“Good. I think a lot of people are taking advantage of “working from home”.
It’s not or should not be about hours worked but production. There is a phrase relating to employees saying, “eighty percent of the work is produced by twenty percent of the workforce”.
As the past owner of a smaller business and as part of senior management in a mid to large business I found this to be the case.
I think it is often more dramatic than that - especially in software. Gifted employees can accomplish in a hour what it would take normal employees two weeks or more to do. And yes, sometimes these creators are free spirits who will work hard for that hour, do nothing much the rest of the day, then come back tomorrow and put in another spectacularly productive hour. In a week, these individuals can accomplish what regular employees could not do in six months - yet they are more likely to get fired by the "face time" bosses while the slugs remain safely ensconced in their cubicles.
The ability to conform to a work style is often deemed more important than talent.
On the other hand, this CEO is absolutely right - far too many people make a career out of handling a few minor tasks in as little time as they can get away with. Anybody who has spent time in a big corporation knows how much deadwood is being carried along by the tides, year after year - and even more so now in the era of mandatory diversity.