Reader Responses April 13, 2015

SURVEY SAYS: When the Boss Is Away

Depending on what type of boss you have, you may be more or less productive when he or she is out of the office. Or perhaps it doesn’t matter.
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Last week, I asked NewsDash readers, how does your boss being away affect your work? If you are a boss to some employees, how do you perceive their work productivity when you are out?

Thirty-five percent of responding readers are “the boss” for a group of employees in their company, while 65% are not.

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Forty-two percent of respondents said when their boss is out of the office, their productivity is not affected. More than one-third (33.8%) indicated they get more work done, 21.6% said it could go either way and 2.7% reported they get less work done.

Among the bosses responding, half reported that employee productivity is not affected when they are out, and nearly three in ten (28.6%) said it could go either way. Nearly 18% think their employees get less work done when they are out, and 3.6% said more work gets done.

Most respondents who chose to leave comments explained that they have more meetings and requests when the boss is in, so they get more done when the boss is away, and quite a few said they work just as hard either way. One respondent offered this logic for the survey results: “Falls into two camps – those who believe they have a ‘job’ and those who have a ‘career’. People with a ‘job’ take advantage; people with a ‘career ‘are not impacted.” Editor’s Choice goes to the reader who said: “I wish my work disappeared as often as my boss!”

Thanks to everyone who responded to our survey!

Verbatim

We work just as hard.

My team, myself included all work remotely and so productivity is not affected. My manager is in London while I am in Seattle, and for my team it is a similar arrangement. Unfortunately I have not had a holiday where i have not been online at least some time every day, so monitoring productivity is not difficult.

When the boss is away, I have less meetings to attend and the department seems quieter. I am able to spend more time in my office getting work done.

I get more done because I have fewer interruptions and last minute demands from my boss.

My boss likes lots of meetings so I never have time to get work done when she is here. Also, most of the meetings generate a lot of new work.

I'm much more relaxed when he's out of the building.

There are times when my boss sends many requests either in meetings or analysis that require reprioritizing my day(s). If she is gone, I may have time to work on projects on hold, but timing may be such that I have no capacity to recapture the time in her absence.

Less is more! Less interruptions, less "other duties as assigned."

The only noticeable change is that the stress level goes down, as does my blood pressure...

When my boss is away, there are typically fewer meetings and I have long stretches of the day to either power through a whole list of small items, or really focus on big project work without interruptions. I think bosses should stay away more!

Verbatim (cont.)

We only have 7 employees. When the boss is gone, the office is so much quieter (no client appointments, etc) and we can focus on one this at a time! Imagine that - one thing! 🙂

Most of the employees in my office work for a different manager than I do. When their manager is away she reminds them that she is watching them on the security cameras via the internet.

We call those days "in-house vacation days!"

I always want to surprise and encourage him with how much I accomplished while he was out.

Falls into two camps - those who believe they have a "job" and those who have a "career". People with a "job" take advantage; people with a "career" are not impacted

I get more done without the boss because I'm not interrupted all the time.

The woman to whom I report is very "hands off" in her approach. The allowance for a great deal of independence is one reason I like my job so much.

I checked "It can go either way", not because of the effect of my boss' absence relating to my job. Instead the problem is her boss because he doesn't have her taking care of his business. Suddenly everything is a crisis for us and our fault if he might look bad. We know she needs a vacation but we sure are glad to welcome her back!

My boss is not a "hoverer", so productivity does not depend on him.

Interruptions are fewer when the boss is away.

Verbatim (cont.)

The only thing that changes is that I am more likely to work from home which is hugely motivating to me as I save time/energy/money.

Most of the time, I get more work done when she's not here. However, sometimes she asks me to do a bunch of things for her or she sends me a lot of emails which keep me from doing my work.

When the boss is away, others feel free to contribute ideas and much more is accomplished. I get double the work done when my boss is away and there's no political emails to respond to.

My boss is in another state and she travels to all the other plants - almost continuously. I think she's been to my plant once in the year and a half that she's been my boss.

I prefer when my boss is not here - seems less stressful.

When the boss is gone, I can get more of what I planned done because of less interruptions by the boss. However, since I'm the go-to person when the boss is gone, some of those days have more interruptions!

It depends on how much of his work I have to cover!

My manager wastes a lot of my time asking for things that she then puts aside until she forgets about them. When she's out, I can focus on things that really need to be done.

When my boss is out we can relax and just do our job and not worry about all the Lean Six Sigma crap that just takes us away from our clients.

Feel much more relaxed when he is away and still get the work done. I go home in a much better mood.

Verbatim (cont.)

I try to work from home when my boss is out and put in face time when she is in. Sometimes she will ask me to come into her office via instant message when I'm telecommuting. We're a mobile environment and I work across geographies, but I do not share a client with my boss.

My boss isn't even located in the same building as me. In fact, she's located across the state. So her being in or not doesn't affect me in any way. I pretty much operate on my own all the time.

Often there are fewer meetings so I get more done. A day with no meetings is glorious.

Atmosphere a little less intense, but we work hard whether boss is in or not.

I'm a professional, but I like to relax too - I admit - I may write a letter to a friend or an extended coffee break

My boss is on the floor above me, but we can go days, even weeks without seeing each other. I'm type (triple) A so if my boss is out of the office it has no effect at all on my productivity. In fact, she generates less than 1% of my workload.

I wish my work disappeared as often as my boss!

The meetings "for meeting's sake" disappear, useless reporting tasks plummet and there's a return to sanity from the "I need it yesterday" priority that pervades every deadline he sets.

I FIND THAT WHEN I AM OUT, PEOPLE DO NOT PRODUCE AS NEEDED AND TEND TO LEAVE EARLY

NOTE: Responses reflect the opinions of individual readers and not necessarily the stance of Asset International or its affiliates.
Deals and People April 10, 2015

Initiative Seeks to Help Participants Investigate Retirement Plans

A former SEC attorney says retirement plan participant lawsuits don’t benefit anyone, and he has launched a new initiative designed to hold plan sponsors accountable for their actions.
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At the beginning of my conversation with Edward “Ted” Siedle, founder and president of Benchmark Financial Services, and a former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) attorney, based in Ocean Ridge, Florida, he was ruminating about an article in the New York Times concerning fees of New York City pension funds.

According to that article, an analysis by City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer “concluded that, over the past 10 years, the five pension funds have paid more than $2 billion in fees to money managers and have received virtually nothing in return.” Stringer said the pension funds have traditionally reported the performance of many of their investments without taking the fees paid to money managers into account. After factoring in those fees, his staff found the fees have dragged net returns $2.5 billion below expectations over the last 10 years, the newspaper said. Stringer noted in his report that the reason why the trustees of the funds would not have performed those calculations in the past is not clear.

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“Not clear?” Siedle says. “How can this board after 10 years not know massive fees have cast doubt on employees’ ability to retire and called into question the city’s entire investment program over decades? Taxpayers and plan participants may want to know.”

It is just this type of scenario that Siedle has been dedicated to combating with his forensic investigations of retirement plans over the years—he has performed more than $1 trillion in forensic investigations during his career. He tells PLANSPONSOR he uncovered hidden fees in the pension programs in the state of North Carolina and the state of Rhode Island pension systems. If you’re a public pension plan sponsor, you should look over your shoulder for Siedle.

But, it’s not just public pensions he’s investigated. Corporate pension, 401(k), 457 and 403(b) plan sponsors take heed: Siedle wants you held accountable too.

“All plan sponsors have a fiduciary duty to monitor fees,” Siedle says. “These investigations need to be done today more than ever due to the explosion of fee opacity in past years. There’s more to investigate now than ever in the history of our country.”

Groups, unions, cities, counties and state attorneys general hire Siedle to do investigations all the time, but plan participants couldn’t afford to do them, so Siedle set out to remedy that. “For every investigation I’ve done for a group or moneyed client, I’ve gotten calls from individual participants also having concerns about their retirement plans and I’ve had to say there’s nothing I can do for them unless they can come up with the money for an investigation. I’ve taken great note of recent crowdfunding efforts, and the confluence of those two gave me the idea for my initiative."

Siedle’s initiative is the Investigate My Retirement Plan website. The website says, “Let’s build a new retirement plan paradigm—where workers and stakeholders have a voice.”

According to Siedle, if his idea catches on, it will be the first time that participants can get an expert, independent second opinion about their retirement plan. If a participant thinks her fund is a proper candidate for an investigation, she can call Siedle, and if he agrees he can do a high-impact investigation on a budget that is acceptable, he’ll start a campaign on Kickstarter to raise the necessary funds. If Siedle decides he won’t be able to get enough information or the investigation will cost way more than what can logically be raised, he won’t start a campaign.

The first-ever effort to crowdfund an investigation of a state pension—Rhode Island's—has begun. Siedle feels the price of an investigation should be in the neighborhood of $25 per participant, but on Kickstarter they can contribute anywhere from $1 to $1,000. “Our thought is, what would you as an employee of [x or y employer] be able to afford—probably the cost of a dinner,” he says. If the money cannot be raised in the specified time period on Kickstarter, the investigation will not happen.

According to the Investigate My Retirement Plan website, “Greater transparency, lower cost and better performance is our goal.” Siedle notes that the alternative for participants who want to call out plan sponsors is lawsuits—something plan sponsors want to avoid for obvious reasons. He contends participants who discover a fiduciary breach too late never get their money back.

Lawsuits also may not result in improved processes or continued plan sponsor accountability. Reports of Siedle’s investigations will be given to plan sponsors, posted on the Investigate My Retirement Plan website, and given to media and the participants in the plan. He says the reports are intended for public distribution and written in professional, expert, defensible language. “We’re not casting grenades; we’re just saying, this is what we found.”

Siedle wants his effort to lead to annual checkups or regularly scheduled second opinions for retirement plans that are independent from the plan sponsor. “[Plan sponsors] should realize that two years from now, we’ll be back to look at changes they’ve implemented,” he says. “If this works, it should result in plan sponsors not only being concerned that what they’re doing can be investigated by the public, but that they will continue to be monitored by the public.”

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