can feel lonely! Mostly a question of where I was in life, what concerned me, what interested me…no one else was going through the things I was just because they already had, 20 years earlier. But those are probably inside thoughts.

  19. clever nickname TBD*

    For LW2: My management (including me for a time) made a huge mistake not creating junior positions, now we are facing a wave of retirements with no pipeline of replacements in our team. Starting 5 years ago I have been warning them about what to expect, but there has been restrictions on hiring based on the cost of living in some areas, this ignored the fact that the experienced team is based in the expensive area and can’t be easily replaced by remote workers. I’m no longer in the hiring chain, but I continue to advocate for building a deeper team that can retain the group knowledge, I hope the latest departures are getting their attention. At the same time I’m helping train a second team remotely, but growing them to the level to replace all us old fogeys is a decade long task and I won’t be around to see it through.

    1. clever nickname TBD*

      Funny, I posted this comment on the wrong article… it is a real non-sequitor here! Oh well…

      1. Bananapants with a visible bananathong*

        No, it’s the right one — the second question is the age diversity one.

  20. Alice*

    I’m always surprised by managers who say “the lower performers didn’t always recognize that they were not being productive.” Don’t managers tell their employees whether they are doing well or not?

    1. London Calling*

      Some do. Some, like mine at ex-job, don’t; or rather, they happily let you get on with it when it’s going well and berate you when it isn’t. I was talking to one manager who was guilty about not having one 2 ones during lockdown, and he was astounded when I told him in three years working at the company the only one 2 ones I’d had with my manager was appraisal time (or when I asked to speak to her about something). And certainly not during lockdown. Our CFO (her line manager) was completely off-grid with some of us for about six months, to the point that we were asking if he actually still worked for the company.

    2. Red Shirt Alert*

      I’ve experienced overhearing a few managers specifically addressing issues with low performers and minutes later the coworker complaining to me how wrong the manager is. (True privacy for feedback in my workplaces has been rare.) A few times in a sincere attempt to help, I’ve even directly told a low performer what I’ve observed as their issues, specific actions to help, and been ignored. We all have blind spots, and unfortunately low performers can be especially blind – perhaps as job jeopardy is scary.

    3. EarlGrey*

      I think it’s pretty common to hear a general “you’re doing well” whether you’re meeting just the basics or going above and beyond – and not everyone is great at understanding which one applies.

      Especially during the worst of COVID when showing up and doing the minimum was a heroic effort for many workers and supervisors were ideally cutting some slack across the board.

    4. SansaStark*

      I had a former direct report who had a meeting with me (her supervisor) and my boss about her low performance, what needed to change, etc. and she still gave herself all 5/5 on her evaluation a few weeks later. We give 5s for things like securing a $1m contract or opening a new revenue stream. Even a meeting with her boss’s boss couldn’t open her eyes to her performance problems.

  21. It's Marie - Not Maria*

    Sadly, many people seem to think they are super-efficient and effective when they work remotely. The truth is most people are okay working from home, not great, not awful, just okay. Some of the people who brag about their great productivity when working from home are actually not very productive at all. Yes, there are people who are amazing when they work from home, but the numbers of these people are not as high as some of the WFH Pundits would like to believe. There is no “one size fits all” answer when it comes to remote work, it should be assessed on case by case basis, with all factors considered for each individual.

    I personally prefer hybrid. I like being able to have days where I can focus on certain projects with minimal interruptions. But I also realize I am in Human Resources and people like being able to stop by my office for a quick chat or to help de-escalate a situation on site.

    1. Davey*

      “The truth is most people are okay working from home, not great, not awful, just okay.”

      Do you mean “most people” in your workplace specifically, or are you referring to employees in general who work remotely across all industries and sectors? If the latter, do you (or anyone else reading this) have evidence-based data to share via link or citation? I’d love to show someone such data and I’ve been having a terrible time finding it. Thanks in advance!

      –Davey

    2. Ana*

      Then it makes sense why you would prefer hybrid and someone who does focused work all day and doesn’t have people stopping by for work related chats would prefer work from home.

    3. Jennifer Strange*

      The truth is most people are okay working from home, not great, not awful, just okay. Some of the people who brag about their great productivity when working from home are actually not very productive at all. Yes, there are people who are amazing when they work from home, but the numbers of these people are not as high as some of the WFH Pundits would like to believe.

      Can you provide the statistics for this statement?

  22. oaktree*

    For LW3, a complicating factor is that in our organization at least, it is the most senior people who are most likely to be driving and Zooming (or otherwise driving and meeting). Many of us don’t really have standing to tell them we’ll pick up the topic later.

    1. Matt*

      I wouldn’t try to police my coworkers, bosses etc. driving/calling at all. However I’d like such a rule since it gives *me* the standing to simply being not reachable while driving, which could otherwise easily be disputed.

  23. Clementine*

    I can see why many companies are just giving up on WFH, because this type of bifurcated system is going to produce a lot of resentment and people trying to compare without having enough information. I don’t have a great solution.

  24. iglwif*

    I really want to know who on earth all these people are who are taking work calls while driving! This seems like such bizarre behaviour, like either you’re driving around when you should be at work (why? where?) or you’re taking work calls on your personal time (why??).

    Obviously there are jobs where you MUST take calls while driving (paramedics for instance) but this doesn’t sound like that kind of situation.

    1. Coverage Associate*

      There are lots of jobs where driving might be a part of the job even if “driver” is not in the job title. Lawyers drive to court and other meetings. CPAs do audits on site. Lots of people with responsibilities for maintaining buildings drive between buildings. Just lots and lots of people driving during the work day. Coworkers might not even know they’re not at their desks if the business has more than one office.

      And lots and lots of jobs that don’t fit strictly into office hours. Clients in other time zones. Anyone who has to respond to an emergency, which may not be just a paramedic type of emergency but could be an IT outage or a bank error. Small business owners who have to respond to everything. (I was in an independent bookstore yesterday, and the clerk called 3 people not scheduled to work with questions about the cash register.)

      If I call someone and learn they’re in the car, I might say it can wait. It’s trickier if your boss calls you from their car.

      1. iglwif*

        Sure, I understand about jobs that include an on-call component, either officially or unofficially.

        I still don’t understand why you would take a call when you are driving. Like isn’t that incredibly dangerous? And also frequently illegal? How far are people driving that they can’t call back when they get to their destination, or at least pull over and call back while not actively in charge of a moving vehicle?

        Like maybe this is because I don’t drive and have had crosswalk close calls with more than one distracted driver, but it just seems like … I wouldn’t want to be sharing the road with people who are piloting huge chunks of metal at high speeds while also, and simultaneously, doing business meetings.

    2. learnedthehardway*

      I don’t understand how people can get anything done when doing calls for work while driving, but I guess with AI notetaking systems, that will be easier now.

      Personally, I like talking on the phone while driving, but wouldn’t want to do anything more than chatting as I need to focus on the road.

      I have occasionally done an interview while driving, but that was in an exceptional situation where I was expecting to be in my office, but got stuck in traffic and had no way to inform the candidate that the interview would have to be delayed, so I just went with it. Not my preference, for sure.

    3. Matt*

      As far as paramedics go, usually ambulances are crewed by at least two (main reason being it takes two to safely carry a patient), so I’d guess the one who is not driving does the communications (same as in commercial aviation with the Pilot Not Flying operating the radios).

      1. iglwif*

        Yeah, I realized after I wrote that that in fact that was a bad example because paramedics, pilots, cops, etc. generally work in pairs, and that’s partly because it’s dangerous to pull focus from your driving/piloting responsibilities to talk on the phone/radio.

    4. El Muneco*

      it is very common in my company for people to schedule their commute around meetings where they won’t be expected to look at a screenshare or be a primary contributor. Particularly since managers’ workday has crept significantly ahead of core work hours in order to interact with other time zones.

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