Companies Are Having Trouble Enforcing Return-to-Office Policies (npr.org) 349
NPR reports:
Just last month [Apple] decided to postpone its plan after more than 1,000 current and former employees signed an open letter called the plan inefficient, inflexible and a waste of time. "Stop treating us like school kids who need to be told when to be where and what homework to do," they wrote. It was yet more evidence of the shift in the balance of power between management and rank and file, as demand for workers has hit record highs in the past year.
Companies are finding it hard to enforce unpopular policies and mandates when they fear their workers could just walk away.... Google maps workers, who are employed by the tech company Cognizant, also decided to fight back. They connected with the Alphabet Workers Union and signed a petition citing COVID fears, the costs of commuting amid $5 gas, and the increase in productivity and morale that employees have experienced while working from home.... "Our first day back to the Bothell office full-time will now be September 6," the company said in a statement released on Thursday.
Even as some companies seek to bring back some semblance of office life, others are asking: What is the office for anyway?
In an iconic moment, NPR's reporter also visited a management consulting firm, where their new human resources worker (who started in May) admits that "It's hard to even fathom going into the office 100%. I don't think I could do it ever again."
Saturday the New York Times also reported that some corporate leaders "might find themselves fighting a culture shift beyond their control.... [Non-paywalled version here]
"If the pandemic's two-plus years of remote work experimentation have taught us anything, it's that many people can be productive outside the office, and quite a few are happier doing so." Even as the pandemic has changed course, there are signs that the work-from-home trend is actually accelerating. One recent survey published in the National Bureau of Economic Research found that employers are now saying they will allow employees to work from home an average of 2.3 days per week, up from 1.5 days in the summer of 2020.
It's not just the office — it's also the commute. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that almost all of the major cities with the biggest drops in office occupancy during the pandemic had an average one-way commute of more than 30 minutes; and most cities with the smallest drops had shorter commutes.
Companies are finding it hard to enforce unpopular policies and mandates when they fear their workers could just walk away.... Google maps workers, who are employed by the tech company Cognizant, also decided to fight back. They connected with the Alphabet Workers Union and signed a petition citing COVID fears, the costs of commuting amid $5 gas, and the increase in productivity and morale that employees have experienced while working from home.... "Our first day back to the Bothell office full-time will now be September 6," the company said in a statement released on Thursday.
Even as some companies seek to bring back some semblance of office life, others are asking: What is the office for anyway?
In an iconic moment, NPR's reporter also visited a management consulting firm, where their new human resources worker (who started in May) admits that "It's hard to even fathom going into the office 100%. I don't think I could do it ever again."
Saturday the New York Times also reported that some corporate leaders "might find themselves fighting a culture shift beyond their control.... [Non-paywalled version here]
"If the pandemic's two-plus years of remote work experimentation have taught us anything, it's that many people can be productive outside the office, and quite a few are happier doing so." Even as the pandemic has changed course, there are signs that the work-from-home trend is actually accelerating. One recent survey published in the National Bureau of Economic Research found that employers are now saying they will allow employees to work from home an average of 2.3 days per week, up from 1.5 days in the summer of 2020.
It's not just the office — it's also the commute. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that almost all of the major cities with the biggest drops in office occupancy during the pandemic had an average one-way commute of more than 30 minutes; and most cities with the smallest drops had shorter commutes.
You break it, you bought it (Score:3, Interesting)
In the last two years since covid started, I've had more equipment lost, stolen, damaged, or destroyed than I have in the entirety of my career. Everything from various liquids spilled onto machines, animal damge, kid damage, and general clumsiness.
If people don't want to return to the office they should be held liable for any damage they cause to equipment. Spill that glass of wine you brag about drinking during the day on your machine? Congratulations. That'll be $900 to replace it. Lose the power adapter? $100.
Want to be a baby and whine about not wanting to go into the office? You're on the hook for your equipment which, if it was in the office and not taken home, wouldn' have incurred these damages.
Re:You break it, you bought it (Score:5, Insightful)
Fun fact (Score:5, Insightful)
Except for the fact that the record companies own significant amounts of stock and Spotify, e.g. they own Spotify. By negotiating a worse contract for their artists they got more money for themselves through their ownership of Spotify.
Capitalism when not properly regulated can create perverse incentives. We are seeing that with the drive to prevent work from home. Large corporations have CEOs and stockholders that own significant amounts of commercial real estate. Furthermore if commercial real estate is converted into apartments or housing then that will significantly devalue all the single family homes they've been buying up.
Bear in mind it's not like covid went away and bringing everyone back to the office significantly reduces productivity when they get sick.
But compared to all that's real estate losing value the lost productivity is Small potatoes
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That's quite the straw man you are constructing to pin on the poster.
Essentially no one is claiming that businesses should cover those home expenses, there may be a couple of people, but its so rare as to be newsworthy when someone attempts.
Paying for an occasional personal electronic device for a remote worker versus their contribution to office space cost, and while it would be crazy more expensive to cover housing costs, that's not on the table here.
Re:You break it, you bought it (Score:5, Interesting)
I posted about this before, our company did an audit and adjustment of home office allowance after covid WFH started. Before that, they just added a few bucks for internet. Things we accounted for:
Basically you're taking on a bunch of costs that the employer handled previously. Once everything is proportionally calculated, it's not all that much, but our company did it because it's not a greedy piece of shit that will fight employees at every step.
Re: You break it, you bought it (Score:4, Interesting)
Hell, during covid I bought some of the equipment that let me work from home...
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Re:You break it, you bought it (Score:5, Insightful)
TL;DR
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If I can be held liable for office equipment that breaks in my home office, then I'm going to charge rent for my home office space, and for my internet connection, and desk, and everything else I provide on my own. For companies, work-from-home is a net win. Office space (that they can now let go of, at least when their leases are up) is a lot more expensive than an occasional broken piece of equipment.
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Deal.
Now get off my back and sell that office already!
Re:You break it, you bought it (Score:5, Interesting)
Cheap since cubicles are very expensive (about $5k to $7k) and real estate is expensive ($100 to150 per square foot) (so that cubicle is costing $600 *each and every month* and air conditioning and heating are expensive and water for bathrooms is expensive.
Plus I ran a remote team before I retired and the only lost equipment was *mine*. It was stolen from the car. And I wasn't even working remote- I had to take it home every night because I was *always* on call*.
So my team asked me why I wasn't in the on-call rotation.
I pointed out- if they didn't answer within 15 minutes- it rolled over to me. (and if I missed it- to our manager- and then to the senior director). A few calls per month got thru to me and I made damn sure no calls got through to our manager except when I intentionally escalated it to them.
On top of that, I've *never* lost any of my 3 home laptops to what you are talking about but that would be a matter for insurance (and self- insurance- you budget it out of the $3,600 to $7,200 *per* month you are saving by having the employees work remotely.
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I've been WFH for 7 years and the only thing that breaks are mouses (they wear out) and headphones. Your experience seems hilarious. Pro tip, use a wired usb keyboard and mouse and put the laptop up on a platform so that (a) it is at the right height and (b) safely out of the way of liquids. I use Wolfram's New Kind of Science, and a couple of old fashioned cooking books as a platform.
Re: You break it, you bought it (Score:3)
If you are managing a budget you might as well be
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No, managing a budget is not the same thing as paying out of your own pocket. I manage a budget, and advise on how to manage budgets for other departments. Signing off on multi-million dollar SOWs is much different than managing my home budget. A brief reflection on why this is led me to two primary reasons.
One is the number of stakeholders involved. In my home budget, I have four stakeholders. I need to weigh the utility any spending gives to myself, my wife, and my kids. At work I am weighing the needs of
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If you want to go down that route then if you want me in the office you had better pay all my costs. Fuel and vehicle maintenance, hourly rate for time spent commuting, lunch budget...
People now whining they should be paid for the above conveniently forget they were already being paid for those expenses prior to WFH. That was part of the salary you agreed to take when you were hired. You don't get extra for having to go back to the office.
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The difference now is that because many companies do offer WFH, I have a choice. Pay me or I'll go somewhere that does WFH. In fact you need to pay me a hell of a lot more now, because I don't really want to work the extra hours it takes to commute and there are plenty of places offering good salaries without another 8+ hours a week stuck in traffic.
I don't buy this (Score:2)
It won't be long at all before the only way to do that is to show up at the office. Sure, some places might not actually care if you're present, but for those that want you there, they'll get their way.
Re:I don't buy this (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: I don't buy this (Score:5, Insightful)
Their cost will actually be their employees who were otherwise already being productive working from home quitting their jobs to go work for another company that offers working from home.
If you do not think employee attrition is a monumental expense to the company, then you probably have the makings of a fine mid level manager. Most of them are equally clueless as well.
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Re:I don't buy this (Score:5, Insightful)
They invented some convoluted rules so people could "apply" to work from home for a couple days per week (or whatever, I didn't pay much attention) but what has happened is that people who can work from home, and who want to work from home have said "get fucked, I'm working from home" and if their manager pushed back they quit.
Smart managers told their people that those rules don't apply to our team.
Re:I don't buy this (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't understand why companies don't offer a premium to work in the office all 5 days if it's that fucking important to them.
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Perhaps because the people who want to force others to come into the office are more about power and control than any practical consideration. They want to impose their will, not come up with a mutually acceptable solution.
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The point is that currently, companies that take a hard line are at a competitive disadvantage for labor than other companies that offer flexibility. The 'work' is defined as getting stuff done. If the 'work' is something like stocking shelves, obviously the work inherently means being at the workplace. However if you are a 'knowledge worker', the requirement for the office space is a bit less concrete. Face to face collaboration can be valuable, but there's frequently room enough for a significant chunk
Re:I don't buy this (Score:4, Interesting)
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Indeed. It is the same whenever benefits get cut, working conditions get worse or some other crap. Sure, for a quater or two this may improve the numbers. But longer-term is a recipe for failure as all the people with options (the good ones) leave and those that stay are the ones without options. These are pretty much the people you do not want to keep but now you have no choice. As a result, productivity drops, errors increase, customer satisfaction drops and generally things slowly go to hell.
The MBA moro
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I think unionization drives (Score:2)
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The best 20% (or so) always have options. At the same time you need them, because they facilitate a lot of things and contribute a major part of the critical ideas. Oh, sure, in a recession you _can_ get people to hire. But even then, you cannot get the ones you really want unless you offer working conditions they like.
Re: I don't buy this (Score:4, Insightful)
Now take your run-of-the-mill organization that pays median and builds boring widgets (ie, most companies), they need any reasonable edge they can get to not have a tech workforce full of C or D players. Now that wfh has been demonstrated to drive same or better productivity and people actually like it, no way is it going away as an option to attract A and B players. That's like saying the recession is going to make companies tighten their belts and band together to make people work 7 days a week again like the old factory days. For some things, you can't just put the cat back in the bag.
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Tesla and SpaceX are high-profile exceptions bucking the trend, but they are very unique in the market and shouldn't be looked to as a leading indicator for any company when it comes to attracting/retaining talent. They are solving some of the most interesting and unique problems with above-market pay, so they can pretty much write their own rules and people will fall over themselves to work there.
Tesla is unique in that they want to cut their staffing. The problem is, the ones who are going to leave are the ones who can walk right into a job somewhere else, which are precisely the employees that they can least afford to lose. It's not a question of whether this will backfire on Musk, but rather how badly.
Re: I don't buy this (Score:4, Interesting)
Tesla just joined the go back to work or be fired train ending work at home at Telsa. This trend is reversing fast and if enough employers band together the option will be gone
No one gives a shit what Tesla does. The forward-thinking companies are adapting to the change, the stodgy, doomed ones are still trying to pretend it's not happening.
My company has been deploying fully-remote teams since before the start of the pandemic and upper management has confirmed that they have zero interest in returning to the days of office attendance. For us, the pandemic just sped things up. Instead of taking 5 years to de-comm 90% of the physical sites on the list (which was The Plan), it took 2.
Practically everyone at my company likes working remotely and we all laugh at the idea of returning to an office (especially since they no longer exist). That's 15,000+ people who are never going to go back to the "office way of doing things."
We can't be the only company moving in this direction.
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Sure. But like any company that threats their employees badly, these will not get the pick of the best workers. They will get the dross. That is not a strategy that least or maintains success.
Of course, I am biased. I have worked something like 5 days at the office in the last 10 years, not counting days at customer offices.
Boomers are retiring or dying (Score:3, Interesting)
In short it's likely to be a employee's market for selling th
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Re:I don't buy this (Score:5, Funny)
I've worked from home for years and people here still steal my lunch.
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Have you looked at the job market lately? Companies are SCRAMBLING for office staff. And those who are interviewing, are telling employers that they will only take an offer if it's remote. I think in this case, employees have the upper hand, and many companies will back down. For that matter, even many bosses want to work from home. As an IT director, I certainly do!
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I have to work.
I don't have to work for you.
And since it's certainly easy to replace an IT security expert with 17 years of experience and a background in legal and finance, you should have no problem doing so.
I don't see a problem here. (Score:3, Funny)
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Re:I don't see a problem here. (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently you see corporations as uniform, monolithic. The reality is that there is a whole spectrum of attitudes. My company has embraced work-from-home, because their people want it.
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Right. The pandemic forced a lot of companies to try remote work, that would not have otherwise tried it. Many of them found that remote work was actually a highly effective way to get work done. A lot of minds were changed, including my own.
Because it's not an important problem. (Score:2)
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I was told to, I ignored it (Score:4, Insightful)
They told me months ago to come back to work. I ignored it. I continue to work from home where my productivity is higher, I have better equipment, I don't need to commute with $6/gal gas, and I can open a window while working to get some healthy air going through. I'm on call for anyone who needs me during the week (my co-workers have no complaints), and only come in whenever it's actually necessary, which ends up being about once a week for a couple hours.
This is my optimal working setup, for both me and for the company, and insecure managers who need people in seats at the office so they can pretend they're actually doing anything useful can just feck off.
It's about control (Score:4, Insightful)
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I work in my underwear. If you want a live stream from that, well, I'm not kinkshaming...
Doing what I say versus what I do...... (Score:5, Insightful)
Our management implemented the final phase of "return to the office"; guess what, no one paid attention. Our CEO held a leadership conference last week with the senior managers and stakeholders; guess what, the senior stakeholder had covid and didn't tell/know.
Our leadership team is now 1/2 infected with Covid. Guess what, the pandemic isn't over. Guess what, I'm not going back, fuck them; I have 65 days till retirement; fuck them and the CEO's cavalier attitude toward this issue.
Guess what; I'm tired of this bullshit that collaboration can only happen in the office. For Pete's sake, they promoted me in 2021 and told me I was knocking out of the park, even after being out of the office for 15 months. Obviously working from home works for me, so why should I pay attention to some CEO on a power trip?
I have had the unfortunate opportunity of mourning 6 family/friends die from this shit, so fuck anyone who says it's over back to normal / back to the office.
Take care.
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There are other reasons for why for 'some' people remote work improves productivity. Just stick to those arguments.
Re:Doing what I say versus what I do...... (Score:5, Insightful)
The latest variants are more infectious and less deadly. All you get is a sore throat and sniffles. For all practical purposes Covid is now like the flu- you have a vaccine, people dont die from it(anymore than flu) and there are anti virals that work. Its time to stop hiding behind Covid. Covid is never going to be 'over'. Its endemic now. There are other reasons for why for 'some' people remote work improves productivity. Just stick to those arguments.
My apologies but that is not quite right. Long Covid is a major health issue going forward ( https://fortune.com/2022/06/05... [fortune.com] ) and will force us to develop a universal vaccine against Covid. The spector of being re-infected every year by Covid and having a certain percentage of people of being permanently disabled by it will force us to keep dealing with it and Covid outbreaks until that universal vaccine (hopefully by the US Army: https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/c... [spectrumnews1.com] ) is developed. So No, contracting Covid is still a valid argument for NOT going back to work at the present time.
Re:Doing what I say versus what I do...... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm afraid this is not correct.
Covid isn't and never has been "flu like" in any way. As most of the tracking has now ceased and much of the tracking was fundamentally flawed in the first place most countries are considered to have (in some cases e.g. India vastly) under-reported their real death toll so no one has *ANY* idea how many people are still dying from it. Moreover, as vaccine strength wanes through a combination of national policy reducing vaccine mandates and the idiocy of "herd immunity" (hint, there's no such thing) the situation is getting far far worse, not better.
That also ignores the looming disaster that is "long covid" which is waiting to royally fuck us up. Every infection weakens your T-Cell response and increases your chances of severe long covid complications. But lets not trivialise it, research is currently showing that EVERY SINGLE COVID INFECTION carries with it and almost entire body impact with clear cell damage in almost every organ. This includes decreased brain function, liver and kidney issues, numerous heart issues (including a much greater risk of heart attack) and any number of other issues.
We have entities like the Bank of England warning of the looming economic disaster that long covid is going to bring being ignored. We have, at current estimate, 2.5 million people in the UK on long term sick with long covid. Current estimates show about 30% of those who catch covid get some long term residual effects, many of those are registering those effect for more than 12 months.
NO ONE wants to be catching covid, period. This ridiculous rhetoric that it's "just flu" is both dangerous and demonstrably wrong. Even if deaths are no higher than the flu (they are) the long term effects are quite literally many orders of magnitude worse and the sooner we stop ignoring them and dealing with it properly the sooner we can get ourselves out of this nightmare.
Unintended consequences (Score:5, Interesting)
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Part of the productivity increase is also that you can go to meetings where narcissists drone on about themselves for hours while you can still get some work done instead of having to sit there and endure the droning. I can't count the hours anymore that I sat in meetings with some C-Level dork who droned on about some vision he had (seriously, people, if you have visions, get professional help but don't bother me with it) or explaining his new strategy (which is vastly superior to the one he had a month ag
Okay ... (Score:3)
"Stop treating us like school kids who need to be told when to be where and what homework to do," they wrote.
Okay, companies will treat you like *employees* who they can tell when to be where and what work to do. If people don't like that, of course they're free to find other employment, but those new employers will probably have -- what to do you them, oh yes -- rules too. The only way this works out the way you want it to is if they need you more than you need them and that's hardly ever the case. And if/when it ever is the case, you can be sure it will only last long enough for the company to figure out how to fix that in their favor. It's not about fairness, it's about what makes sense for the company. If you think some policy doesn't make sense for the company, speak up, but they're not obligated to listen or change things, even if you're right. That may sound weird and/or short-sighted, but that's the way it is. Speaking with 35+ years experience...
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I have no problem with rules. Explain them to me. I'm a technical person, I will implement whatever rule is valid.
I have no use for rules that exist to stroke egos. They are superfluous and detrimental to productivity. In other words, "because I said so" already didn't work for my dad, why do you think it would work for an employer?
What about the other 95%? (Score:3)
Maybe 5 or 10% of "workers" can "work from home". But that's management people, who don't actually build stuff. Or serve food. Or otherwise provide contact for those fighting to not do their jobs but get paid.
Two people in my immediate family would love to not show up for work, and get paid to do it. But their jobs involve talking with customers and doing what they ask them to do, in person. They're not Apple employees that can ignore people until they "need" to talk to them.
Many of the people here who claim to be able to "work from home" as well as they can be in the office are in pretty good jobs... If you can believe what they tell you.
Re:What about the other 95%? (Score:5, Interesting)
Work from home is applicable in more jobs than you might think. I'm an electrical engineer, and I negotiated to work from home. I've got my test equipment, soldering irons, and so on set up on a table in the basement. It works well—much quieter and less distracting than the office.
When I'm not testing stuff, it's usually documentation, design, and analysis work that's all done on the computer. If coworkers have questions or whatever, we communicate via text chat or video / voice calls.
I go in as needed to pick up and drop off circuit boards, parts, and so forth. This might be once a week or less. I live 10 minutes from the office, I just can't stand the open plan office, all the noise, all the movement in my peripheral vision, and so forth.
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The people who wish to continue to work from home are exactly those people who have been able to work from home and get their work done. Or are you suggesting that they haven't been doing their jobs for the last 2+ years?
WFH is a huge benefit. Employers who decide to take it away are self-selecting for losing their best employees. As long as some
Re:What about the other 95%? (Score:4, Informative)
>Maybe 5 or 10% of "workers" can "work from home".
Nope. Turns out that it's more like 40%. Which is a huge amount. Got that from Pew Research in case you are wondering.
Meh (Score:2)
Be careful what you wish for (Score:2, Informative)
How is this different from a company where everyone is expected to be at work 24/7, or at least during waking hours, with no way to escape from the virtual office?
People who can't work remotely have an advantage in that it is very difficult for work to follow them home. But if work is something you do at home, it is very eas
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I work from home. I work 8 hours a day, 4 days a week, because that's the contract I negotiated... I'm at the point in my career where time is more precious to me than money.
After I'm done working for the day, I don't check my work email and I shut down Slack. If there's a real emergency, my workplace has my phone number, but they've never used it yet. Granted, I work at an awesome company that treats its employees and contractors very well... and it's an awesome profitable company. Keeping employees
Re:Be careful what you wish for (Score:4, Insightful)
I do work at a company like this. Before covid, we were 30% WFH. Then almost everyone.
We work on open source which has usually had distributed teams. Our teams are also distributed.
Before covid, I was the only one in the dept. at my office. My boss was in an office 700 miles from mine. A few people worked out of that office, but most of them were WFH. There was one person in an office ~ 40 miles from mine.
The team I was on was based in Beijing. Most of the team was too, except 3 of us. The team lead stayed up to 8pm & it was 8am my time. The other 2 were in Rome, Italy and Sao Paulo, Brasil.
I would go into work and do remote work. I enjoyed the cafe, lunch w/ co office workers.
When everyone went remote, I lost the free coffee, snacks and lunch w/ office mates. I gained the commute time (30 minutes). I no longer shared internet access w/ hundreds so my home network ended up faster. I no longer needed to wear headphones to listen to my music between meetings.
I've since changed teams to one more based in my timezone (EST). But my boss & 1 coworker are in India. I work with people in France, Germany and a few places between there & India.
We do distributed work because there's a culture of being remote. Being in person in the office would exclude people. In fact, if we do a video meeting, it's better if *everyone* stays at their desk instead of going to a meeting room.
If you don't have that culture, you'll never be able to be distributed. I've seen it fail when a group split and one didn't have the culture. They had issues communicating across the building while we continued to span 4 timezones.
Withholding tools for remote work (Score:4, Informative)
Companies are passive-aggressively withholding tools and training for successful remote work in the hopes remote work will just go away. They're withholding:
The way to motivate knowledge workers is to tell them why things need to be done. Instead, it's just distrust by management and assumption of worker laziness. As a consequence, there is no buy-in from management into remote work, tools for remote work are being withheld (actually, not even being considered), and workers aren't being clued in as to exactly when and why it might be necessary to be in-office.
In office work (Score:3)
Re:In office work (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, that open space office sure increased communication. Sucks if you're not part of that communication and actually tried to get some work done.
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The internet (Score:3)
Was practically created for stuff like WRH, why in today's world with all this technology wouldn't we use it. I know people that won't even get up and walk three cubes over just to talk to somebody and they'll use a zoom call, or email.
It'll possibly only last as long... (Score:5, Insightful)
... as a job market in a particular sector is still "hot".
For many sectors where there's more workers than available jobs, there's no choice but to tow the line - or face being jobless.
In the software dev industry, that isn't the case - right now - but it doesn't mean it will always be the case.
Skilled people in this sector can pretty much call the shots. When it take months for a company to recruit replacements and weeks/months more to "onboard" them, only completely idiotic management would consider forcing a mass return to the office.
But what if the jobs dried up? It's clear we are on the brink of a catastrophic recession. There's warning signs of a severe slowdown in the tech space.
Startups have very much driven salaries, benefits etc. in the industry, to attract talent - when those startups can no longer get financial backing from venture capitalists, what then?
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. The fact is, the "work from home" "new normality", can favour businesses as much as employees, all dependent on their real estate choices of course!
If a medium to large size business was mostly leasing properties and the leases start to expire, then can downsize massively - 1/2 or even 1/4 of the previous cost.
On the flipside, if they have to manage and maintain property they own outright and nobody is actually using it... well, is that a flipside?
Does it really matter? - less energy costs, no need to provide as much stationary or food and drink.
Would a severe economic downturn in the tech industry force a return to the office?
Would the risk of losing your job, knowing that jobs in the software industry and now scarce, change attitudes?
Who knows.
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A lot of people, and especially young people, enjoy working from home. No commute, not having to put up with ridiculous office plans and ease of online communication, something people under 30 basically grew up with, mean that these people are actually not only as productive as they would be in a face-to-face situation, it's likely that they manage to be more productive and more happy in a WFH environment.
WFH also means that they have lower expenses due to eating at home instead of eating out, no commute, n
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If a medium to large size business was mostly leasing properties and the leases start to expire, then can downsize massively - 1/2 or even 1/4 of the previous cost.
On the flipside, if they have to manage and maintain property they own outright and nobody is actually using it... well, is that a flipside?
If they own property outright it's a benefit too. The maintenance costs reduce significantly, the energy costs reduce significantly etc. They also have the option of selling the property. Even if there is little demand for office space, there is still demand for housing and many offices can be redeveloped into housing units.
It's only detrimental for companies that have signed up to long leases that won't be expiring any time soon.
This is only the beginning of the new normal (Score:5, Insightful)
The world is evolving, and it can't be changed back. Every company that offers work-from-home has an automatic advantage over the companies that don't, both in efficiency of work and in the quality of workers, meaning they will continue to succeed and grow with less effort than those who don't. Soon you won't be ABLE to hire the good engineers if you demand they come into the office, not without breaking the bank, and that's going to have a major impact on your future sustainability. Companies that accept the new environment will prosper while the dinosaurs will slowly starve to death. There is no escaping this, it's natural selection.
Remote work broadens labor pool (Score:3)
For jobs where remote work is viable long term it also means you ar end longer limited to a local labor pool. A company can tap into a much larger potential workforce, and use that to lower their costs. If they can successfully do that, wages will stagnate or drop as workers in high cost areas find themselves competing with talent in lower cost areas.
In office is also a cultural issue. As TFA pointed out, many of the more senior people know that environment and how to succeed in it; and changing that changes the rules of the game. I suspect some of the biggest proponents may very well be the level just below the C-suite as they jockey for the top spots and do not want the rules changed mid game. I've seen that in companies I've consulted with where change were resisted the most by that level even as staff welcomed them.
It's the commute, stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
Offices can be better or worse places to be, and they can be very good places to work and collaborate (or they can be soulless places of distraction and loathing). That varies. What doesn't vary is that no-one wants a long commute.
No-one, absolutely no-one, wants to spend a lot of their time going to that office. A short travel time from home to work is fine with most people (there's even psychological research which shows it helps many people to context switch from "at home" to "at work"). We've all heard of people who get up, get ready for work, walk around the block, then go into their house to their home office and start work. At the end of the day they do the reverse. Plenty of people don't mind a 10 or 20 minute journey each way, a bit of personal time to reflect, and so on.
As soon as this starts to become a material amount of time you could spend on other things in your life - more than an hour in total, and especially if it's several hours - people get incredibly resentful at having their time wasted on time that isn't productive work, isn't paid, and isn't their choice.
People aren't rejecting the office nearly as much as they are rejecting the commute. They're also rejecting bad offices and intrusive, bad management - but there can be good offices and good management for some people. There is no good long commute. Nope, zip, nada, null.
Re: (Score:3)
Then came the days of cubicles as the first step. Now people would lean over your wall to c
Startups know the deal (Score:3)
Can you think of a startup that is trying to force people to work in an office? Why would any company that's trying to get a foothold want to waste money on an office space when that money can be better spent on better talent/tech? When those companies grow out of the startup phase, why would they decide to suddenly dish out huge capital costs for an office when they know that all the work gets done well remotely? The work from home horse is out of the barn, and it's not going back.
The genie won't go back in the bottle (Score:3)
At my first programming job 30+ years ago, we were required to wear suits to work. If management were to dictate that today, I can almost guarantee a couple of people would end up in the ER from laughing so hard.
Re:Not again... (Score:5, Funny)
You sound like a manager
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It's almost like someone has spare time working at home to write them.
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About as many times as we had that ridiculous demand to move our bodies halfway around town for no reason whatsoever.
Re:Thanks for beating all sorts of nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
Way to live up to your moniker.
Even if one's work matters more than filing TPS reports, that doesn't means everyone's work needs to be conducted in an open office they have to waste large portions of their life getting to and from.
The baby formula shortage is due to monopoly, single-point-of-failure, and regulatory requirements that complicate the import of foreign product. Not working from home.
As for perceived safety, American deaths per capita from COVID-19 are on par with those from World War 2. It's not the black death, but it's not a bout of food poisoning either.
Re:Thanks for beating all sorts of nonsense (Score:4, Interesting)
Well ya, while I don't mind going to the office, and my commute is not bad, I did know that 5pm is the worst time to be commuting even on good days. So I would stay late. I would also arrive later. Still eight hours but shifted so that I'm not in stop and go traffic. These days, traffic is light enough that when I do go to the office a few days a week I will start heading home at 5 and it's somewhat nice.
Now I will agree that sticking around a couple hours more tends to be when I'm more productive, but that's usually because everyone's gone, I've stopped the morning goof-off, I've dealt with 5 hours of stupid emails, and now I can do my real job for a short period. Those morning people I see who time shift the opposite direction do seem to be productive and effective because they hit the ground running but then by the end of the day they've lost all the steam so they may as well head home anyway.
Re: Thanks for beating all sorts of nonsense (Score:3)
"at 5pm and not be 'productive' enough."
How much does he value his own life? Because it appears he is more devoted to making someone else happy rather than being devoted to making himself happy.
I learned long ago that it's better to put yourself first before others who are not part of your family (and sometimes it's better to put yourself first, period) because you don't owe anyone anything (who died and made them your god?). If anyone tells you otherwise, tell them to go fuck themselves.
Re: Thanks for beating all sorts of nonsense (Score:3)
It's funny how selfishly maximising your own utility is the foundation of capitalism until it means less work being done for the Man.
Re:Thanks for beating all sorts of nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
"Please put yourself at personal risk for our profits..."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Since we are mostly talking about office and tech jobs, you are not making an apples to apples comparison. Some relevant differences are:
1) Some risks are necessary to perform certain jobs
2) The risks you mention are generally known prior to accepting offers for those jobs
For 1), it's been demonstrated empirically over the course of the past two years that it is not essential to work in an office -- or other dangerous environment -- to complete most office jobs. The same cannot be said for linesmen, brickla
Re:Thanks for beating all sorts of nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
Your comment and my knee jerk negative reaction towards it perfectly sum up the divide between those who think employees should feel lucky they have an employer and those who think employers should feel lucky they have employees. It is similar to the debate between those who think business owners are the job creators and those who feel consumers are the job creators. Those on either side of the debate often feel the other side is ignoring reality to justify their preconceived belief systems, and I know I am guilty of that as well.
You are a worker bee. You are trading your time and talents for money, and giving up your personal preferences is part of the deal.
For instance I would view this arrangement as:
"You are an employer in need of employees in order to provide a product to sell. You are asking human beings to trade their limited time and hard earned talents in exchange for a portion of the revenue gained from products and services these employees provide. You are responsible for providing capital, entrepreneurial vision, and creating an environment where these employees feel comfortable making this trade."
But to each their own I guess.
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Maybe. But at the same time two things are certain:
1) A lot of people started to like working from home.
2) The companies that offer this will get the best talent, i.e. those that can actually choose their employer.
The rest will be stuck with, well, the rest.
Introverts (Score:3)
On the flip side some are extroverts who love open plan and whose productivity takes a hit with remote work.
The 2 also need to interact so a mix is probably the best 2-3 days a week in office, 2-3 days remote.
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Careful what you wish for, you might just get it.
Re:Come back or be terminated (Score:4, Insightful)
You found equal or better talent in this economy with a shit attitude like this? You should write a book, there's plenty of company owners that would buy it.
Re: (Score:3)
Anything that could have been offshored was already a long time ago. Actually, we're in the process of bringing jobs back because even managers eventually noticed that it produces sub-standard results. There's also a couple things that nobody in their sane mind (and not even C-Levels) would offshore, especially in a political climate like now where you don't know whether the company in Generistan or Elbonia that you handed your sensitive data to is still "friendly" at the end of the day.
I'm fairly certain t
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We have a recession coming
Is this what Fox told you to be angry about this morning?
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And then everyone stood up and clapped.
Re:Let's see if Musk has trouble enforcing the pol (Score:5, Insightful)
If that's the plan, that man is stupider than I even thought and being rich has indeed more to do with pure luck than with any kind of talent whatsoever.
If you let people decide who quits by making the working conditions worse, who will quit? The ones that you want to get rid of, the slackers and low achievers? Hell no. Because they can't easily get a new job. They have to grin and bear it.
What you lose that way is the achievers, the cream of your workforce who can easily show to new employers how valuable they are and who can easily bail to new and more promising offers.
Playing hardball means that you lose exactly the people you want to retain and retain exactly the ones that you should fire.
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Unfortunately it does.
At this level, talented people are also the ones that sadly know it. They don't put up with bullshit. You'll find that at that level, money also stops being a relevant incentive. Once you earn more than 200k a year, another 5 or so thousand aren't exactly what makes you stay or go. What matters is QoL. Interesting job perks become more and more a relevant thing.