Thread regarding Wells Fargo & Co. layoffs

I guesss I am going to have to send out those reply all thank you emails I hate so much to get my numbers up.

Be careful… don’t leave your desk to use the bathroom. They will count that as inactivity.

We’re in the office to collaborate. Sometimes that means sitting with colleagues in a meeting room, talking face to face and not using our laptops. Sometimes it means having work-related conversations in the hallway or at someone’s desk. Sometimes it’s sitting side by side with someone, observing and asking questions about what they do. For some roles, micromanagement like activity tracking makes no sense.

@c9 “If you have time to lean then you have time to clean.”

Said by every HOURLY PAID restaurant employee. Oh wait, thats right. We’re SALARIED employees, not hourly ya chump. YOU CANNOT HAVE IT BOTH WAY YA BOOMER! What a Jabroni. Go get your effin shinebox!

@f1 This is the stupidist f**king thing they've come up with yet.

So if somebody doesn't get bombarded by 100's of emails a day, they're penalized? If I can read an email in 30 seconds, I'm penalized vs. somebody who takes 5 minutes? If they don't spend all day in meetings, they're penalized?

And what is the acceptable activity level?

This was confirmed by my manager.

They track time in Microsoft products (did you look at your calendar, did you open an email, how much time did you spend per email, how much time actually engaging in a teams call, screensharing, pointing, how much time in excel, PowerPoint, etc).

They also track time in confluence, jira and browser. They track to the second - any activity on your machine. Provides a total number of hours worked per day.

What they can't quantify is how much time you spent working away from computer - say, writing notes, in a workshop, listening to a presentation, etc.) - or the quality of your work.

I really think they expect people to fill 8hrs of typing, clicking, jiggling, etc. So the next time you want to "log work", schedule a call with a buddy and screenshare vacation ideas.

@be They are competent b/c they're using off the shelf tooling to capture the information and reporting on it. Problem is, we don't know what they're tracking and how. There's no communicated expectation of activity level we're supposed to be at. You can be in the office 8 hours. You can't be "active" for 8 hours. So we're being held to a standard we can't realistically meet.

@c0 this is really it.. maybe it's used to help get rid of a bad performer, etc. But personally am in the type of roll these stats would mean nothing. Impossible to track what clicks or time active means at all.

I dont see how outside of a production or call center job this means anything. You either do your job or you don't. And if I somehow show up on some report for being unproductive..well I have plenty to show otherwise.

@c9 the difference is learning makes you more valuable as a resource, cleaning makes you more valuable as a layoff.

What is the motivation to make lists so India can take my job? Why is my time not better spent making myself more employable in a job market that doesn't want to hire anyone that isn't severely overqualified for half of what they're worth?

@c9+1k8tk35ev

Innovation requires deep thought, not mouse clicks and busy work emails trying to keep up completely arbitrary metrics that have nothing to do with anything. No one fretting over this data has a damn clue what I do or how it's done. They aren't qualified to do anything but collect some 1s and 0s, which is a waste of time. Here's an innovation for ya, stop wasting money on this BS.

Explain to me, why are those that are so concerned about being tracked always leaning on the “if my work is done faster than person x then why should it matter how long I work?”

Are you the same people that would retort with “that’s not my job/job description” when tasked with something?

I guess it’s a mentality thing. There are those of you who can only do exactly as told and then there are those of you who have the mental acumen and desire to make their entire environment better. Nowhere does it say to break your back getting work done, but that doesn’t mean you can’t spend time documenting, cleaning up old stuff, innovating or educating yourself on something new.

If you have time to lean then you have time to clean.

Any managers hovering over these metrics have mental and personal issues that should be treated.

@bm i mean they can hope for that all they want, but I guarantee people will just find ways to stretch their task time out, rather than sign up to be punished for efficiency by a perpetually spiraling workload.

There's a reason metrics like these are typically only used in production environments

@a9+1k8tk35ev

I think their expectation is that everyone works as long and hard as as they can until they can’t work anymore. The more efficient people will therefore get more done in doing so, rather than get the same amount done in less time. Then they’ll more readily know who they can layoff, so the more efficient people can do even more work.

This is true- was told no details given so people don’t game the system. However do your research in what Teams can track. Only problem is they keep telling us that in person collaboration is great. But they can’t track or report on that. So if you get a message about this just say you do a lot of in office face to face. Make them try to run a report correlating in office to stats- two different datasets. Then they would have to combine and track in office times to keyboard strokes.

Oh great, now everyone will do a lot of fake busy work to game the numbers. THAT will lead to success. These people are complete mo--ns.

The tool they use tracks the amount of time you’re active in each app. Just having the app open doesn’t count towards activity. It monitors all apps including web browsing - and it treats time in tools like Develop You and Workday as individual apps. They have the ability to track how many emails you open, send, etc but from what I’ve seen, any time that you’re doing something in an app, it counts as time in the app - regardless of any type of volume.

There’s definitely some funny business going on with all the upvotes on this post…the HR troll really wants people to think they’re competent enough to be watching your every move

Anyone have suggestions for ways to get yourself added to useless distributions? Want to fill idle hours with pretending to open and read emails

@a3 all apps monitored to one extent or another. It isn’t clear what that is though.

Training in browser okay.
Outlook - is being in it ok? Or are they measuring emails read/sent. Oh sorry I don’t get 200 emails a day.
Teams - meetings and chats?
Dev tools have to be tracked too if you’re an engineer.

@a5

And managers have been chronically unable to discern how much their direct reports are doing? Seems like those folks should be first off to the firing line.

Yeah. It’s totally f@@ked. I got a call on this as well. Got told they can’t see reports or data or how it’s being measured.

It seems the agent looks at time in the app. But it’s not clear of just having the app with focus is enough. Might be measuring emails opened or time in teams meetings.

Nothing has been said about how this is measured or what the requirements. There’s zero way somebody can be “active” for the entire 8 hours we’re supposed be in the office etc.

@ak i agree, but I also think they are vert unlikely to achieve attrition targets through current measures. People who really care about RTO have already fled, the 8-hour requirement is just an incremental turn of the sc--ws if you've already accepted commuting for the day. And the job market is beyond fu---d, we're far removed from the days of the great resignation where job mobility is good. Even if you despise it here, job hugging for the short term is probably a wise move if you're not in a location/role that's very likely to get laid off.

Shart only has one thing he knows how to do to his workers so I fully expect him to keep doing it.

they will only roll this out if the rto and hours in office requirements don't get them the attrition numbers they want.

@ah Oh and the vote spamming too, on full display here.

@af Yup, his cringey style is very easy to pick out: affected jaded tone like he's Dennis Leary (prob because he's a Gen Xer), maximum paranoia, a humblebrag about his position, and then a smug little punchline as the cherry on top.

I want to know how many millions are being waisted now tracking work and systems to try to micromanage. I am a top performer and do automation. They just ki-led my creativity to workaround these out dated tools and just do what’s asked, nothing more. They are not here to innovate, they want keystrokes! Sorry man, can’t keystroke my dedication to give you long hours to help improve things. They won’t get that care anymore from me.

@OP
Yeah, its real.
My manager told me he has seen some of the reporting on it. They aren't using it and don't plan on it according to them. Too much babysitting and they don't care. I told him that is a problem with me and will be if that gets implemented.
However, they will do what they are told just like everyone else so that might be the straw for me.

@a9 yes, this sounds like a recipe to milk every task to the maximum extent possible. It sounds custom designed to disincent efficiency. Like the 8 hour rule is designed to disincent collaboration across time zones. And the 3 day rule is designed to disincent focusing on adding value vs putting in appearances. And the stack ranking is designed to disincent helping your teammates look good. And the rolling layoffs are designed to disincent anyone becoming invested in the bank's long term success. Kind of a theme around here

Oh it’s real. The department capturing won’t even explain measurements on how activity is captured. I was told keystrokes. They always used the last 15 months for first report, which is unreal to me cause we had downtime of work on hold. Now we are going to be penalized for their lack of providing work? Also what about taking develop you courses, I do a lot on my downtime. I watch, not type. I understand teams calls are captured on productivity and somehow they track emails. It’s terrible to roll this out with no guidance or clarity. How embarrassing for such a big company.

this does start to get a little dubious especially for exempt employees where it is more about getting the work done versus how long it takes to get it done. You can take people even in the same role where it takes someone half the amount of time to do the same task as someone else. those that are efficient will now be penalized over those that aren't. guess I'll just have to start clacking away at my key board while scrolling through tik Tok on my phone.

The concerning thing about this is if you work more efficiently and complete your work quicker than others - you may be targeted. So do we take the long way or doing things so we look better on these reports?

Tcoo

Unless you are one of the many who dont do anything all day none of this should be a major concern. When/if they start getting rid of the do nothings everyone else will have plenty of notice to tighten things up to avoid being next. We all know there are plenty of folks gaming the system and this is meant to root out and remove them.

just have to set up a permanent all day teams call with my coworkers

Lob please?

Which app is monitored and reported?

"what wasn’t captured was the quality of my work" Bean counters can't capture the quality of a bean, all they do is count beans.