#productivity

In organizational psychology, cronyism is directly linked to "ingratiation"—the practice of employees using flattery or sycophancy to win favors from a boss rather than performing high-quality work.The Proof: Peer-reviewed regression analysis indicates a massive positive correlation (β = 0.553, p < 0.001) between organizational cronyism and toxic ingratiation strategies. When an anti-cronyism policy is instituted and paired with objective, merit-based metrics, subsequent employee tracking shows a sharp decrease in sycophancy and a measurable rise in overall objective productivity.

If we had products people wanted to buy would we be in this situation? If we were selling products hands over fists, a lot of the issues we see today would be swept under the rug.

Placing the state of Nike right now solely on the whole innovation team for not creating or bringing to market anything that customers remotely want for the last I don’t know how many years. The last wave of Nike innovation was arguably 2017-2019 when we dropped zoomx/vaporfly/react?

I’d just wipe out that whole org, anyone a part of product design, product innovation, etc and start from scratch. Poach people from our competitors who are actually growing. Genuinely curious what people in product design/innovation have been doing the last 5+ years.

bh um is no different from all the cr-p going on! Since all the policy changes auth requests have dwindled - very litlte work to do! We point this out all the time and were asking how is all this affecting our job security - told with a smile no no….there is always work to do. Nope!!!!! No one can meet their ridiculous productivity requirements and on every 1:1 PL are told to mark us down for not meeting metrics even though there isnt enough work to do!!!!! Then they start tracking our laptops with pega to make sure were are in the applications but there is no work to do!!!!!! Im so glad i got the heck out of UM!!!!!! A nightmare!!!!!!

Starting to witness some changes and challenges both at the stakeholder and operational levels. The miracle of Covid hands off performance is starting to show. As assets age no amount of resilience will improve performance and productivity. The Covid era bubble is bursting. Expect serious declines and reductions in uptime with elevated OPC…

I can't tell you how many hours are lost every day because of faulty network or connection issues. I won't report them anymore because they go into a bottomless pit.
I just sit and stew about it. and if I'm doing that and everyone else is doing the same, think of the thousands of hours down the drain .
Such a waste. But then again, what do you expect from S running the group.

There are absolutely times when people should be together, but in reality those times are few and far between. If the work actually benefits from being face to face, great. Get everyone in the room and get your sh-t done.

But that’s not what 5x RTO has become… We’re tracking badge swipes, building dashboards, calculating hours and obsessing over whether someone’s a-s was physically in a chair for eight hours. All for… what?

So people can drive to an office, put on headphones, open Teams and work remotely from the office?… Seriously, what the fu-k are we doing?

If my entire day is Teams calls, emails, spreadsheets and work with people sitting in different buildings or different states, then forcing me to commute to do it from a cubicle isn’t collaboration. It’s pointless theater.

I could do the exact same work from my house just like I did for a decade before Covid. I’d get more done, I’d be less burned out, and AT&T wouldn’t have to waste money supporting the office just so somebody can say we were “present.”

Bring people together when there’s a reason to be together. Stop confusing physical presence with productivity. They are not aligned.

If the end result of 5x RTO is that I commute an hour to sit in a building and work remotely from my desk, then congratulations, you did it (and nothing else)!

Way to go baldo! You just reinvented working from home - with traffic. What a joke!

Having to waste more than two hours on commute is certainly not making me more productive. What it is making me is resentful and slow and absolutely unwilling to go the extra mile, something I used to do all the time. I'm betting you RTO will turn out to be the biggest productivity ki-ler.

There’s been this huge crackdown on my team within care management recently on performance and policy compliance. We’re all getting flack for our idle time, call avoidance, taking lunch too late, and on and on. Used to be no one ever checked Verint unless there was some concern about metrics, but now everyone is in the hot seat. Lots of formal coaching and PIPs all at once for objectively very minor offenses. Is it some directive from senior leadership? Maybe they’re trying to thin the herd of less productive associates before AI implementation increases our productivity expectations?

Title of post - comments for or against welcome.

Rumor around HQ today is that easing the 5x RTO policy is actually being discussed and could be on the horizon. If true, it would be about damn time.

The employee feedback has been clear. The commute is draining, morale is in the toilet, productivity has drastically decreased, and the policy is making AT&T less attractive to the exact talent it needs to retain.

Rumor is leadership is finally realizing that forcing everyone into an office five days a week wasn’t the brilliant strategy they thought it was.

Nothing is official, but if this actually happens, it would be a pretty big admission that 5x RTO went too far.

“Study finds remote workers are far happier and more productive

Remote workers reported much higher well-being, but were also less likely to leave their role

Study also dispels myth that remote workers might feel alienated from co-workers”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/taking-away-peoples-choice-probably-120000206.html

Just curious if any group in Aerospace is using AI tools? Are you accepting the rollout or rebelling against it? Are you finding it productive to your job?

Biggest bunch of Muppets I have ever dealth with

Destroyed morale, productivity down all cus they can't just execute a fricking plan regarding layoffs

Worse company EVER

Some people seem to genuinely need the office for their social life. Fine. Go in five days a week. Nobody is stopping you.

But I’m not going to work to make friends. I’m here to do a job. And we’re told loyalty is dead and we’re a market-based company, so let’s be honest about the relationship — I sell my time and expertise, AT&T pays me for it. That’s it.

I prefer working with people who can get their sh-t done without an adult babysitter watching over them. If you can’t perform from home, sitting in an office doesn’t magically make you productive. Now you’ve just added a commute and a day full of distractions.

We’re supposed to be here to work, not recreate a nursing-home social mixer five days a week.

If you need the office, have at it. Just stop making the rest of us pay for your social life.

Worker productivity saw a significant acceleration in the second quarter, outpacing expectations and helping to curb labor cost gains. Initial unemployment claims saw a slight uptick, but overall layoffs dropped to a two-year low in July, indicating a stable labor market. Economists suggest that the adoption of artificial intelligence may be contributing to this productivity surge. Despite these positive signs, the Federal Reserve may still consider interest rate hikes next month if inflation does not improve. The data suggests that AI buildout has not yet led to widespread job losses.

Washington

https://libn.com/?p=559782

I truly want to thank the leadership team for finally ending the nightmare of a productive, comfortable home environment. I’ve desperately missed the thrill of the morning commute and the illusion of "cross-team collaboration." Since my ultimate goal is to never leave the building, please let me know if I can volunteer my weekends to help the janitorial staff empty the recycling bins. I’d hate to miss out on even a single second of this vibrant workplace culture

With all the focus on productivity and transformation, should S&T also be looking at its own organizational structure?

As more infrastructure moves to cloud, the traditional I&O footprint is changing, but we still seem to have multiple organizations with overlapping responsibilities across I&O, Common Services, Tech Strategy, Deployment and Transformation. In some areas it is difficult to understand who actually owns the work versus who coordinates, governs or gets the visibility.

India Operations is another example where the operating model and accountability are not always clear. There is a perception that resource quality has declined and that PepsiCo is increasingly being used as a stepping stone, while it is not always clear how performance and outcomes are being monitored.

Common Services also seems to overlap with Operations and other teams, without a clear understanding of what it uniquely owns.

Maybe the bigger question isn’t just whether I&O should be consolidated. Should S&T be looking at simplifying its overall structure, combining overlapping organizations and reducing some of the senior leadership layers? If we expect the rest of the organization to become leaner and more efficient, shouldn’t S&T be asking the same question about itself?

The biggest thing leadership still doesn’t understand is that “the office” never created any value. The employees did.

Remote work existed long before Covid and for good reason. No wasted commute time and cost. More time with family. More flexibility. The ability to buy a home somewhere affordable instead of being forced into an expensive city just to sit in an office and take the same Teams calls they could take from home.

And then somehow stink decided to go backwards…

The arguments against remote work keep changing because the old ones don’t hold up. It was productivity. Then collaboration. Then culture. The reality is that talented people don’t need an adult babysitter watching over their shoulder to do their jobs. They need trust.

The companies that understand this will attract the best talent. The ones that don’t will keep losing the best people while wondering why engagement is falling and culture is nonexistent.

The office was never the magic. The people who deliver were. Give them what they want and let them choose where they work and deliver, then watch the productivity, culture and morale 180 from where it is right now.

I know people don't want to hear that but it's true. Hear it out.

BAIN is running the company now. That's why there is such a stark deviation from the way Dell has always operated in the past. Bain & Company is one of the top global Management Business Consulting firms - emphasis on the term "Business Management" since Dell has exercised very little of that discipline up until now.

Rest assured BAIN is going over the portfolio with a fine-toothed comb. They are looking at delayed and failed projects. They are looking at the number of employees per project. They are looking at burn rates. They are looking at abysmal productivity ratios. They are looking at fixed, variable, and sunk costs associated with underwater ROI for numerous projects that have failed year in and year out.

The truth is Dell operated with little to zero accountability in the past. Now there is accountability and people are surprised?? It should be the other way around. We should all be surprised it took MD this long to clean up the fat, the bloat, the waste, the inneficiencies, the lack of execution, the lack of accountability. And whether you want to believe it or not, he's cleaning it up to get the company ready for sale before he retires.

Granted, Wall Street loves these types of moves because layoffs in particular artificially prop up EPS on the income statement. Investors love that. However, when there's no one else to lay off, and productivity is still floating around 3%, Dell is dead in the water. That's a fact! That's why MD is trying to sell pieces/parts before it caves in on itself. Dell has run its course.

BAIN Is calling the shots now people. Get used to it. The more layoffs we have, the more you can assume long overdue waste and bloat are being discovered in the numbers.

Direct charge causes a 50% loss of productivity for anyone what works more than one project. This is an early sign of cash flow issues

But then they ask the next question, which you dread, So who are you working for? And you say Cengage. The not so polite people say what? Wait, how do you spell that? And then I found my trick is I say it's like a C and then the word engage. And then the lethal third question comes, So what do you do at Cengage? And then typically, I don't know about you, but for me, I was always struggling a little bit.

So what I want to do today with a very specific purpose is give us collective understanding of not only what we do, but why Cengage is an awesome company and why we deserve to win in the battle for the hearts and the minds of our customers.

We have an engagement survey and I can only implore you fill it out. I really do not care what you say.

Meaning it doesn't have to be like, Oh yeah, everything is great and like, but engage with it and like, say what's wrong, say what's right and engage your help with each other and help each other also not only in the survey, but also in the day-to-day, like interact with the product group, interact with the marketing group and make sure that we have a highest level of engagement because that really is a prerequisite for our productivity and our success.

What a waste of time. These guys are useless je-koffs.

When I was working from home during covid, I was amazed at how much work I got done. I was proud of how much I accomplished daily. It was a pleasure working every day. Now that I'm back in the office, the commute, the noise, distractions, bothered by boring id--ts has completely demotivated me. I only come in to do the minimum. They really miscalculated the whole opportunity.

There appear to be significant redundancies within G-8 Tech positions, particularly across product owner, GCL, and architect roles, signaling imminent consolidation in this area. Concurrently, there is a renewed focus on tech team productivity, placing large AI teams under intense scrutiny. The prevailing sentiment suggests that data scientists are primarily producing low-value papers with virtually no impact on actual business deliverables.

Why can't RV and KP just do it once a year. The uncertainty makes people unproductive and aggressive. The environment in PA is hostile

Treating people well isn't complicated. When you respect employees, they stay and contribute. Mistreat people and it brings everyone and everything down, including productivity. Why can't leadership figure this out?

Morale is in the gutter due to cuts and leadership couldn't care less. They don't seem to realize that stressed employees aren't productive employees. Or they don't care.

The Verizon Home app needs a full redesign rather than incremental fixes — it isn’t performing well as-is. Features like parental controls are overly complex; simplifying these and prioritizing customer-friendly usability should be a core focus of the rebuild.

We have managers who have no idea what they're doing yet they insist on micromanaging every step of our work. You can just imagine how well that works out. To say it's counterproductive would be an understatement. Lay off all the useless managers and see productivity skyrocket.

Tokenmaxxing is the Silicon Valley trend of maximizing AI token consumption as a proxy for productivity.

Management thinks they're being smart by continuing to replace older workers with younger, cheaper ones. But they're overlooking that young people have boundaries when it comes to work. They won't work nights and weekends or answer your emails 24/7. Productivity is going to take a hit, and I'm here for it.

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the body overseeing the implementation of United States monetary policy, has announced the creation of five task forces intended to evaluate and improve the Fed's operations. In a press release, Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh named the "external advisers" who will lead each task force, ranging from economics professors to AI investors and corporate executives—executives like Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, who will preside over a task force on employment and productivity.

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/us-federal-reserve-taps-xbox-ceo-asha-sharma-who-just-laid-off-3-200-employees-to-lead-task-force-on-jobs/

We are extremely frustrated with the delays and inefficiencies in processes involving Fiserv. Urgent issues require escalation, yet the communication channels themselves are creating obstacles. We are repeatedly asked to send emails, wait for responses, and then continue follow-ups, often with little progress.

As a result, critical deadlines are being missed, project momentum is being lost, and teams are spending more time managing communication challenges than delivering outcomes. The situation is impacting productivity, focus, and overall team morale. A more responsive and effective engagement model is urgently needed.

• FU*SERV

It's a new week, layoffs are behind us (at least for now), but the atmosphere still feels heavy. I have a feeling productivity is down as well. I certainly still can't concentrate fully on work. You can only push people so much before it starts influencing their performance.

As this is all going on, and with the stress, anxiety and uncertainty of will we have a job come a month or 2, my people leader is production! production! production! How are we to stay focused with these chats and emails going out about metrics and audits when inside all of us are stressed and nervous? Beyond frustrating!

Fiserv has an opportunity to modernize how it thinks about work, productivity, and employee accountability.

The return-to-office model is being sold as “collaboration,” but for many employees, the actual workday does not support that claim. A large amount of the work still happens through Teams calls, emails, shared documents, workflow systems, and digital handoffs with colleagues, subject matter experts, developers, reviewers, and leaders who are spread across different states and locations.

That is not true in-person collaboration. That is remote work being performed from an office cubicle.

The issue is not whether employees should be accountable. They absolutely should be. The issue is whether physical presence is being mistaken for productivity.

Fiserv is a technology and financial services company. If the company wants to lead in innovation, artificial intelligence, automation, client service, and operational excellence, then it should manage employees by measurable outcomes, not outdated assumptions about “butts in seats.”

A better model would be simple:

Set clear productivity benchmarks.Set clear quality expectations.Set clear deadlines.Track cycle time, accuracy, responsiveness, client impact, rework, missed handoffs, stakeholder satisfaction, and risk reduction.Hold underperformers accountable.Reward employees who produce excellent work.Require office presence only when there is a legitimate business reason for people to be physically together.

That is a more mature operating model than blanket attendance rules.

Many employees were more willing to give extra time and discretionary effort when working from home because commuting was not draining hours and energy out of the day. When people are forced to commute to an office just to sit on virtual meetings with people in other locations, they become more protective of their time. That is not a lack of commitment. That is a rational response to an inefficient work design.

The company should ask itself a direct question:

What business outcome improves when an employee drives to an office, sits at a desk, and collaborates with remote colleagues through the same digital tools they would have used from home?

If there is a real answer, define it. Measure it. Apply it only where it makes sense.

But if the answer is vague language about culture, collaboration, or visibility, then the policy is not really about productivity. It is about control, optics, and habit.

Fiserv should not confuse visibility with value.

The future of work should not be built around where a person is sitting. It should be built around what they produce, how well they produce it, how reliably they deliver, and how much value they create for clients, teams, and shareholders.

The new CEO has a chance to reset this conversation. Not by eliminating accountability, but by making accountability smarter.

Measure the work.Measure the quality.Measure the outcomes.Measure the impact.

Then let high-performing employees do their jobs in the environment where they produce the best results, within legal, ethical, client, security, and compliance requirements.

That would be a real innovation culture.

I am so beyond fed up with all the pins and different threads or channels whatever they’re called on teams. We have a chat for a weekly call but now we have to use a completely different thread to put everything so now we have two probably even three different threads with basically the same group on the same topic.. they’re telling us you can use the chat during the call but use the channel for everything else so all our details are consolidated in one place… how does this make sense?!? I’m so tired of having 50 different places to look for what I need and having my pin go off every 15 seconds throughout the day.. it’s beyond distracting and unproductive at this point.

And I don’t even see the notifications, despite the fact that I followed all the instructions to request that I’m notified about these channels. SO FED UP WITH THIS STUPIDITY. Obnoxious!

More than half of my team is not meeting productivity due to lack of work. We’re all getting verbal coaching done. Our PL just said in order to not be laid off we need to meet but it’s impossible. All of this is just crazy to me.