SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?
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@IRJ said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
You mentioned you'd fire a client for not using Microsoft products. That seems more like a sales engineer position to me. You don't really need any training because you can always fall back on Microsoft for support.
Ha, if only. I implement Microsoft ERP systems. If a client decides to migrate to, say, SAP or Oracle, then they will fire me, as I'm a Microsoft specialist. I don't fire them.
Microsoft don't provide support for ERP, we're on our own. They only do bug fixes. Basically, I am Microsoft support.
I work quite a bit with US clients and I think you'll find there isn't that much difference between the US and Europe these days in terms of mindset.
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@IRJ said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
That all being said, Scott's view on company not providing a laptop is extremely unusual in US. I've never come across a position like that.
Which view is that, though? My main point is that people should have laptops of their own when being hired. That's my more stringent point. Whether or not you provide laptops at hire time additionally or later or not is a broader discussion.
I've known lots of jobs that don't provide computers and if you want to work from home, you just do it with what you provide. If you don't want to provide, you can come to the office.
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@Carnival-Boy said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
I implement Microsoft ERP systems. If a client decides to migrate to, say, SAP or Oracle, then they will fire me, as I'm a Microsoft specialist. I don't fire them.
While nothing here says you work for a VAR, that's a very strange approach and mentality for an IT shop. If you aren't a reseller that's an insanely tiny slice of IT with nearly no scope. I've never seen any IT shop do this before, only VARs (where youd' be sales, not IT, obviously.)
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@Carnival-Boy said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
We do all of those things to. I still don't know why you'd think we don't.
What do you do outside of MS and ERP? Why make your team broad, if the company doesn't consider doing anything outside of the immediate scope per your other description? It's interesting to be so focused yet have a broad idea of learning. For us, broad learning makes sense because of business/IT is in our scope so anything that makes us better, is good. But if you are "we are fired if the customer changes tech" that puts you in an awkward position of having to expose to customers that they should leave you in order to provide IT guidance in cases where the product you support isn't a best fit. That's why traditionally that situation is only used by VARs.
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@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
My main point is that people should have laptops of their own when being hired.
Yeah, it's a minor point and my replies are minor, but we've dragged it on for a week without getting anywhere
Like I said, I've never owned a laptop in my working life. But I've also been lucky in that I've never been unemployed, so always had a laptop. Like many IT people, my laptop is almost like a fifth limb, an extension of my body, something I carry around like a child's comfort blanket, something that brings me out in cold sweats if it ever stops working. It's the most important inanimate object in my life, the first thing I pack when going on holiday (I'm sounding quite sad now).
But, but, but. I simply don't see the need for two laptops in my life. If I didn't have a work laptop, like say, I was unemployed, then of course, I would have my own. But that's never happened. I just don't see the benefit of having two devices in my house and I don't understand what you think I could do differently if I had two devices. What is it I can't do on just one device?
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@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
What do you do outside of MS and ERP? Why make your team broad, if the company doesn't consider doing anything outside of the immediate scope per your other description? It's interesting to be so focused yet have a broad idea of learning.
I work for an ISV, not a VAR, but I don't get hung up on descriptions - we're a software house basically. Microsoft's business applications are extremely broad - ERP, CRM, Power BI, Power Apps - it's as broad as you want to make it, no-one could become an expert in everything, you have to specialise to a degree.
But look, we're getting in ad hominem replies now. I don't see the relevance. I get that this is primarily a forum for US MSPs and I'm a European ERP specialist, but I'm just offering my perspective. But when it gets to the level of replies (IRJ, not you) that say I'm not really IT, or that I don't need any training because I can fall back on Microsoft, or I don't have the commitment of "real" IT people then it's getting pointless.
And it's depressing to hear an American think that Europeans don't have the right "mindset", have it easier, and don't unlock their full potential. I don't really have any interest in engaging with that level of ignorance of other countries.
So I'll call it quits.
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@Carnival-Boy said in [SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home
But look, we're getting in ad hominem replies now. I don't see the relevance. I get that this is primarily a forum for US MSPs and I'm a European ERP specialist, but I'm just offering my perspective. But when it gets to the level of replies (IRJ, not you) that say I'm not really IT, or that I don't need any training because I can fall back on Microsoft, or I don't have the commitment of "real" IT people then it's getting pointless.
It's ok for us to hear your perspective, but not mine?
Salary (incentives) and taxes are much different different in US and Europe. I mean that's just fact. There's pros and cons to both. In the US, alot of times its a struggle to get past that first level for many people. People get abused and bullied into lower salaries and insane workloads. It happens every day in the US and the percentage of workers that get stuck in that is higher than you think. You need both technical and soft skills to get out of it. Even then it really is a grind, and external factors surely can make it feel impossible to beat.
You've made it clear the type of work you do, my definition of it may differ from others.
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@Carnival-Boy said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
I get that this is primarily a forum for US
How do you get that? It's a forum for IT. That's all. If you see IT as an American thing, I can understand why and many Europeans outsource their IT to the US for that reason. But this forum is international and a lot of the people responding aren't in the US.
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@Carnival-Boy said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
And it's depressing to hear an American think that Europeans don't have the right "mindset", have it easier, and don't unlock their full potential. I don't really have any interest in engaging with that level of ignorance of other countries.
I've been directly told this by European IT counterparts that in Europe the corruption is deep and the mindset of doing IT is not appreciated and it's considered inappropriate to question the corruption of buying from vendors instead of doing the IT job the departments are paid to do. That's from a European, not from an American.
You can call it ignorance, but your own definition of your team and how they behave does a lot to create that situation. You act like we are putting down Europeans, but what we are hearing is that you act like for us to act professionally or to take our jobs seriously isn't important. This thread is about trying to do our jobs well, and all of your posts feel to most of us that you are belittling or even attacking that concept that we should just kick back and not only not do our best, but not try to hire the best because we'll hurt the feelings of those that don't try as hard. That's the underlying theme. We didn't say "you are bad", we said "this is what good looks like" and you self identified as not making that bar.
The whole point of how we hire is "to find the best". Your response to that has never been that the "best" wouldn't be found that way, but always that companies just shouldn't take hiring (or IT, or business) seriously in that way. We should, I assume, just hire "whoever" can do a minimum job, but not really push for the best candidates because it seems people will be sensitive to that.
I think we all know that good hiring is about finding the candidates who are most likely to do the best job. I'm sorry, but that will always leave a lot of people being self reflective and feeling that they fall short of hiring standards for companies that view things differently or, it appears, take what they do more seriously. You can silently reflect on that, or you feel hurt and try to make those of us honestly trying to do our best feel badly for doing so. But at the end of the day, I feel good that I'm trying to do my best - if I intentionally didn't try to do my best I would be being unethical and I would legit feel ashamed. If me trying to do the best for my company, my employees and/or my customers makes you feel badly about what you do or what your company does or, it seems, your country does, you can do two practical things with that. You can either own it and just accept that you don't care about being competitive in that kind of landscape and that my opinions or hiring manager opinions or whatever aren't important. Or you can use that to look to self improvement - if that's something that matters to you. You can say to yourself "oh, here is a place where others in my field are seeing this more seriously, putting in more effort, learning more, etc." and using that to grow yourself. That's the real benefit, learning to improve who you are (work to improve how you learn) or what you do (use this to hire better.)
What isn't useful is lashing out and being upset that others are trying to do a better job that you are and/or making it a racist/nationality thing. It's hard to believe you truly think you are trying to do a good job when it becomes an attack on "Americans" for trying to do the best possible job (e.g. be ethical IT professionals.) Shame on us for not collecting a paycheck while phoning it in. (To be sure, I think 99% of American IT is faking it and collecting a check for a job that they aren't doing either.)
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@IRJ said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
In the US, alot of times its a struggle to get past that first level for many people. People get abused and bullied into lower salaries and insane workloads. It happens every day in the US and the percentage of workers that get stuck in that is higher than you think.
We hear this a lot from Europe, too. There is a lot of "who you know" or "what family you are from" that can get you insanely high salary jobs that do nothing, while low paying jobs get trapped doing all the work and getting no credit. And the likelihood that the IT work will be funneled to a sales vendor instead of an IT pro and kickbacks are even more prevalent (to be clear, they are the NORM on both sides of the Atlantic.)
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@Carnival-Boy said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
I work for an ISV, not a VAR, but I don't get hung up on descriptions
Descriptions are super critical in IT. One could argue, that few things matter more in our field. A true ISV is an IT or software career. A VAR cannot be. One works in our industry, one is an ancillary and competitive industry. As an ISV, MSP, ITSP or IT department we work to do IT (or part of IT) for businesses. As a VAR, we try to work against the interest of IT of businesses to get them to spend more than they would do so without the reseller aspect of the business. VARs make their money only by moving more product than necessary so while necessary, are an antithesis to IT.
It matters a lot, because in IT the things that we discuss here are of the utmost importance. To a VAR, they don't matter at all.
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@Carnival-Boy said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
But, but, but. I simply don't see the need for two laptops in my life. If I didn't have a work laptop, like say, I was unemployed, then of course, I would have my own. But that's never happened. I just don't see the benefit of having two devices in my house and I don't understand what you think I could do differently if I had two devices. What is it I can't do on just one device?
Never said I would. I'm confused as to what portion of the conversation you are responding to. I've been quite clear that having two laptops was never something I cared about. So it's not be you are talking to. But I know of no one else that said anything of the sort, either.
I DO find it surprising that your entire life, everything you do, you are willing to do on your employer's machine. That's super weird to Americans as the law allows them way too much access into things that they own. But I know that that is truly different thing, but I actually thought it was worse. The UK is not a place where I'd want to keep an employer's equipment as my only devices. Way too surveillance oriented culture.
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I'm not lashing our or upset in any way. I've told you two facts about me, that I work for a Microsoft ISV and the I don't own a personal laptop. From that, you've drawn a huge number of untrue assumptions, such as I'm not really IT, I don't need to do any training, I'm not a good employee, I don't care about my career, and I have a European mindset.
I find these assumptions stupid, lazy and ignorant and so there's no basis on which I can continue engage with them. You're free to say whatever you like, but I don't have to reply. I mean what more are you expecting from me? Some kind of epiphany? Really?
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@Carnival-Boy said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
I don't own a personal laptop.
@Carnival-Boy said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
I'm not really IT
Are you?
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@Carnival-Boy said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
From that, you've drawn a huge number of untrue assumptions, such as I'm not really IT,
Where did I draw that conclusion? I asked you if you were and you've not said one way or the other. That's all. Repeating that you work for an ISV, whatever that means to you, in no way whatsoever answers the question. Just because an ISV is in no way an IT organization doesn't mean that they don't hire some IT staff internally. I feel like you are saying it to try to tell us you're not in IT, but it doesn't imply that.
Just like working at McDonald's includes both flipping burgers and being a CIO.
ISVs tend to have incredibly small IT needs, in general. But they certainly need IT. As someone that's owned an ISV for a very long time, we certainly have IT. But we don't offer IT, we offer software. But developers need IT support too. As do the office staff, etc.
