[HN Gopher] You can't lure employees back to the office
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You can't lure employees back to the office
Author : CrankyBear
Score : 87 points
Date : 2021-12-20 21:16 UTC (1 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (www.zdnet.com)
| codegeek wrote:
| Here we go with the whole "100% remote or nothing" thing. There
| are plenty of reasons why it cannot work:
|
| - Entry Level employees who have never worked remote and need a
| lot of training/guidance. Their chance of failure goes up
| significantly if they have to wfh.
|
| - Some people prefer to work from office as their home situation
| is not conducive for remote work. Lot of young people or even
| families literally live in shitty/tiny apartments where they
| hardly have space for desk.
|
| - Some people just prefer to work from dedicated office even
| though they CAN work from home (I am one of those). Social
| animals. Whatever you wanna call them. I love interacting with my
| team, co workers etc.
|
| - Some people actually enjoy a reasonable commute on a
| train/subway/bike etc. Yes, shocking right ? It allows them to
| get out of their house, get fresh air and take their minds off
| their house a little.
|
| I keep saying this and will say it. This is not a binary thing.
| The best option is Hybrid where it should be a combination and
| people should have flexibility. Keyword is flexibility. I am
| however getting tired of this "100% remote is the future blah
| blah" crowd.
| kozikow wrote:
| Working in the software company management, I think 100% remote
| is not great either. We developed a policy that Mondays are
| required, Wednesday are encouraged, rest is work from home. We
| have some fully-remote employees.
|
| When there was a long period of 100% remote during Covid, there
| were some issues:
|
| - Spontaneous interactions: Someone complaining over the lunch
| about issues with some library, just as a small talk. Someone
| else says, "hey, have you tried X instead?". Someone joking about
| product feature that actually ends up being a good idea. Ask for
| some feedback on what you're working. Discuss some issues over
| the lunch. In remote-only setting, everything requires setting up
| a meeting. That often formalizes everything, and less things end
| up being discussed.
|
| - Morale : Working with everyone in the office is somehow good
| for team building. Maybe Morale was lower just because Covid was
| bad for everyone, but most people would admit they experienced
| it.
|
| - Developing team connections: If you know someone in person, it
| feels easier to ask them for help, etc. Some ideas posted online,
| like shared board game via zoom is really far away from in-person
| interactions.
|
| - Some people are quite good at focusing at home. It varies
| person by person. We have some people, who are great at fully
| remote work. In my case, when I am at work, I am working. When I
| am at home, I much often end up doing stuff like reading HN.
|
| I am not saying it's not possible to work around those somehow.
| We tried several ideas posted online, in some books like REMOTE:
| Office Not Required, but it didn't work for us.
| standardUser wrote:
| As soon as a requirement is made that an employee be in the
| office on a semi-regular basis, remote works is no longer an
| option. Frequent WFH days are still possible, sure, but that is
| a different beast than remote work.
|
| I wonder how much of the benefits you describe could be gained
| by instead flying everyone out for two weeks to work together
| in an office, maybe 3 or 4 times every year.
| bidivia wrote:
| >Some people are quite good at focusing at home. It varies
| person by person. We have some people, who are great at fully
| remote work.
|
| I am really good at focusing at home NOW but it took lots of
| training to be good at.
|
| People are taught to read and write or ride a bicycle but are
| expected to be productive working from home from day 1.
| xeromal wrote:
| Yeah, I agree with you and would push that point a little
| further to say that social interaction at work is necessary for
| a subset of humans. I know it is for me and I love having at
| least 1 or 2 days of social interaction that I don't even get
| hanging with my family.
| kozikow wrote:
| We had one guy, who completely isolated himself from the
| world for 6 months during Covid. Total 0 interaction - he
| even ordered groceries online and he would wait a few days
| before unpacking them.
|
| Before Covid he was great. During the isolation he developed
| mental health issues. We tried to help, offered paid sick
| leave for a while, but eventually we couldn't help. He is
| unemployed for last few months. I meet with him sometimes,
| but he is still unfit to work. I can't think of something I
| could do now.
| whatshisface wrote:
| I'm curious which was the cause and which was the effect.
| ldiracdelta wrote:
| I'm not. Solitary Confinement in prisons is so horrific
| to most prisoners, that they'd rather be in a den of
| predators with the possibility of getting raped than be
| in Solitary Confinement.
| twox2 wrote:
| That's rough, and I'm sorry to hear that about your
| colleague. No one is beyond developing mental health issues
| in trying times... but do you think it would have saved him
| if he had to come into the office once a week? I have my
| doubts.
|
| Personally, I don't think having to do that would improve
| anything for me either. I love being full remote and after
| having gotten used to it even mandatory mondays seems like
| they would be an unnecessary burden... but all teams are
| created different.
| kreeben wrote:
| Thank you for your point of view. It was lovely of you to share
| it.
|
| I'm going to paraphrase:
|
| >> Some are allowed to work from home, others aren't
|
| I'm guessing the people who insist they continue working from
| home, if they bring in enough money to the company, they are
| allowed to and the ones who you feel needs to be managed, by a
| manager, old-school way, until they become such a valuable,
| income bringing member of your team, aren't.
|
| I at least hope this will become old-school. I know that for
| me, I'm not going back to the open, life-crushing and money-
| saving open-office, ever. Yes, yes, I'm a privileged piece of
| this and that and I should be thankful that I have a job and
| all that. But on the other hand, since I'm once of those sought
| after persons, since I'm both a dev AND I've experience, I
| don't quite buy into that.
|
| But this is just my personal feelings on the matter. Maybe I'm
| being selfish and I'm taking advantage of the situation, but so
| are you, I feel.
|
| I hope to live long enough to see lots of change in the work
| place and I hope and believe you will enjoy them as much as I
| will.
| firebaze wrote:
| With this policy, you'll keep the 20% capable staff. Anyone
| else (except a few both too afraid to leave and too comfy with
| their current pay) will leave.
|
| That'll leave you with a few 10x staff, too lazy to leave, but
| capable, and a lot of ballast.
| adjkant wrote:
| Your points weighs heavily on a lot of implicit parts of the
| value equation you left out.
|
| 1. That 20% number. What if it's 40%? 50%?
|
| 2. How easy/quick is it to replace the people you will lose
| who don't prefer this work style?
|
| 3. What percentage of your current workforce likes the
| environment as described? Maybe hiring off the street is 20%,
| but you've already selected for 80% through other selection
| factors.
|
| Basically, at what point does the value gained from the in
| person work / setup overtake the loss of potential workforce?
| You're making an argument for why some people won't want to
| work there, but so long as the environment is not
| discriminating on things like race/gender/ability, a partial
| in person setup may actually be the right call for some
| teams/companies, without any "luring" needed.
|
| I say all this as someone who primarily prefers to work at
| home now, but goes into the office once a week or so without
| any requirement to do so. I agree with OP's initial points a
| lot, though I think I would lean less towards requirements
| and more towards guides.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| For 1 it's the Pareto distribution. I've seen it normal
| that 80% of the people do 20% of the work, and the top 20%
| do 80% of it. He's saying you'll keep the lower 80%.
| chefkoch wrote:
| I think you underestimate how many people like the
| socialising in the office if you have a relativly short
| commute.
| nightski wrote:
| I used to like it. About 10 years ago I went into
| consulting from home. I've developed much richer
| friendships outside of the office and like to go out in the
| evenings with them instead of coworkers. I've also become
| more engaged with my local technology/software community.
| It's nice to be able to lose a client or job and not worry
| about losing my friends.
|
| YMMV.
| codegeek wrote:
| Now think about you when you did like it. What was your
| situation/life back then ? There are plenty of people who
| are you from that time. They do like going into office.
| So the argument here is that it is not one size fits all
| and just like there are plenty of arguments FOR wfh,
| there are plenty against it. YMMV
| kozikow wrote:
| I forgot to add that our office is not in San Francisco, so
| you can get decently priced apartment within walking distance
| to the office, without people injecting heroin at your front
| door and a good public transport.
| cesarb wrote:
| > Spontaneous interactions: Someone complaining over the lunch
| [...] In remote-only setting, everything requires setting up a
| meeting. That often formalizes everything, and less things end
| up being discussed.
|
| Our team scheduled a daily half-hour meeting early in the
| morning with no set agenda, to try to replace all these casual
| interactions until we can go back to hybrid. It's not perfect,
| but it helped.
| onion2k wrote:
| _We developed a policy that Mondays are required, Wednesday are
| encouraged, rest is work from home._
|
| I find this sort of policy fascinating. You say people are
| required to be on site every Monday, but what would happen if
| they said no? Would you fire them and go through the pain and
| expense of replacing them? Or is it "required" in the "we'll
| say it in the hope no one actually questions it" sense?
| kozikow wrote:
| Some people are fully remote and only meet with a team once
| in a while and that's ok. You can say "I will WFH on Monday,
| because I am waiting for sofa delivery". It is not a big
| company and we don't have anything formalized. We have about
| 80-90% people in the office on Mondays, 50-70% on Wednesdays,
| 20-40% on other days and it works out OK.
| adjkant wrote:
| Curious why this is downvoted, it seems like a valid question
| here of how to handle a situation that may arise. I like a
| lot of these rules but could see myself hitting these. What
| if I "can't make" 25% of Mondays. What about half? What's the
| general force behind the policy? That's a big part of the
| design here.
| joelbondurant wrote:
| abraxas wrote:
| Could start with not making them such awful places to work by
| getting rid of those awful open floor plans. Want people back in
| offices? How about building some rather than having big cattle
| herd areas where every sound and germ travels for miles in every
| direction.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Nearly all of my short term resistance is because of the
| environment temperature and low quality of drinking water (bad
| tasting mineral water and often contaminated by plastic
| bottles).
| BrazzVuvuzela wrote:
| It's also important to consider that many people don't have
| homes that are conducive to working, because there are many
| other people in the house, or because they don't have the space
| for a dedicated office, or any other number of reasons. This
| isn't applicable to everybody obviously, but offices should be
| able to compete on these fronts.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| >many people don't have homes that are conducive to working
|
| That's because (up until this shift) they have been forced to
| live in close proximity to offices. For the price of a
| downtown apartment, you can live in a suburb or rural area
| with more space that you could need. The longer this forced
| shift (pandemic) goes on, the more people will move away from
| the poor quality of life cities. Once they get the taste of a
| life without tiny overpriced apartments and time sucking
| commutes, they will only go back if they are forced - i.e.
| don't have the skills to easily jump ship.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Provide a coworking space stipend to everyone, obtained with
| a corporate group rate. It's not "work from home", but rather
| "work from anywhere."
| BrazzVuvuzela wrote:
| That assumes your town has such coworking facilities. Maybe
| a safe assumption in cities, but definitely not in all
| towns nor for people living in more rural areas. And if
| you're going to commute to a coworking office in the same
| city that your normal office would be in anyway, it seems a
| bit pointless. A commute is a commute.
| DarylZero wrote:
| Whether you have a "coworking facility" or not, if you're
| simply paid enough money, you can solve the home office
| problem with it.
| Guest42 wrote:
| My experiences in offices have generally involved being
| surrounded by many people who talk rather consistently.
|
| When coupled with surprise meetings that don't pertain
| directly to my projects and the inability to multitask, I
| think that the home office is a net positive.
| davidw wrote:
| A while back, I was sat next to a guy whose actual job was
| cold-calling potential customers for the company. It was...
| trying, although I realized the company's success depended
| on his job as well as mine.
| Guest42 wrote:
| That seems like a job that could easily be remote.
| BrazzVuvuzela wrote:
| Yes well, open office plans and cubicles are awful, no
| argument there. But a real office with a door can be
| attractive relative to the situation many people have at
| home.
| decafninja wrote:
| The odds that employers will offer employees below the
| executive or managerial level private or even semi-
| private offices is extremely low. Personally, I think the
| odds of such a thing happening are lower than WFH
| becoming mainstream.
| falcolas wrote:
| Speaking for myself, I haven't had an office with a door
| for a decade now. And if you go back to the top of my
| white collar career (that is, jobs done from an office
| (or notably, a warehouse)), I've had a door twice.
|
| Ironically enough, I do have a door at home.
| 988747 wrote:
| Speaking from short, few months experience, cubicles are
| actually quite nice compared to open office plans.
|
| - You get plenty of personal space
|
| - My cubicle got both a whiteboard and a bulletin board,
| a locker, two trash bins, and enough desk space to
| comfortably fit a co-worker for short sessions of working
| together
|
| - high walls discourage conversations, so it is actually
| quiet
|
| The biggest disadvantage is artificial lighting - my
| cubicle was quite removed from the windows.
| ghaff wrote:
| I had a classic cubicle for over a decade. Dilbert
| stereotypes aside, it was pretty much OK. The company had
| offices--mostly for managers--but to be honest we also
| had an open door convention (keep the door open unless
| you really needed it closed for some reason--generally
| related to having a private conversation). So you really
| didn't have a situation where people with offices
| generally closed the doors.
| 2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote:
| > open floor plans
|
| This is the part where I personally experienced the most
| friction between the management/lifestyle/trend bubble and
| "boots on the ground" people/devs.
|
| All of a sudden blog posts and news posts popped up that
| claimed how open space is better, everybody loves it and
| everyone should be able to look every coworker in the eye and
| on his monitor, 0 barriers etc. Meanwhile I have yet to meet a
| coworker in real life that prefers or even likes this trend,
| personally I hate it. Makes it hard to focus, turns the
| distractions and noises up to 11 and makes overall for a
| terrible workplace. It was a major reason to quit my last job,
| and I am much happier with my current one.
|
| Similarly I believe that homeoffice has probably sensitized
| many people to terrible workplace environments.
| nostrebored wrote:
| My best workplaces have always been open offices with high
| quality coworkers!
| falcolas wrote:
| And mine have been closed offices with high quality co-
| workers. Followed by closed office with OK co-workers.
|
| I don't think it's the floor plan.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| > Meanwhile I have yet to meet a coworker in real life that
| prefers or even likes this trend, personally I hate it.
|
| I just don't believe this. I would say a good 2/3rd of
| employee's at every job I've worked at preferred the open
| floor plan. The only way I could possibly see not a single,
| not even one, person you've worked with preferring it is if
| you front run the conversation with such a vicious
| condemnation of it that they didn't feel comfortable sharing
| with you.
|
| > Similarly I believe that homeoffice has probably sensitized
| many people to terrible workplace environments.
|
| I'll take a guess that you have extra space and no kids or
| some combination? The feedback I've seen is the exact
| opposite with people realizing how poorly their home setup is
| and how little ability they have to make better.
| 2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote:
| > I'll take a guess that you have extra space and no kids
| or some combination?
|
| Don't misunderstand, I'm not saying "people realize that
| homeoffice is better", I'm just saying people are
| sensitized to poor environments. And homeoffice can come
| with the problem you describe and still be better than the
| workplace.
|
| I did not express my personal opinion on homeoffice vs.
| workplace. But your guess is still wrong.
| machiaweliczny wrote:
| I hate open office. It's required to wear headphones to focus
| or you get migraine. And whole day with headphones is not
| comfy and probably not healthy.
|
| The coolest work I've had outside my personal office was in
| rented house and room per team.
|
| Although having office in city centre has it's perks that you
| could have lunch, beer, meet somewhere after work with
| collegues and I enjoyed that - but I feel it only worked as I
| had mostly same age, childless peers there.
|
| Still commuting kills most of joy. I would move to village
| outide of city if only I could cook. Maybe some tourist place
| in the mountains will work.
| thrower123 wrote:
| If you go to the office nowadays, it's more quiet than a tomb. So
| it's actually not that bad.
| donkey-hotei wrote:
| Unless there is... free food ? That's how I was lured.. However,
| I also live a very short bike ride away from the office.
| baron816 wrote:
| I don't know if this would work, but Google, FB, Apple, et al
| should try to build out live/work communities. Yeah, kind of like
| a company town.
|
| The best part of college is the college campus. I don't know why
| companies don't want to try to replicate that. It would
| definitely be more appealing to younger employees, and I be it
| would get them to stick around much longer.
|
| Imagine being able to walk to work, and having most of your
| coworkers live close by as well. The social bonds you would form
| with people would be much stronger. And moving to that campus to
| start at the company would be less scary knowing that you'd
| quickly get to know and build good relationships with
| coworkers/neighbors.
|
| Yeah, it would mean earning more money might not actually get you
| a nicer living arrangement, since you might not have many choices
| and pretty much everything would be provided for you. I guess
| you'd want to try to figure out the correct mixture (maybe 40% on
| campus 60% off).
| standardUser wrote:
| In San Francisco, tech workers flooded the city specifically
| because they refused to live in the various bedroom communities
| close to their mega-campuses. Hence the widespread emergence of
| shuttles and satellite offices in city centers.
| ptmcc wrote:
| Sounds absolutely dreadful
| MrKristopher wrote:
| In other words, megacorps should buy up / produce all the
| housing so that the employees can't become home owners?
| sharkster711 wrote:
| Most people in the US want to own the house they live in, and
| most would also want to not move when they move jobs. I think
| the campus idea would only appeal to younger folks.
|
| I'd also not like the idea that my life revolves around work -
| and this sounds exactly like that.
| baron816 wrote:
| Ok, I didn't say it should be mandatory.
|
| A lot of people also don't care about owning a house (at
| least right now). A lot of people care about forming good
| relationships, but don't have good ways to do so.
| rbartelme wrote:
| This is an extreme example of what can happen in a "company
| town". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_View_massacre
| lancebeet wrote:
| What about people's spouses or significant others?
| baron816 wrote:
| Easy: the couple wouldn't have to live on the campus.
|
| But I can ask you this: what happens to the significant
| others of people in the military?
| ghaff wrote:
| So companies should be like the military? You sign up for a
| tour of duty, you can't quit, and you move where they tell
| you to?
| FredPret wrote:
| Campus is fun when you're 19, but when you hit 35 and want to
| be more choosey about who you spend your time with, this no
| longer works. You'd have to multiply my salary by ten to get me
| to move to that hell.
| baron816 wrote:
| I never said it should be mandatory, just something employers
| offer and maybe encourage. Companies have a history of
| putting people into "corporate housing", which is expensive.
| You may not like it, but others might.
| tuckerpo wrote:
| I'd come to the office on a daily basis if companies began
| subsidizing my commute. I used to spend nearly 2 hours every day
| sitting in traffic, uncompensated, to get to/from the office.
| That's a _very_ large % of my life doing absolutely nothing of
| value to anyone, pumping emissions into the air.
| decafninja wrote:
| This, though it's public transit for me. Absolute waste of 2-3+
| hours every day commuting to and from Manhattan. Multiply that
| by the number of my fellow Manhattan commuters* and that is a
| gargantuan waste of collective time for everybody.
|
| * (I've observed the vast majority of people that work in
| Manhattan do not live in Manhattan)
| Larrikin wrote:
| Are the passes not atleast tax subsidized? One of the perks I
| miss from the office was the commuter pass.
|
| In Tokyo it was provided from the company, you said what your
| home station was and where your work was, bought the pass at
| the station, and were reimbursed.
|
| Every single station in between was essentially free to go to
| and you got the discounted rates to other stations. It was
| pretty great when I worked in a Roppongi office my last year
| for going out on the weekends.
|
| In Chicago it's a benefit of being able to pay before taxes
| so there's a slight discount, not as great but the passes
| here open up the entire system. When you're commuting it
| makes no sense to not to have the pass, so all your errands
| and weekend travel is covered.
| decafninja wrote:
| Yup, the passes are tax subsidized. The subsidy doesn't
| make up for the sheer amount of misery those commuting
| hours cause though.
|
| I would gladly offer to work 4 additional hours per day if
| it meant I could avoid the commute.
| davidgerard wrote:
| In the UK. My company's dropped a lot of our office space,
| because we have no use for it any more - we've done very well
| in 2020 and 2021 full-remote. But meetings have their place,
| and some teams do better in the office, that's fine. So we
| renovated the space as largely for meetings of various sizes.
|
| So when techies were called into our shiny new meetings-office
| (which is very nice, actually - happy to come in ... maybe
| every couple of months), they were immediately asking "so
| commute time is work time, right?" and "who's paying for my
| train ticket?"
|
| The UK has absolutely proven that work from home is just fine
| and companies can still do super-well.
|
| The big push over here for going back to the office is not from
| the companies - it's from commercial landlords, putting puff
| pieces in the newspapers. The actual companies can do
| arithmetic just fine, and realise that offices on the scale
| they were are just a losing proposition.
| decafninja wrote:
| I don't think the UK is really any special - for better or
| for worse, in this regard. It's probably company or even
| industry specific regardless of country.
|
| My old company (bank) has a huge UK presence. They are
| adamantly anti-WFH whether you're in the US or UK or Asia,
| etc. My understanding is most banks and other financial
| services companies are likewise, and aren't a large number of
| UK SWEs working in finance?
| davidgerard wrote:
| There isn't the same sort of office puff pieces in the UK
| press that the NYT has been running incessantly - mostly
| they're the sort of article that you read and think "did a
| commercial rental building write this".
|
| I'd be interested in how those banks are actually handling
| 2020-2021 here in practice, however anti-WFH they were
| previously.
| decafninja wrote:
| Talking with my former coworkers, I know the bank I used
| to work at as well as others my ex-team have migrated to
| are still insisting they will be 100% work-from-office
| once things return to some sense of normalcy. This policy
| doesn't seem to be different between their US and UK
| locations.
|
| We had a townhall where the CTO first congratulated
| everyone for making 2020 a very productive year - with no
| loss of productivity from WFH. Then concluded by saying
| we would return to 100% work from office ASAP because it
| is scientifically proven by data that working from the
| office is more productive.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Hundreds of people commuting from all over to gather at some
| gigantic corporate center everyday should be a thing of the past.
| It was bad for workers, bad for the environment, bad for
| neighborhoods/housing, and a bunch of overhead for the company to
| deal with.
|
| That said collaboration and socialization are a great part of
| working. My dream is satellite offices, it would be cheap to have
| 10-20 5000 square foot offices spread throughout the bay area
| instead of one giant 50000sf mega office in the heart of downtown
| San Francisco.
| SomewhatLikely wrote:
| And if the team members don't live near that satellite what
| then? Centralized offices at least minimize the expected
| commute for workers randomly scattered around the metro.
| Satellite offices could lead to even longer commute times.
| ericmcer wrote:
| How? They could have a largish satellite in the city itself
| as well... I don't really see how having more offices
| distributed throughout the area would lead to longer
| commutes. They could even scale up/down areas based on
| popularity.
| reustle wrote:
| Local smaller coworking spaces could be a good middle ground
| arcade79 wrote:
| The main reason I miss the office: Meeting my workmates
| regularly.
|
| I want the ability to go to the office most days, while having
| the opportunity to take a couple of days a week from home.
|
| If it wasn't for open floor plans, I'd prefer to go to the office
| _every_ day.
| FredPret wrote:
| I'm the opposite. Even though I'm an extrovert and love people,
| I so excited to never have to meet a colleague in person again.
| ghaff wrote:
| That seems... extreme. I'm fully remote but I love getting
| together with peers (both co-workers and otherwise), quite a
| few of whom are genuine personal friends to greater or lesser
| degrees, at occasional company meetings and at events.
| bluepizza wrote:
| Both you seem... normal. Neither positions are
| unreasonable. Consider that OP's personality could be very
| different from yours - maybe they have a very strong and
| closed circle of established friendships, or a preference
| to keep the personal life unattached from the professional
| life.
|
| Who knows! But it's not extreme.
| ok_dad wrote:
| > That seems... extreme
|
| So does going into an office 5 days a week, or even 2-3,
| for jobs that don't need to be in office, but no one says
| that. Maybe we could all agree that this will take a decade
| or more to shake out, and not just take the (little c)
| conservative view that we need to immediately cease remote
| work because of small issues of coordination? Eventually,
| something in the middle will become the new normal, but for
| now let's not try to force one thing or the other.
| Guest42 wrote:
| Also a positive in that it reduces highway traffic.
| Zanneth wrote:
| One of the problems I noticed with people citing productivity
| statistics is that they always come from surveys of employees who
| are evaluating themselves. I don't know how many people are being
| completely honest about their own productivity when the remote
| work benefits are mostly aligned with their personal goals and
| not necessarily the company's.
|
| Maybe there is a reason why so many more people in leadership
| positions are willing to return to the office compared to lower-
| ranking employees. They see a serious problem with productivity
| that doesn't show up in self-oriented surveys.
| nostrebored wrote:
| I dramatically prefer (open, loud, busy) offices and they have
| always been more productive in my experience.
|
| I go to a WeWork alone just to simulate the ecosystem.
|
| Among people who I bucket into the top 15% of people I have
| worked with wfh preference has been right down the middle.
|
| Among the bottom 15% it's been exclusively wfh preference.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > Among the bottom 15% it's been exclusively wfh preference.
|
| That's what I would expect to be true if the vast majority of
| people have a strong preference for working from home. The
| previous anecdote is more surprising, though I guess I would
| explain it as people who work really hard wanting to be seen
| working really hard. Or, maybe people who are very good at
| their job get pulled in to a lot of meetings, and find it
| easier to do that in person. In any case, I think the tentative
| consensus is that there's some overall productivity increases
| from working from home[1].
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_work#Productivity_and_e
| ...
| [deleted]
| papandada wrote:
| Do you allow for the possibility that you, as someone who
| prefers loud and busy offices and feels more productive in
| such, might have a blind spot in how you "measure" coworkers?
| xeromal wrote:
| In the same way most people on reddit and hackernews preach
| working completely from home. It's a spectrum and everyone
| needs a different approach. I think the hybrid approach fits
| everyone with minimal disruption to each person's
| preferences.
| [deleted]
| ghaff wrote:
| Well, it doesn't suit the preferences of someone who wants
| "their team" back in the office most days. And it may also
| not suit the remotee whose team decides that if they're not
| back in the office just screw them.
|
| But ultimately people who can do so will just have to find
| situations that work for them.
| smugglerFlynn wrote:
| > it may also not suit the remotee whose team decides
| that if they're not back in the office just screw them
|
| that does not sound like a 'team' at all
| ghaff wrote:
| I didn't say it was a fully functional team but if a
| group of people decide that the person who refuses to
| come into the office is more trouble than they're worth,
| it's at least somewhat understandable from their
| perspective.
| SomewhatLikely wrote:
| As someone who has spent 4.5 of the last 7 years working from
| home I'm tired of spending 23+ hour days inside my house. Even
| one day a week in office meaningfully interacting with others
| would help my mood.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| Why not propose a day out with coworkers at a coworking space?
| Compared to a lease, it's basis points on the dollar.
| soared wrote:
| The title of the article doesn't really match the content. The
| article says 34% of workers want to go into the office 3-5 days a
| week. So very clearly you can lure employees back.. because some
| of them do want to go back.
|
| The article has stats about what we're all assuming, namely
| employees want wfh and employers don't. But in no way does it
| attempt to answer/justify the thought provoking question asked in
| the title.
|
| How would I be lured back into the office? As a late 20s male in
| the USA I mostly miss the social aspect of work. I always had
| friends at work (despite what the grumpy people says about
| coworkers being friends), and I miss that. I left a job four
| years ago and still hang out all the time with those old
| coworkers.
|
| I'd also like to not be held to specific hours or days. Breakfast
| and lunch would lure me in, along with high quality coffee. I
| don't mind open floor plans, but do know most people don't like
| them.
| sharadov wrote:
| I miss the social aspect of work, as someone who took a remote
| job about 4.5 yrs back, I don't think most people who have only
| experienced it as a side effect of covid - realize how
| important it is for mental sanity. Yes, I like being at home
| too, but I would prefer hybrid, with no more than 1 to 2 days
| of working in the office.
| [deleted]
| rabuse wrote:
| This is what weekends are for though. I've been remote pretty
| much my entire life, and still socialize a ton.
| dv_dt wrote:
| Yup - create a better work life balance. Work is not a
| substitute for a social life. Work less & socialize after
| hours and on weekends.
| codegeek wrote:
| But that's your opinion and works for you. Why would you
| enforce your opinion on others ? Some people don't have a
| life outside work. It is a reality. Why shame them in "get
| a life" if all they want to do is to socialize a bit at
| work where they spend so much time.
| dv_dt wrote:
| Because it creates an environment to spend more time at
| work and can result in work that is less productive for
| everyone and less healthy.
| codegeek wrote:
| Again, an opinion which you are free to have but you
| cannot speak for others. Lot of people spend time at work
| and feel productive. When they go home, they are home. No
| laptop nothing in many cases. I would rather spend an
| extra hour at work than going home and again working.
| ykevinator2 wrote:
| You nailed this I think it's exactly right.
| keewee7 wrote:
| >despite what the grumpy people says about coworkers being
| friends
|
| Why are Americans so hostile to the idea of being friends with
| coworkers? In Denmark it's pretty common to have a beer with
| coworkers on Fridays and have an annual "Christmas dinner" in
| December or January. Many workplaces also have an annual
| company party.
| ghaff wrote:
| I don't see it as being "hostile to the idea of being friends
| with coworkers." I'm friends with quite a few current and
| former co-workers, mostly who weren't in a local office. It's
| more a pushback against the (perhaps mostly imagined) idea
| that people are arguing that social circles inherently
| revolve around work.
| ghaff wrote:
| This is pretty much what I'm hearing even at a rather remote-
| friendly company. Most people have not up and moved away from
| where they were working--though I know a few who have. And
| pretty much every survey I've seen suggests that the most
| common behavior is going to be people coming into an office two
| or three days a week.
|
| Personally I've gone fully remote but that's what I was
| effectively (though not officially) pre-pandemic. I just never
| bothered to request a status change in the system.
| mkl95 wrote:
| I will happily go back to the office for a life changing raise.
| lovedaddy wrote:
| mrkstu wrote:
| It reads more to me that the terms that the world is giving
| have improved, so the companies have to respond- it should
| and does go both ways with leverage.
| decafninja wrote:
| This is pretty much what happened to me. New company is not
| friendly to WFH except for the occasional day here and there,
| but my compensation has quadrupled. I am not complaining.
| sharkster711 wrote:
| akudha wrote:
| If everyone (whenever possible, obviously a trucker or a nurse
| can't work from home) worked from home, imagine how much better
| off we would all be - traffic would be less, people would eat
| home cooked food, less stress, less office politics, no need to
| pay for office space/coffee/electricity (even toilet paper) ...
| on and on and on. If I were running a software company, I'd
| calculate all these savings and pass it on to my employees and
| retain talent.
|
| I guess the only people who don't like remote is middle
| management, their career depends on dumb meetings and other such
| meaningless things. At home, at least we can mute ourselves and
| do something useful.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| With how I see everyone working during full remote work I think
| having an office will be viewed as a competitive advantage in
| the near future. Going from office mostly remote work will be
| another stage in a companies life-cycle. Cutting edge and heavy
| R&D reinvestment to stable slower long-term growth.
| chefkoch wrote:
| There should be shared office space next or in to the living
| areas so people could still socialice without commute.
| FredPret wrote:
| Take it a step further. No need to live on top of one another
| (unless you like that), no need to live in an unpleasant
| climate, no need to tolerate local politics you don't like,
| etc. An explosion in human freedom.
| akudha wrote:
| Yup, if only we can work from anywhere...
|
| I am flat out refusing non-remote jobs (I was remote even
| before covid) even though I am just an average engineer. One
| recruiter argued with me - she was like "remote workers
| should be paid less", lol. In my opinion, remote workers
| should be paid more, as companies aren't spending on their
| office space, electricity etc.
|
| If our species survives for another 100 or more years, future
| generations will look at our cubicles and laugh. There is
| absolutely no reason for digital workers to go to office
| (with very few exceptions).
|
| The one (only?) good thing that came out of COVID is people
| are realizing a lot of bullshit they have been fed all these
| years about work and are pushing back, though slowly - one of
| them being remote working.
| machiaweliczny wrote:
| Just make it so it's easy to employ people cross borders and
| you are trillionere.
| FredPret wrote:
| ...and on the hit lists of high-tax nations...
| smugglerFlynn wrote:
| Take it a step further. No need to be present in a physical
| world at all, as you can replace all human-to-human
| interactions and other legacy experiences with their digital
| equivalents.
|
| Even food can be delivered to the body via a series of tubes.
| FredPret wrote:
| I'm saying move to Thailand or something, not hook yourself
| up to nutrient tubes and a brain internet interface.
| dageshi wrote:
| I know, it's unironically amazing!
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I'm pretty sure you're trying to paint this as unreasonable
| by extending it, but ... yes? If I could plug my brain into
| the Matrix (without evil AI), I'd totally spend most of my
| time there.
| nickff wrote:
| > _" If I were running a software company, I'd calculate all
| these savings and pass it on to my employees and retain talent.
|
| I guess the only people who don't like remote is middle
| management, their career depends on dumb meetings and other
| such meaningless things. At home, at least we can mute
| ourselves and do something useful. "_
|
| This is the height of foolishness; to dismiss all those
| experienced managers out of hand. If someone far more
| experienced than you has taken a position, you should try to
| understand why a smart person could think that way, before
| calling them 'dumb'.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| Compared to, say, calling something the height of foolishness
| and not knowing the source's experience?
|
| I've had some great middle managers, but I've had far more
| (and even some of the good ones) that the company's and my
| own productivity wouldn't have suffered if that entire layer
| in the organization had never existed.
| inkblotuniverse wrote:
| They're not dumb, but their interests are misaligned with
| yours.
| akudha wrote:
| Experience doesn't necessarily equal to wisdom or smartness.
| I have been working remote for the last 5 years, after
| working in offices for a decade. Guess what advantage the
| office gave me? Nothing. Everything good I did in office I do
| at home, just more efficiently.
|
| Also, you're assuming those "experienced" managers are taking
| a position that is beneficial to everyone. At least in my
| experience, this is not often true. They're doing what they
| need to do, to further their own careers (not faulting them,
| just pointing it out).
|
| I didn't call the managers dumb, I called their meetings
| dumb. One can be super smart and still force dumb meetings,
| if that helps his/her career.
| nickff wrote:
| In person vs. remote has many trade-offs, and different
| situations entail different costs & benefits. 'Software' is
| a big industry, with a wide variety of specific situations.
| I imagine that in general, remote work is likely better for
| big teams working on relatively 'high-certainty' projects
| where they have a high degree of domain-relevant expertise.
| In-person work seems better for more uncertain projects and
| smaller teams which can benefit from greater communication,
| and integrated problem-solving.
|
| I'd be interested to learn more about what types of
| projects you've worked on.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Interesting that you think managers have far more experience
| than ICs
|
| On average, sure. There's not really such a thing as an entry
| level engineering manager.
|
| But in FAANG the majority of managers manage at least one SWE
| with more experience than them.
| tuckerpo wrote:
| Spotted the manager /s
| joelbondurant wrote:
| bennysomething wrote:
| Went back to office for a half day recently. Hated it. It feels
| barbaric .
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| It really does. For me it feels like some relic of a past I
| have no desire to return to.
| [deleted]
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