Most non-technical professional firms I've worked in evaluate performance solely on results. We book our own flights, we schedule our own meetings with clients, etc. In other words, the company expects us to be grown-ups and one either meets those expectations or ceases to be employed.
I've also worked for companies that are obsessed with hours. The worst was a software firm that was focused on an increasingly complex set of "flexi-time" rules designed, on the surface, to allow flexible work hours while maintaining some common work time and also enforcing "fairness".
In reality, I found that it was really just a way for managers to avoid having to deal with cracking down on lazy workers. Without the byzantine set of flexi-time rules they would have had to confront dead-wood employees and can them. The software firm was unsurprisingly filled with engineers with poor people skills that had become managers and were uncomfortable doing this.
Hire carefully, have high expectations, make them clear, be goal and result oriented, check in often and communicate well, and fire people that don't get their work done.
100% agree with comment above. I've never, ever seen a functional, professional services company where working from home was the norm or even a good idea. It's just that, as an adult, it's sometimes the most useful, necessary, and responsible choice.
Increasingly common among large ISV sales teams. Not my niche, but I know plenty of (almost exclusively) guys that used to hit the office every day but now work almost exclusively from home.
Most non-technical professional firms I've worked in evaluate performance solely on results. We book our own flights, we schedule our own meetings with clients, etc. In other words, the company expects us to be grown-ups and one either meets those expectations or ceases to be employed.
I've also worked for companies that are obsessed with hours. The worst was a software firm that was focused on an increasingly complex set of "flexi-time" rules designed, on the surface, to allow flexible work hours while maintaining some common work time and also enforcing "fairness".
In reality, I found that it was really just a way for managers to avoid having to deal with cracking down on lazy workers. Without the byzantine set of flexi-time rules they would have had to confront dead-wood employees and can them. The software firm was unsurprisingly filled with engineers with poor people skills that had become managers and were uncomfortable doing this.
Hire carefully, have high expectations, make them clear, be goal and result oriented, check in often and communicate well, and fire people that don't get their work done.
100% agree with comment above. I've never, ever seen a functional, professional services company where working from home was the norm or even a good idea. It's just that, as an adult, it's sometimes the most useful, necessary, and responsible choice.