I work from home in software testing, have been for around 20 months, in a small company (around 50 people). Generally the company I work for are pretty good when it comes to work culture, people usually get treated respectfully, the team are all really supportive of each other etc.
New year and manager is off ill for a week. Tuesday morning (after being back for only a day) an email gets sent out to everyone. In it, he claims he had some concerns about “response times” before Christmas. He goes on to say that it has apparently, within the sole day of him being back, “gotten worse” and that if “the lack of good communication continues” he will be requiring everyone to check in with him at the beginning of the day, lunch, end of the day and “any screen breaks”. To add to this, he wants to make unannounced video calls to “ensure workers are at their desk”.
We already check in with project managers at the beginning of the day, lunch and end of the day, so that mostly seems like duplication of existing processes. I personally have not seen any shifts in work culture among the team or had any issues with “response times” (his email does not go into any detail beyond that). Right before Christmas he told me in a 121 review that he had no concerns with my own communication and likewise if the opposite was true for any individuals in the team I'd expect the concerns to be dealt with privately.
I don't know, the email was very abrupt (it wasn't signed off in any way, just abruptly ended) and the tone (to me at least) came across as very demeaning and condescending, though I'm autistic and do sometimes interpret things poorly. I'm not sure I like the level of distrust and control (depends how long he means by “screen breaks”, I'd certainly not want to tell him every time I leave the screen to use the toilet in my own home, guess I'll find out if he does decide to enforce it).