Work Hours, Effort Reporting and Reimbursements

RZ and I have been trying to sort out the staff payments with our usual systems not working. We have been pushing to get staff self-reporting their weekly work along with output.

We considered 
- self reported hours worked
- productivity / outputs 

These estimates are being made with a lot of effort by RZ as folks did not report, or were late in reporting, and in couple of cases the hours don’t match with the output. She has been trying to be fair by the staff and the organization. Being fair to the organization is needed for sustainability which ultimately is good for staff even if they leave.

Although there was a conversation with a few of you regards the fact that many organizations are cutting back on payments due to the loss in productivity, reductions in travel and other costs, multi-tasking by the staff in some cases, and we shall reimburse as per usual.  After June, we shall reconsider based on the situation.

Since reporting is being done on an hourly basis - calculations are on the  work week - for the mercantile sector is 45 hours a week - we used to give a half day off during the weekend but that was not a permanent leave as seen in our staff handbook. 

In terms of productivity

There has been problems in terms of people not being able to concentrate on their work
- because of distractions in the home set up 
- shortfalls with the home computers
- due to  wifi limits we are not doing well enough with collaboration software 
- the need to take care of the personal situation and those of others around them.
- the lack of files and other materials in the office
- lack of IT skills and tools to function efficiently at home
- the difficulties to coordinate among different staff member s
- lack of concentration due to multi-tasking with other activities by staff members

My sense is that productivity has dropped by 20-70% compared to when folks come to work in the offices. But its picking up over the weeks. It shall be good to know what you think.

As I wrote the other day, while the effort reporting is now improving,
half the staff members are not reporting when they start and stop work
So we are having difficulties with coordination.

We have to think about the coordination. Its been difficult to get the use of Slack or that folks can login to an Org suite when working.