I have moved from "solutions architect" to "WFH consultant" at the behest of my clients.
The problem I am seeing is that many managers have NO idea how their employees actually work. If you take your average MacDonalds manager they can (mostly) work every station in the joint and then know how to do MORE things. Your average corporate middle manager has NO idea what their staff does or how.
To be quite honest, most of these middle managers are not only at a loss as to what they should be doing but are also dealing with the isolation far worse than "staff". I have come to realize that a lot of their time was spent on social aspects of the workplace and they have been removed.
I have one client who wants to snapshot staff at their computers, and another who is ready to cut middle management fat... we live in interesting times.
> To be quite honest, most of these middle managers are not only at a loss as to what they should be doing but are also dealing with the isolation far worse than "staff". I have come to realize that a lot of their time was spent on social aspects of the workplace and they have been removed.
I know exactly the affect you are describing but it just seems so backwards to me because this is the point at which the social aspects of work become more important. Coworkers aren't going to be informally communicating the way they used to so managers have way more "social" work to do.
The problem I am seeing is that many managers have NO idea how their employees actually work. If you take your average MacDonalds manager they can (mostly) work every station in the joint and then know how to do MORE things. Your average corporate middle manager has NO idea what their staff does or how.
To be quite honest, most of these middle managers are not only at a loss as to what they should be doing but are also dealing with the isolation far worse than "staff". I have come to realize that a lot of their time was spent on social aspects of the workplace and they have been removed.
I have one client who wants to snapshot staff at their computers, and another who is ready to cut middle management fat... we live in interesting times.