Google and JPMorgan have each told staff that office attendance will be factored into performance evaluations. The US law firm Davis Polk informed employees that fewer days in the office would result in lower bonuses. And Meta and Amazon both told employees they’re now monitoring badge swipes, with potential consequences for workers who don’t comply with attendance policies – including job loss. Increasingly, workers across many jobs and sectors appear to be barrelling towards the same fate.
In some ways, it’s unsurprising bosses are turning back to attendance as a standard. After all, we’ve long been conditioned to believe showing up is vital to success, from some of our earliest days. In school, perfect attendance is often still seen a badge of honour. The obsession with attendance has also been a mainstay of workplace culture for decades; pre-pandemic, remote work was largely unheard of, and employees were expected to be physically present at their desks throughout the workday.
Yet after the success of flexible arrangements during the pandemic, attendance is still entrenched as a core metric. What’s the point?
Middle management needs something to do to justify their useless existence.
Idk what podcast or whatever uses “middle management” as a scapegoat, but this is the dumbest fucking meme.
Like CEOs and middle management are the problem but SVPs and department heads are totally cool? How does that make sense? Whoever initiated this just had one shitty boss and 0 professional corporate experience.
I absolutely guarantee you that middle management is not making “return to office” decisions.