Presenteeism: The Hidden Pandemic?
Posted on Sunday, August 30, 2020 at 9:27 PM
In the news: Apps such as Slack and Zoom have become staples in the
Covid era, but are they allowing managers to exploit and surveil their
telecommuting teams?
The culture of “presenteeism” is
creating new headaches for editors and other publishing professionals.
Writes Lucinda Southern of Digiday.com: “The pandemic workday is 48
minutes longer, we have more meetings and we send more emails, according
to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research.” Employees
working from home feel pressured to be endlessly available to show up
for Zoom meetings and “happy hours,” answer work emails, and field phone
calls.
It’s creating a toxic work culture in some cases.
“Management has been asked to replicate and office-level style
regularity of communication, rather than promote the flexibility that
remote working can offer. Aside from being a drain on energy and
productivity, this does little for mutual trust,” comments Southern.
Junior employees in particular feel pressured to remain “visible”
throughout the workday, and beyond, to prove their worth. Read more here.
Also
Notable
Folio: Stops Regular Reporting on
Magazines
Several weeks ago, Folio: announced that it
would stop daily reporting on the magazine industry. It’s a major
shakeup for publishing professionals who have long turned to Folio: for
updates on industry developments as they occur. Bill Amstutz writes in
his letter to the Folio: community: “Our decision to eliminate
regular industry reporting via FOLIO: doesn’t mean we are abandoning the
FOLIO: community. It only means that we will be serving it in new ways.”
Read the full letter here.
Bon
Appétit Names New Editor-in-Chief
After a long
summer of turmoil, Bon Appétit magazine has named book
publishing veteran Dawn Davis as its new editor-in-chief. Kerry Flynn of
CNN Business reports: “Davis is among the few influential Black
executives at major publishing houses. During her more than 25 years in
the industry, she has overseen the publishing of stories from
marginalized voices.” Former editor-in-chief Adam Rappaport left the
magazine earlier this summer after allegations of discriminatory
behavior surfaced. Soon thereafter, key video talent quit producing
videos en masse in protest against glaring pay discrepancies between
white and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) on-air talent.
The magazine has not posted new content to its popular YouTube channel
in over two months. Read more here.
Newsletter
Economy Booming
“As Facebook, Google, and private equity have
laid waste to print media nationwide, these platforms have given rise to
a new publishing economy, in which any writer with a dedicated following
might be able to make a living,” writes James D. Walsh in a piece this
week for NYMag.com. Newsletters, he says, are that new economy. He
focuses much of his discussion on newsletter publishing platform
Substack, one of the more popular options for prospective newsletter
publishers. “The newsletter trend is bigger than independent
journalists,” he writes. “Print veterans like Graydon Carter and Jonah
Goldberg have styled their new publications -- staffed with editors and
funded by investments from private equity -- as newsletters.” Read more
about the rising newsletter economy here.
Duke
Reporters’ Lab Fine-Tunes Automatic Fact Checker
Duke
Reporters’ Lab has capitalized upon the DNC and RNC to perfect its
automated fact-checking program, Squash. Harrison Mantas of Poynter.org
summarizes the program’s capabilities: “Squash is an artificial
intelligence program that makes real-time matches between existing
fact-checks in ClaimReview, the Reporters’ Lab’s fact-check tagging
system, and a live speaker’s statements. It uses a combination of
Google’s Speech-to-Text; ClaimBuster, which was developed at the
University of Texas at Arlington; and Duke’s own coding to match words
spoken to ones written in a fact-check. These fact-checks pop up on
screen to give viewers more context about whatever issues are being
discussed.” The recent political party conventions provided the lab with
a valuable opportunity to tweak Squash for improved accuracy. Read more here.
Add
your comment.
Comments:
"Supposedly I know a
lot about editorial performance measurement, but this is the first i
have heard about presenteeism. Maybe that's true because those who claim
to be experts in the concept have found a way to waste time claiming to
be experts in a needless practice. Nevertheless -- especially where
editorial performance by full-time editors working at home is concerned
-- measuring presenteeism apparently has assumed full-time worry
proportions. For those determined to agonize about how many hours
allegedly working at home are occupied by personal activity, my approach
to the solution is one I've been trying to convince more editorial
managers to use in the first place. That is . . . know how long it
should take -- realistically speaking -- to complete most editorial
tasks. Knowing that, you can create quantitative job descriptions.. If
you then find that editor X is completing each task -- even if too much
"time" seems to be required -- was the workload delivered in an
acceptable condition? Isn't that what presenteeism really is all about?"
--Howard Rauch, Editorial Solutions, Inc., www.editsol.com>
"If
the boss is worried that her workers are not on the job when she can not
see them, how does she know they are working when she can see them? If
the job gets done accurately and well before deadline, what does she
care?" --Curt Harler, freelance writer, Strongsville, Ohio
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