Good discussion!

There are differences between working with subcontractors or consultants and employees. The usual contract arrangement that I have seen is that there are payment and deliveries that can quantified. For example; a contract price of which X% is paid when deliverables 1 thru 5 are complete. So when working with consultants, the company does not have to worry about whether the consulant is working or skiing, or drinking green beer. It just doesn't matter; because cost is output determined.

However, when an employee is salaried, it does matter. If the employee is in the office and you think that work is taking longer than expected, you can monitor work habits and even sit down with them at their workstation to offer productivity pointers or otherwise find out why things are taking so long. There could be any number of reasons: from lack of skill, goofing off, or an unforeseen problem.

I agree that a project works better with detailed planning and bench marks, Gannt charts etc. This kind of planning is not possible for the day to day maintenance of customers, tech support, and minor feature changes, reports, etc. On this kind of work you have to trust the employee to "run with it". You depend on their judgment, experience and professionalism. Otherwise you might as well do the work yourself. But, I still have a responsibility to evaluate hours paid against work product output. And that is proving to be difficult.

Don Lowrey