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by mk89 1125 days ago
Until this spreads and it backfires.

We had an example at our office several years ago where employee X was a great worker, nothing to say about that, that was having his own "working" rhythm (e.g., until late at night, mornings off, etc.), and was coming to the office only from time to time, just because the manager was really pushing hard, or for certain office events.

This spread and people started to ask - can I work from home? -> only 1 day Why? X does more than 1 day, and sometimes X is not available when I need.

... as a manager you can only "yes, but ..." that much. At a certain point people (who I would like to remind everyone again and again: most of the time are people with a high college degree, used to read books, papers, and do things, not 3 years old kids) connect the dots and say "alright, it's time to go". And before they go, they let the entire apple tree rot to hell. If that doesn't happen it might be because this spreads and goes to high management that asks the manager "WTF are you doing?"

That's when either more rights come in equally for everyone, or ... they need to let go of their best employee, or they need to find a compromise. Just having the nicely protected "best" employee is never a good strategy. Eventually people get pissed off and leave, and if they don't, congrats, you have just made the "non-best" employees even less motivated and less productive.