Workers are Resisting Calls to Return to Offices (msn.com) 248
America's return-to-office has been a "lagging return," reports the Washington Post:
Even with millions of workers across the country being asked to return to their cubicles, office occupancy has been relatively static for the past year. The country's top 10 metropolitan areas averaged 47.2 percent of pre-pandemic levels last week, according to data from Kastle Systems. This time last year, the average was around 44 percent....
About 52 percent of remote-capable U.S. workers are operating under hybrid arrangements, according to data from Gallup, while 29 percent are exclusively remote. And though executives like Meta's Mark Zuckerberg have argued that the rise of flexible work has had a deleterious effect on productivity, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that labor productivity rose 3.7 percent in the second quarter of 2023 and is up 1.3 percent compared to this time last year.
While employers cite the collaborative benefits of spending time together in person, the majority of hybrid arrangements aren't fostering the connections bosses want to see, according to Rob Cross, associate professor of management at Babson College who studies collaboration across various companies through surveys, email and meeting data. He's found that mandates for a certain number of days in office are missing the mark, "because you're not getting the right people who need to collaborate... What we're seeing that's more successful is when companies are using some form of analytics" to determine which workers need to come in on the same days, Cross said. He estimates that only about 5 percent of organizations are taking this approach. "Leaders are just saying, 'We need water-cooler moments,' " Cross said. "They're not looking and saying, 'These are the interactions we need to stimulate.' "
But the article argues that "After more than two years of trying to coax workers back into offices, bosses are losing their patience... Even tech companies that were once champions of remote work are changing their tune." The article cites return-to-office policies at Zoom, Meta, and Amazon, arguing that "Employers have new leverage as the labor market has cooled, leaving workers less room to be choosy..." The days of enticing employees with free food, laundry services and yoga classes are largely over. Now, executives are resorting to threats — and it's forcing some workers to decide whether they're willing to give up the flexibility they've gotten used to... "The pendulum has shifted from employees having all the power," said Matt Cohen, founder and managing partner of Ripple Ventures, a venture fund in Toronto that works with early stage companies across North America. The bulk of start-up founders he works with are requiring employees to be in offices a few days a week, although there's pushback. "During the pandemic, a lot of salespeople were taking calls from the top of mountains on hiking trips," Cohen said. "That's not working anymore...."
[R]emote work is becoming harder to find. Roughly 8 percent of all job postings now advertise remote or hybrid work, according to Nick Bunker, director of North American economic research at Indeed Hiring Lab. That's down from 9.7 percent last year, he said, but still up significantly over pre-pandemic levels.
The workplace software company HqO's chief executive says workers are after "elevated experiences they can't get at home". Their data shows workers attracted by free food, high-quality tools, and attractive workspaces — but "The number one thing people want out of a workplace is concentration space..You're not going to get them into a place just built for social interaction. You've got to be able to concentrate...."
But the CEO of PR software company Muck Rack says going fully remote benefited their workers — both their well-being and their productivity. "I hope more people see the potential here and don't just go along with the return-to-office narrative.
About 52 percent of remote-capable U.S. workers are operating under hybrid arrangements, according to data from Gallup, while 29 percent are exclusively remote. And though executives like Meta's Mark Zuckerberg have argued that the rise of flexible work has had a deleterious effect on productivity, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that labor productivity rose 3.7 percent in the second quarter of 2023 and is up 1.3 percent compared to this time last year.
While employers cite the collaborative benefits of spending time together in person, the majority of hybrid arrangements aren't fostering the connections bosses want to see, according to Rob Cross, associate professor of management at Babson College who studies collaboration across various companies through surveys, email and meeting data. He's found that mandates for a certain number of days in office are missing the mark, "because you're not getting the right people who need to collaborate... What we're seeing that's more successful is when companies are using some form of analytics" to determine which workers need to come in on the same days, Cross said. He estimates that only about 5 percent of organizations are taking this approach. "Leaders are just saying, 'We need water-cooler moments,' " Cross said. "They're not looking and saying, 'These are the interactions we need to stimulate.' "
But the article argues that "After more than two years of trying to coax workers back into offices, bosses are losing their patience... Even tech companies that were once champions of remote work are changing their tune." The article cites return-to-office policies at Zoom, Meta, and Amazon, arguing that "Employers have new leverage as the labor market has cooled, leaving workers less room to be choosy..." The days of enticing employees with free food, laundry services and yoga classes are largely over. Now, executives are resorting to threats — and it's forcing some workers to decide whether they're willing to give up the flexibility they've gotten used to... "The pendulum has shifted from employees having all the power," said Matt Cohen, founder and managing partner of Ripple Ventures, a venture fund in Toronto that works with early stage companies across North America. The bulk of start-up founders he works with are requiring employees to be in offices a few days a week, although there's pushback. "During the pandemic, a lot of salespeople were taking calls from the top of mountains on hiking trips," Cohen said. "That's not working anymore...."
[R]emote work is becoming harder to find. Roughly 8 percent of all job postings now advertise remote or hybrid work, according to Nick Bunker, director of North American economic research at Indeed Hiring Lab. That's down from 9.7 percent last year, he said, but still up significantly over pre-pandemic levels.
The workplace software company HqO's chief executive says workers are after "elevated experiences they can't get at home". Their data shows workers attracted by free food, high-quality tools, and attractive workspaces — but "The number one thing people want out of a workplace is concentration space..You're not going to get them into a place just built for social interaction. You've got to be able to concentrate...."
But the CEO of PR software company Muck Rack says going fully remote benefited their workers — both their well-being and their productivity. "I hope more people see the potential here and don't just go along with the return-to-office narrative.
the world is transforming (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:the world is transforming (Score:5, Funny)
In my experience, there have been times when you could delete "without ego wars" from your last sentence and not hurt the accuracy of it one little bit.
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I guess we just saw a LOT of savings opportunities for companies... wonder why they fail to execute that one.
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Re:the world is transforming (Score:5, Funny)
Well, yes, but it's closer to reality than "management is useful".
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Don't look at me, I'm as amazed as you are.
I think it's like back when the aristocracy was still in place, a useless layer of society but also the layer that had the power to decide how society runs. As soon as they get toppled, it's over for them.
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You missed the heavy sarcasm in my question.
I can return that compliment, concerning my reply.
Re:the world is transforming (Score:5, Insightful)
I now finally have a useful manager. He gets me my resources at the right time in the right place in the right amount. That's what I need a manager for, and that's why I decided to keep him.
I really don't need a manager to tell me what my work is. I know my work. If I didn't, I'd be way out of place and also way overpaid. What I need a manager for is to keep the management bullshit away from me and get me the stuff I need to do my work. And he does that. We work beautifully together, I can do my job and he gets to present awesome productivity numbers, so I guess everyone is happy.
Took me four managers to finally have a keeper, and you're not gonna take that one from me. You fire him, you'll see me leave to wherever he goes to. That's also what I tell every recruiter that tries to get me: Get that guy as a manager, you get me for free as a package.
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Not so amazing when you realize that the useless class are the ones who get to decide if their class remains employed or not.
Fox declares henhouse security excessive...
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A blanket statement of "employees must be in the office"is better?
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Indeed. Of course the management has known all along it was useless, but now their camouflage-strategy is failing. Same for those workers that so far just coasted along on the results by others.
For knowledge-workers, not being willing to work fully remotely is going to be a big red flag in the future. The time of expensive office-buildings and time-intensive commutes is over. There are, as always, just quite a few losers of this change and hence they resist it. But they have no chance, the numbers are clear
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It reminds me of something a young colleague once said to me: Business would be great if it weren't for the customers.
It goes without saying that goes double for colleagues and triple for bosses. The problem people in general. Dealing with them is a pain. In a world where the nail that sticks up gets hammered down, you might as well have AI producing all that mediocrity.
Who will pay for it? (Score:2)
For me return to office is:
1. 2h more needed for preparation and travel to and from office
2. more time wasted on office chit-chats
Will employer pay for the 1st? Will it accept loss of productivity due to to the 2nd?
Re:Who will pay for it? (Score:5, Interesting)
For me return to office is:
1. 2h more needed for preparation and travel to and from office 2. more time wasted on office chit-chats
Will employer pay for the 1st? Will it accept loss of productivity due to to the 2nd?
Not all employers will see 2. as lost productivity. Idle chit-chat builds personal relationships that make working together work more smoothly. Also, the better employees also use office chit-chat for various minor adjustments and minor innovations that improve your process. Even IT is ultimately about people doing work.
On 1.: one way or another, employers will pay at least part of it. Less in a cool job market, sadly, but even then employers still face costs. More commute time reduces the labor pool, and a less friendly/flexible work environment (than your competitors) increases churn. Both increase the cost of doing business.
The nasty bit (for employees) is that these costs are not directly attributed to an employer being an asshole.
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Re 2. Depends on your job.
I am doing work requested by my employer's customer...
I am not sure how my going to the office of my employer would make my work smoother if I do the work for people at customer's office in different location...
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Re 2. Depends on your job.
I am doing work requested by my employer's customer...
I am not sure how my going to the office of my employer would make my work smoother if I do the work for people at customer's office in different location...
Exactly.
Turns out the web servers (development, staging, and production) are still remote, lol
Re:Who will pay for it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not all employers will see 2. as lost productivity. Idle chit-chat builds personal relationships that make working together work more smoothly. Also, the better employees also use office chit-chat for various minor adjustments and minor innovations that improve your process.
We've honestly found that both of those also happen on Teams quite effectively. Especially when you have an idle chitchat channel, and various channels devoted to work topics.
Also a weekly (mostly) fun all staff remote meeting, for the audio/visual part.
For me honestly it happens better remotely. I can crack a better joke or tell a better story over chat than I can in person, despite the famous reputation of us programmers for being smooth talking party animals, lol
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How did it work before the pandemic.
Badly.
Now you want more when in fact working from home you should be getting less?
It's called "negotiation" and it's a two-way street. How much I should get paid is primarily a function of supply-and-demand in the labor market, and my skill set. The employer is free to propose a reduced salary in return for remote work, and I am free to propose that I work for someone else instead (who will give me the deal I want).
There is nothing intrinsically wrong or selfish with wa
Re:Who will pay for it? (Score:5, Insightful)
ah remember the good ol times when you had to work from childhood, 16 hours a day, and sleep on the floor next to the machine because the employer wanted it that way.
things are what they are and they cannot be changed, ever.
Fuck you.
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Yeah, I can see how easy that is. Especially when you're in security, companies that don't cater to the wishes of their security personnel are finding that they're without security personnel and curiously cannot find any willing to work for them, unless they are willing to pay rates that border on insane.
But hey, principles are more important than money, right? Anyone would be willing to pay 150% market rates to stick with outdated employment models, right?
Re:Who will pay for it? (Score:5, Insightful)
1) no 2) it already has in the past and does now. 3) freedom works both ways. businesses are free to require their employees to work at a specific location. employees are free to look for another job if their employer wants them to be in the office. see how easy that is?
This kind of attitude is a prelude to whines of "Why does no-one want to work" or "why is it so hard to find good people (read: serfs)".
Good people will find jobs where they can continue to work from home. Mediocre people will return to the office because they know they aren't that good... Bad people will love returning to the office where they can slack off and make it look like they're working by hiding amongst the productive but mediocre crowd.
The departure from office hubs like London, New York, et al. was underway before the pandemic because property prices were driving people every further out. The pandemic just accelerated this.
The thing is, if I were to return to an office it would cost me an additional £5-7000 in travelling expenses and other additional costs (lunches), not to mention the 1-2 hours a day I'd lose. So an office based job would need to pay me an additional £10,000 p/a (incl. tax) to get me back there. Unless a company is willing to stump up more (as my free time is also cut) I don't see why I should. OTOH, companies willing to have me work remote know they can get better people with smaller salaries because even though it's 5K less, that's still money back in their pocket (not to mention the time, did I mention the time I spend not commuting).
Given, that like a lot of office workers it really doesn't matter where I do my work, it seems a lose/lose to try to force people back to the office.
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So an office based job would need to pay me an additional £10,000 p/a (incl. tax) to get me back there. Unless a company is willing to stump up more (as my free time is also cut) I don't see why I should. OTOH, companies willing to have me work remote know they can get better people with smaller salaries because even though it's 5K less, that's still money back in their pocket (not to mention the time, did I mention the time I spend not commuting).
Not to mention, money not spent is essentially tax free. If you have to go into the office, the company would have to pay you that plus enough to cover the taxes for that sum.
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If you think slackers won't find a way to slack off in the office... you might just be a manager.
It really is that simple (Score:5, Interesting)
Heck, even unskilled jobs which actually can't be worked from home are rapidly becoming unfillable (e.g. restaurants can't find permanent staff) now that folks have had a taste of the good life.
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Re: Who will pay for it? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Oh look , another anti-social aspie demonstrates their mental health problems.
I appreciate your offer to pay for the cost of therapy for autistic citizens.
Re:Who will pay for it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh look , another anti-social aspie demonstrates their mental health problems.
Guess what - those of us who understand the concept of human interaction actually quite like those chit chats. They oil the wheels of co-operation.
Another one of you tiresome office socialites who thinks that work is your personal punch social where you can gossip about sports, your weekend, or whatever and anyone who doesn't want to do that with you must be an "anti-social aspie" with mental health problems.
It's such a stupid premise, based entirely on arrogance, that the lack of interest anyone has in being chummy with you at work means that there is something wrong with them when there is a much simpler explanation. You're not that interesting, you're highly annoying to be around because you never shut the fuck up, and people generally don't like you because you're an insufferable twat.
Your attitude smacks of someone who asks someone else on a date and, upon being rejected, automatically assumes that person bats for whichever team you're not on and there can never be any other explanation. Get over yourself.
Or... (Score:2)
"because you're not getting the right people who need to collaborate... What we're seeing that's more successful is when companies are using some form of analytics" to determine which workers need to come in on the same days, Cross said."
Or... and I know this is just crazy talk but maybe, just maybe, you aren't seeing this benefit because there isn't one. Maybe the only one who wants this 'benefit' is the lonely workaholic middle manager. I was already remote before the pandemic and don't see it changing an
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Say it like it is, the useless middle manager who realizes he's utterly and completely useless as soon as he can't walk around the hall and pretend to offer his "sage wisdom" to his workers, because at home, they just don't accept his calls, knowing that the bullshit he spouts only distracts them from getting their work done.
And they are afraid that the upper echelons notice their utter and total uselessness.
Re:Or... (Score:5, Insightful)
Say it like it is, the useless middle manager who realizes he's utterly and completely useless
Without middle management, you'd have to deal directly with upper management [bbc.com] who doesn't have the tolerance for your bullshit.
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Upper management is where I go when another middle manager tries to get me fired and I need to get him fired. I'm on first name terms with my CISO, not only for that reason.
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This just in - middle managers report that middle managers are the most important employees a company has!
Film at 11.
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Without middle management, you'd have to deal directly with upper management who doesn't have the tolerance for your bullshit.
It's vice versa, actually.
Have been working remotely since Feb 2020 (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably doing what they always do... (Score:5, Insightful)
When the tech companies say they can't find workers it is always the same thing. They are just setting it up for a claim they can't find workers who meet the office requirements so they can import more on VISAs and further dilute the market.
The cost of groceries has doubled in about 2 years. Since salaries have not there is no reason to allow immigration to fill positions until they've caught up.
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Why can't we replace the CEOs with cheap immigrant labors? I mean, we could replace most of them with magic-8-balls, can't be that much worse if using some immigrants who don't speak the language.
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Just add "work 100% office" to "10 years of experience with a technology that only existed for 5 years" and "10 years experience, not older than 25" to the list of impossible demands and call it a day.
You know what would help? (Score:5, Insightful)
Rail workers wanted sick leave. They threatened a strike. Biden couldn't let them strike, because it would wreck the economy. So him & Congress used the deals they had with the Rail workers (the gov't guarantees their pensions in return for say in when they strike) to halt the strike.
But it didn't end there. Biden kept fighting for the rail workers and got them their sick leave. Why? Well, partly because Biden is, for all his faults, a Union man, but also because it's a well organized group of voters!
Divided we beg, united we bargain.
Don't go back (Score:3)
At this point, if you are still working from home, you can safely ignore these threats. They've been issuing them for years now, if they haven't fired you already, then they need you and won't.
Companies bluffed, employees called it. I'm not sure why they keep bluffing, or why yet another attempt doomed to failure is news, but here we are.
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Because it's the only thing they know. They only know threatening to fire you as a means to whip you back into obedience.
I have no idea how long it will take them to realize that everyone knows their threats are empty, but hey, at least they're entertaining when they pretend they wear clothes, when everyone sees their naked ass.
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If your skill set is in high enough demand, you'll still be working from home after the next layoff.
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Dare you.
It should be easy to find a security professional with over 15 years of experience and a background in financial auditing and law that asks for less than 75% of the going rate of either of those three.
You think you'd be the first manager that tried to fire me that I got fired?
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25% is quite a sum in this regard, as you might imagine. And like I said, 25% for either of the three. The combination, I noticed, is exceedingly rare and in incredible demand, if my inbox is any hint. Hell, I recently had a recruiter write me a poem in the vain hope that I'd reply to him...
And how is it strange to come from me? Did you have me pegged as some sort of socialist? I just understood capitalism and decided to use it in my favor. What exactly seems to be the problem? Supply and demand works both
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They've already tried that bluff, it didn't work, and doesn't make sense even from the company's point of view.
After several failed threats, it is clearly apparent the companies need these employees, and the managers know it, making these employees more protected from layoffs than anyone else. If that wasn't the case, they would have been laid off after the first round of threats. Or the second round, or the fourteenth.
If you're trying to save money with a layoff, the employees that don't use any office sup
I don't care about your productivity (Score:2)
...any more than you care about me.
I believe your "collaborative effects" the second YOU spend a month in open plan hell and then we'll talk about how wonderful it is. If you still think it's great, perfect, I'll take your office and you work from there now.
Deal?
If not, fuck off!
Yep, we sure are :) (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the benefits of working for a small(er) company ... so far the boss has just said he'd very much "like" us to be more in the office.
I nod my head sagely ... and then don't go in.
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Ever asked him why?
I'd SO love to finally hear a really good reason for RTO. So far, nothing.
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Ever asked him why?
I'd SO love to finally hear a really good reason for RTO. So far, nothing.
No, I don't want to help him hone his arguments, lol
He's only given the vague generalities about synergy, etc. He's a very smart guy, but like so many, seems to turn that off when it comes to this subject.
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He's only given the vague generalities about synergy
Next time he does that, send him this link [youtube.com].
It sounds like he is dishonest about his actual motivations. I don't want to put you into any uncomfortable situations, and I don't know your situation, but I would have said "cut the bullshit and call a spade a spade, what's your fucking reason?"
Then again, I know that they don't want to fire me for whatever reason, so... you might not want to do that. Or word it more diplomatically.
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For us it is 100% about needing to mentor and train junior engineers. We have a demographic shift that will force junior staff to step up significantly and faster compared to their predecessors. It is not happening with WFH, and it is less effective with hybrid schedules.
Sure the senior engineers can WFH and fill all their core responsibilities... but that has limited efficacy if they are retiring in 10 years and their replacements need 10 years to step up to their level-- faster than the senior engineers e
In reality... (Score:3)
There's a lot of vehemence on both sides. That said, I read a thoughtful article - backed up with data from the guy's company - that pointed out what maybe should be obvious. Employees fall into three categories: (a) Those who are unproductive, no matter where they are, (b) Those who are productive, no matter where they are, and (c) those who are productive, but only if someone is prodding them.
That last category is bigger than WFH fans want to admit.
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That last category doesn't really exist, even. You'll find that most of them are in category a, and in an office environment, they just pretend harder to be useful.
Re:In reality... (Score:5, Insightful)
Employees fall into three categories: (a) Those who are unproductive, no matter where they are, (b) Those who are productive, no matter where they are, and (c) those who are productive, but only if someone is prodding them.
The last category mainly exists in the minds of micromanagers, who would insist that their micromanaging has a positive effect on their team. But it has little to do with reality.
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There's a lot of vehemence on both sides. That said, I read a thoughtful article - backed up with data from the guy's company - that pointed out what maybe should be obvious. Employees fall into three categories: (a) Those who are unproductive, no matter where they are, (b) Those who are productive, no matter where they are, and (c) those who are productive, but only if someone is prodding them.
That last category is bigger than WFH fans want to admit.
But in tech, that last category is completely lost in the noise compared with the fourth category, which you conveniently omitted: people who are productive, but only if they aren't constantly being distracted by things going on around them. That fourth group includes everyone with any sort of ADHD and people on the autism spectrum — two groups that are significantly overrepresented in the tech workforce compared with the general population.
Why workers aren't going back to work (Score:3)
You don't have to read the whole article to understand the problem, just this one paragraph:
A year later, Targos said she’s found it tough caring for three toddlers even with the help of her husband and a nanny, but she relishes that she’s always nearby when her babies need her. With President Biden calling for federal workers to return to offices this fall, she may soon have to brave a two-hour commute through Chicago rush hour and rework her child-care plan — or consider a more drastic change.
Today's American families want to have everything: a house in the suburbs, two cars in the garage, children, and well-paying jobs to afford it all. But today in 2023, it's practically impossible to have all of this. Suburban homes are too expensive. Cars are too expensive. Children are expensive. And jobs (that pay enough) are too far a drive away from suburbia. Typically, the only way to make this all work is with daycare. But daycare is expensive, and there's more demand than there is supply.
(Not to mention the fact that the economics of daycare are practically impossible in America. When I was a child, daycare was neighborhood mothers grouping together and organizing a schedule to watch each others kids. Today's daycare is an organized service that either has to be so expensive that it's unaffordable to middle-class America, or that the workers don't get paid enough money to also live middle class lifestyles. Not to mention that one mistake in handling how you care for a child can lead to the state shutting the whole place down.)
But if one can work from home, that lets you have your job and get paid for it too. And you can watch your kids. Which makes that $500,000 home in the suburbs just a little bit more affordable.
Honestly, I don't think we'd be having this conversation if homes and cars weren't so damn expensive.
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That's not even the case.
Two cars in the garage? What garage? What house? The average GenZ cannot BUY a house because he just can't get a mortgage to buy one. So why should he care about your job? You fire him? He doesn't give a fuck. He'll crash on his buddy's couch. The same buddy that crashed on his couch 6 months ago when it was the other way around. His belongings fit into a few boxes, because he doesn't own anything, and he never will. And he fucking KNOWS that.
You cannot blackmail them. "Put your nos
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The oldest of GenZ is 24. Of course they don't own anything of substance... YET! At 24 how much loot had you acquired? It takes time. Kids today expect to start out in a house just like they had growing up. They expect it to be in the hot metro area they grew up in. In CA, they expect it to be near the beach, too. Well, you gotta start at the bottom and work your way up. Room up with a few friends, then get a condo, then a house. It might take 10 years but you can get there. All this fatalistic stuff
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We've heard this before. Millenials are just as fucked, despite being older.
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Perhaps the real news should be that Gen Z has figured out how to use birth control [csusb.edu]. I know tons of Xers who had their kids by accident, apparently unplanned pregnancy is way down in Gen Z.
Grow the Fuck Up. (Score:5, Interesting)
And though executives like Meta's Mark Zuckerberg have argued that the rise of flexible work has had a deleterious effect on productivity, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that labor productivity rose 3.7 percent in the second quarter of 2023 and is up 1.3 percent compared to this time last year.
When even one of the largest employers on the planet cannot prove that "productivity" has fallen, then you already know what they're protecting.; Middle-Earth cube farmers who's "job" is to police grown-ass adults and represent themselves as necessary components of "management" that has otherwise proven themselves to be cannon fodder after a pandemic validated what Microsoft RDP proved 20 fucking years ago.
That grown-ass employee, doesn't need a cube farmer. If "management" thinks you do, you don't hire employees. You hire children.
Grow the fuck up. All of you.
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And even if, why would any worker give more of a fuck about their "productivity" than they give about their workers? We have been shown time and again that we're just replaceable pieces in their machine.
Well, your machine is just as replaceable for us. If your productivity plummets and your company crashes, who gives a fuck? NEXT!
We have arrived at the point where more companies are vying for qualified labor. I don't care any more about your survival than you cared about mine when it was the other way aroun
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You bring fair points, but we as a nation should also be respectful of history. The last time our country was this polarized about the abuse of resources, a Civil War broke out as a result.
(I really don't know how that would even be executed today, since the most popular exercise routine of the day consists of thumbs, thumbs, and thumbs. Maybe if we PPV battlebots so we can fund a drone program for food delive, er I mean attack the enemy...)
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I'm sitting an ocean away from that country, mind you, the last time I was in the US was almost 2 decades ago. And I can't really say I miss it.
But reading your comment again... are you sure you're replying to the correct post? I don't quite get the connection...
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You're demanding that Zuckerberg prove something about productivity in his specific company and citing a macroeconomic number as evidence that he's wrong. That would not be a valid argument even if the trend was going the way you want. Total productivity is summed across the entire economy, and Facebook could have a very different number, or even different direction, than the whole economy.
Can you prove that the productivity growth is not because people are returning to their offices?
The group I work with
Is "free food" enough? (Score:3)
Going into the office costs me £60 in train fairs, or about £25 in petrol + parking if I drive in.
The food that I eat during daytime hours costs about £6 - £7.
Re:Is "free food" enough? (Score:5, Informative)
Free food does not buy my time.
An hour of time in my department costs about 250 bucks. Internally. We charge very different rates to customers, but let's not be greedy.
The average worker here spends about 5-6 hours a week commuting. Let's be generous and say that that's about 300 hours a year.
If the company is willing to pay everyone 75,000 more per year (after tax, of course), I'm sure we can work something out.
Why not work-from-overseas? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
If work from home is workable and efficient, why won't companies gradually shift to hiring workers from countries with much lower wages?
They already are doing that. They are outsourcing everything they can while simultaneously claiming they can't get good work from their employees out of the office. HTH, HAND.
Re: (Score:2)
What you're dealing with here is a time shift problem and a cultural problem. A lot of companies realized that yes, that's a reason not to do that.
Outsourcing your jobs to a country that may or may not be hostile to your country, and hence their workers not giving half a shit about you, if not outright feeling like their patriotic duty is to screw you over, may not be in your interest.
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Been there, done that.
1/3 of my team is 1000 miles away in a different country, the other 1/3 is 200 miles away in another country, and management is concerned about collaboration among that remaining third who are within 50 miles but not coming into office. Sane minds would conclude the management is spewing BS.
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Same here.
A considerable portion of our security team is sitting one country away, for financial reasons (read: They're much cheaper). Trying to get the rest of us to come to the office is an exercise in futility because we DO expect to hear a good reason why we should if the people we work with aren't there either way.
So far, no explanation was offered. And so far, nobody RTO for exactly that reason.
Downsizing the office instead (Score:2)
We have 1/10 the people going into the office. So they are moving to a smaller office space. They save rent, heat, cooling, electricity, internet capacity.
When you don't own the building and engineer types run the business, you see logical solutions
Old news (Score:2)
This isn't news anymore. People who won't come to the office are self-selecting themselves from promotions. After a few more years in their dead end jobs, they'll either still be happy -- in which case you put them on maintaining and bug fixing -- or they'll be wanting to get back on track -- in which case they'll be back in the office.
The market knows how to sort this kind of thing. Give it a rest.
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That's not always how it works. I recently retired, but my last three jobs were fully remote: Third-last one because of COVID and the following two because I specifically selected remote jobs.
I had 33+ years of experience, 19 of them running my own company, and am extremely skilled at what I do. Any employer who wanted me in the office would simply have missed out on that expertise. I wasn't looking for career advancement because I was already at the top of my career. If you don't mind missing out on
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This isn't news anymore. People who won't come to the office are self-selecting themselves from promotions.
And the companies that insists on RTO are self-selecting themselves to going out of business cuz their competition allows remote working saves on both rent and salary, they can hire better people at lower cost.
After a few more years, RTO companies can have their great time laying off remote workers as they are losing business had to cut cost (oh, but not office rent, not that!), and those workers just hop right to their competition (if they had not done that earlier).
Re:Old news (Score:5, Interesting)
David Brooks recently wrote a piece advising young people to pay less attention to careers and more to having a family. It's funny because he and I are exactly the same age, but he doesn't seem to have noticed the transformation in working that has occurred over our lifetime. People don't go straight from high school to the mill, or college to the firm, and spend a lifetime working for the same company, or at most two or three companies. Everything is a gig, and if a Gen Z doesn't carve out a career for himself he's got no stability in his future economic prospects at all. Stability is what encourages people to take the plunge and have kids.
Brooks isn't alone; the people who have *wrought* this change still expect the kind of loyalty from employees they got in the 1970s, while offering none of the things employees got in enchage for that loyalty. Many workers don't even know how many hours they'll get next week, if any.
The unintended consequence is that firms don't have the leverage over labor they used to. You can't make someone return to the office if they dont' want to, because they're probably *already* looking for another job.
An existential threat for many (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Commute (Score:2)
The solution is simple, if an employer wants office workers to come in to the office, they pay for the employee's time, maybe time and a half (hazard pay) for the time spent commuting. Commute time to work is work time. Remote work might start to look better to them then.
Re: (Score:2)
-It goes both ways.
But why? (Score:2)
What is the point in forcing people to commute when most of the time working from home/anywhere is good enough?
It is as if the company needed traffic jams and wasted (unpaid) hours in their human plaintiff coming and going everyday (and the added stress). Especially with American suburbia...
I happen to work from home because I'm in a country with a broken economy, which makes me a cheaper hire. In turn, i earn much more there than i could in any local company.
To me not having to commute to the workplace add
Re: (Score:3)
> What is the point in forcing people to commute when most of the time working from home/anywhere is good enough?
Because their buddies in the chamber of commerce that own the real estate, shops and restaurants in the downtown area asked them to bring back foot traffic.
It's not the workplace, it's the commute. (Score:3)
I don't mind my workplace, it's nice enough. It's the 1.5hr commute that's a hard no.
Bad Statistic (Score:2)
"data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that labor productivity rose 3.7 percent in the second quarter of 2023 and is up 1.3 percent compared to this time last year."
Bad statistic. First, that 3.7 percent is entirely meaningless; it's only put there to confuse you. You HAVE to compare the same times of year. 1.3 percent is the better number.
And that 1.3 percent isn't from workers being more productive at home... it is the labor shortage. [newsweek.com] If there are only two cashiers in a grocery store and a sig
Re: (Score:2)
That's not the only increase in productivity you see from a WFH environment.
I don't know about you, but I usually get hungry around 4pm. At the office, that means somehow killing two more hours, then getting home as fast as I can to finally get some food.
At home it means I do a quick fridge raid, return to the computer and continue working 'til 8.
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Because the company doesn't like breadcrumbs in their keyboards.
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Because the company doesn't like breadcrumbs in their keyboards.
So don't eat over the keyboard. Put down a napkin on your desk and put your food there. It's as I tell the people I support, "Keep your drink an arm's length away from your machine."
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Me, I just have a spare keyboard at hand in case the one I use now gets damaged.
Why companies can't afford a 10 bucks investment when even I can at home is beyond me.
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...why didn't you bring a snack from home to eat?
1) He doesn't know what he wants until he wants it. At home, he can decide on the spur of the moment.
2) The company doesn't provide a full-size refrigerator per-employee to store everything he has at home.
3) He doesn't want to buy duplicates of everything he has at home, just to cover his bases. Even if he did, it's expensive and stupid. He's already stocked his house or (shudder) apartment.
4) Even if the company provides a refrigerator at work, coworkers may contaminate it. This has been known to happen b
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At home it means I do a quick fridge raid, return to the computer and continue working 'til 8.
Lol fuck that.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't mind working late hours. 8pm, no problem 8am, you better have a really, really, REALLY good reason to wake me up.
I pulled the life jackpot, I have a job that I really, really enjoy. I love my work. The main difference between a workday and a holiday is mostly that at a workday, I'm working from about 9am while during a holiday, I prefer to sleep in and only sign on around noon. I'm aware that this is a very rare exception, but yes, I do enjoy what I get paid for.
Don't tell my boss, or he might notic
Re: who needs commuting (Score:2)
So you start at 9 and work until 8? Unless you're taking a three hour lunch, you're doing a lot of work for free.
Four-day week (Score:2)
Some jurisdictions' overtime laws allow employers to assign a 40-hour week as 10 hours a day, four days a week.
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The days I don't go to work are the days I can actually work longer hours because I don't need to commute to work. I live fairly close but still it's a significant difference.
Huh? How does that work? You take the time it takes to get to work out of your total work hours? Or are you working more hours at home but getting paid the same? Either one doesn't make sense.