Comment The middle manager's job is... (Score 5, Insightful) 179
The middle manager's job is to prove to his boss that all of his employees are actually doing something. The Emailed pdf serves as a daily reminder that "we are doing stuff."
Emailed PDF: "Just a quick reminder from the server that your employees are busy working hard, feel free to not read this."
vs
Dashboard: "Do my employees even do anything?? I guess I will go look that up."
strip everything down to "why do I still get a paycheck" and you will get to the answer, you never want to allow the big boss to think "do they even do anything?" Email is a preemptive strike against your boss's boss having to seek out that answer
Emailed PDF: "Just a quick reminder from the server that your employees are busy working hard, feel free to not read this."
vs
Dashboard: "Do my employees even do anything?? I guess I will go look that up."
strip everything down to "why do I still get a paycheck" and you will get to the answer, you never want to allow the big boss to think "do they even do anything?" Email is a preemptive strike against your boss's boss having to seek out that answer