"You were required to report it even if you go to the toilet." IT specialists talk about control by employers

We asked IT specialists how much they are controlled by employers or managers. In their responses, they mentioned the use of time trackers, reports, frequent calls, micromanagement, and requirements to be in touch 24/7. many experts noted the lack of control at all or the usual rallies to track the status of tasks.

Read more about the experience of IT specialists in the article.

Most often, IT specialists noticed the use of time trackers to monitor their work.

"In the new place, they control the working day for Time Doctor. This is a terrible tracker that takes screenshots of the screen, constantly reminds you of yourself both when turned on and off. I don't believe you can be productive for eight hours a day, you need to ventilate your head to focus and do your job well. But in this case, breaks of 10-15 minutes can eat an hour of working time, and even lunch. As a result, the working day will not be 8, but 9-10 hours (Junior PPC Specialist).

"Now I worked in two companies on remout. The first one had a time tracker, constant monitoring with questions about what I was doing, what I did, and daily reporting. If you left for more than 10 minutes, then there were questions. And this led to the fact that I spent a third of the time thinking about whether I didn't seem to work much.

In the current company, there is no time control, everything is designed to ensure that I work to the best of my abilities. At first, I was surprised at what it was like to go to lunch and not check in two chats and in a time tracker... And now I see people disappearing from the internet for half an hour from time to time, and it doesn't bother anyone. Therefore, it is better to think about tasks and work in your mode than to create the appearance of employment by deceiving yourself and the company" (QA Engineer).

"Tracking, spying on computers, recording screens and typing keyboards" (PHP Dev).

"The system administrator installed software on laptops to view actions at the workplace, sometimes screenshots were taken, it was noticeable. You also had to turn on your own internet on your phone to correspond with someone, because traffic was also viewed. Menger from security, a former employee of the SBU, constantly eavesdropped on everyone and called them to a meeting in the office if someone communicated with former colleagues who left the company and were on bad terms with the management" (commissioning engineer).

"Time tracker, checking chats with clients" (UI/UX designer).

"I work with a time tracker. First, the manager always checks that the recorded time corresponds to the work: he reviews the reports left there, when not much is recorded there, but it takes several hours in time, and questions always arise: "why is it not scheduled?». Second, everything should be filled in at the end of each day. That is, if you worked on Wednesday and didn't notice the time right away, then on Thursday morning wait for the message: "Why didn't you do it? Didn't you work yesterday?» (QA Engineer).

"Only a tracker, which then no one checks even" (Middle Node.js/React Native Developer).

"In the previous place, I had a tracker that showed the monitor and keyboard activity. In a new place, I make a daily report on completed tasks. In general, full trust. This approach saves time and productivity much better than tracking your work" (Middle AQA).

"For the last two months, I've been feeling very much in control and micromanaging. Every day, the manager in Teams pulls me two or three times with questions: "will you look at that ticket? Will you solve this issue of a colleague? Will you prioritize this?(When I wrote this line, the manager called after the working day was already over). For statistics: I have the most closed tasks among the team.

Probably, because of 50-60 calls, the manager realized that I simply cannot physically process 10 tickets a day at the rate of 30 per month. On average, the manager sent me about a dozen tickets every day.

There was one business day when I didn't have the Microsoft Dynamics for Outlook plugin working, I asked our security to reinstall (because I don't have rights on my laptop myself), and the process took two and a half hours. I was forced to stay after the end of the working day and finish a little more. Change management, damn it... I am already actively considering offers coming to LinkedIn, yesterday I sent a resume to a recruiter for the first time in more than two and a half years of working for the Company" (Senior Application Engineer).

"I used to work at Galley. They literally stood over me every day and watched everything I did. Even if I had to move away from the computer, I had to report it. I'm sorry to be so frank, but even about going to the bathroom. The current company has a radically different approach. First, they explain the work that needs to be done and set estimates. Execution is not monitored, and only once every few days they can ask if there are any problems/questions. You can say that there is no control and the work is trusted, knowing that I will complete it on time" (Middle Java Developer).

"99% control, hypercontrol in small things. Too picky Management, which breaks all interaction and priorities of the team" (QA Manager).

"Every day at the end of the day I write a report in any form regarding the work done. Control is not" total", but you need to always be online and quickly respond to messages or urgent tasks " (Junior QA).

"I don't have trackers or hourly reports, but I have a lot of reporting rallies within the team. Three or more hours a week" (Market Research Analyst).

Most IT professionals noted that employers and managers do not control them excessively and trust the team. Most specialists gather for daily rallies to clarify the status of completing tasks, or contact them when errors appear.

"There is no control, there is trust and cooperation both on the part of the principal leads in unity and on projects" (Lead Manual QA).

"The employer does not control at all. He probably doesn't even know who does what" (Senior Manual QA).

"Almost no control. The main thing is to attend rallies and close tasks on time" (Junior Python Developer).

"Of course, there is control, but it does not put pressure, it is mainly implemented through daily statuses, and periodically there may be additional clarifications regarding my progress in working on certain tasks" (Senior Software Developer).

"It doesn't control directly, it uses a Kanban board and daily, but it's minimal control" (Middle QA).

"In addition to daily standup meetings, control boils down to the message' how is it going?"several times a week" (Senior Java Dev).

"Every day we have a scrum call, where we report on the previous day and say what we will do today. We have absolute freedom of action during the day and plan it as we need" (Middle Front-end Developer).

"The client monitors the board with tasks, never delves into the execution itself, if there are no bugs, and they are almost never there. I write to him what I will do every day, in private messages, and he adjusts it if necessary. That's because there are no Daleks. The manager asks me once a month how things are going, and once a week I write a fairly detailed job status (Middle QA Manual).

"They give us a header if they dropped something and it went into the release (especially unpleasant if they missed the functional testers, but they give us a header)" (Middle performance analyst).

"Not enough, only daily calls with statuses" (Senior Front-end Developer).

"There are stand-ups and all that. But in reality, while the work is being done, no one controls anything. We are all adults, we want to make the product work, we are all professionals who will not do garbage and ask for the opinion of colleagues when there is a suspicion that something is moving a little wrong. A good manager is invisible" (not only Java SW Engineer).

"Once a week, everyone calls about their progress and plans for the next week. In general, there is no control other than setting tasks and deadlines. This is usually a priority definition-it either exists or does not exist. If you have priority, try to finish as quickly as possible. If not, you work as comfortably as possible to complete the task in the end. The fact that there is no special control motivates you to perform priority tasks in the shortest possible time at your own request. That is, a person motivates himself to work more when necessary, and does not need a manager who stands above the soul" (Senior Ruby on Rails Developer).

"Daily Daily-rallies and a brief summary of weekly work in the form of entering key cases/tasks/rallies/incidents with approximate time costs" (Senior PHP Developer).

"We work in an office where you can already see who is doing what. Once a week, there is a QA rally with the participation of the service station and Prg lead, where we tell you in more detail what was done during the week. There is also a Jira, the stream from it is displayed on the TV in the kitchen, so you can see the activity of the team. That's all control :) " (QAE).

And you are controlled by managers, and tell us what tools they use for this purpose in the comments.