Employees vs Freedom

dsm56

dsm56

breasts
Oct 10, 2006
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I've had employees now and an office for 6 months, and sometimes I'm in quite a conflict with myself as to how I should handle the situation.

I feel like I've lost a bit of freedom since I've employed them.

I think most of us here get used to having certain freedoms, at least I know I did, I worked whenever I wanted, wherever I wanted, and did whatever I wanted during the days and just got my work done.

Now I have people in my office 8 hours a day, and I'm a bit unsure as to what is the best example to set for them. Does it matter if I'm in the office when they are too? On the one hand I am paying them to be there and work, on the other hand if they don't see the boss making any effort (at least that's what they see), their motivation might drop.

It is also interesting that to maintain my revenue I only need to work around 1-2 hours a day, anything above that is potential development. But since I love freedom, what if for 1 month I only want to work 4 hours a week, then for the next month 80 hours a week?

I'd like to here your thoughts as I think many people are in similar situations.
 


If they're real professionals you should be fine. If they're just doing grunt type stuff you might run into some problems.
 
I'm talking about high quality programmers and designers. They are doing quality work and I pay the extremely well for it.
 
dsm56 said:
I'm talking about high quality programmers and designers. They are doing quality work and I pay the extremely well for it.
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Then your job is easy. Just recruit a manager guy to manage the employees and implement an organizational employee structure. You just ask them to send you all the reports daily and make sure things are going fine. Go to office whenever you think you can go and be friendly with all employees too.
 
And if they can work at home, let them. Keep the office as a home base but not as a requirement.

If they are good, paid what they are worth, and given specific performance goals they should be fine.
 
Well, if they're smart enough to be worth good money they're smart enough to know they're still replaceable. Work on your own schedule as long as communication around the office is still open and projects are managed properly.
 
dsm56 said:
I've had employees now and an office for 6 months, and sometimes I'm in quite a conflict with myself as to how I should handle the situation.

I feel like I've lost a bit of freedom since I've employed them.

I think most of us here get used to having certain freedoms, at least I know I did, I worked whenever I wanted, wherever I wanted, and did whatever I wanted during the days and just got my work done.

Now I have people in my office 8 hours a day, and I'm a bit unsure as to what is the best example to set for them. Does it matter if I'm in the office when they are too? On the one hand I am paying them to be there and work, on the other hand if they don't see the boss making any effort (at least that's what they see), their motivation might drop.

It is also interesting that to maintain my revenue I only need to work around 1-2 hours a day, anything above that is potential development. But since I love freedom, what if for 1 month I only want to work 4 hours a week, then for the next month 80 hours a week?

I'd like to here your thoughts as I think many people are in similar situations.
Click to expand...

I have faced the same situation after hiring 2 professionals (a web/mobile developer and a UI/UX designer). They are great in their job and help me in my business, but I feel they look at me for every issue, I feel between like an older brother and a prof.
I want to be friendly but keeping the distance.
I think to hire a full time personal assistant to handle the professional relation between us.
 
+1 for allowing them to work at home, even if its one day a week. As long as they get their work done, I've always been flexible with employees so everybody wins.
 
Hiring and employing people is always tricky I've been doing it for years. One of the reasons I'm developing online with a view to down sizing. But my take is be straight & fair and most will play ball. And yes most employees in my opinion you end up 'mothering'
 
You always have to "mother" people. It's called management. I'm looking for a full time position right now doing that.

Graphic designers, web developers, online marketing guys, traditional marketing guys, programmers, IT guys and clients almost always have a terrible time communicating with each other. That's why the real money is in learning enough of everything to focus solely on integration. Somebody has to keep these guys on track.
 
TeeBird said:
And if they can work at home, let them. Keep the office as a home base but not as a requirement.
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Couldn't disagree more. You'll have a fraction of the productivity with no accountability if you have your employees working from home. There have been a ton of threads on the topic, but you're simply not as productive working from home. When you add in the line of work they're in (programmers and designers) then they're even less productive because their productivity is dependent upon communication with each other.

It may seem like a good idea, but there is a reason major companies aren't build around a network of people staying at home.
 
Websicosys Team said:
Couldn't disagree more. You'll have a fraction of the productivity with no accountability if you have your employees working from home. There have been a ton of threads on the topic, but you're simply not as productive working from home. When you add in the line of work they're in (programmers and designers) then they're even less productive because their productivity is dependent upon communication with each other.

It may seem like a good idea, but there is a reason major companies aren't build around a network of people staying at home.
Click to expand...

:thumbsup:
I couldn't agree more, for designers and programmers sharing the same projects.
My employees are tools when they work together.
 
its all sounds nice and gravy, but what ends up happening is when the cat is away, the mice will play.

I know in all my former jobs when the boss was out or not around there was a tendency in the whole office to slack off a tad bit. When you start letting employees work from home then it gets 10x worse.

Been there, done that. If you hire a manager make sure they have a stake in keeping productivity levels up or else they will slack off too.
 
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