[HN Gopher] Amazon Andy Jassy shouldn't make RTO decisions in ec...
___________________________________________________________________
Amazon Andy Jassy shouldn't make RTO decisions in echo chamber of
CEOs feelings
Author : pg_1234
Score : 101 points
Date : 2023-09-06 18:20 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (fortune.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (fortune.com)
| purpleblue wrote:
| I personally love working in the office and I hate working from
| home. I worked at a remote-only company during the pandemic and I
| never felt so unproductive, twiddling my thumbs waiting to hear
| back from my coworkers because I didn't know where they were, or
| they would be MIA for hours on end.
|
| However, I don't understand why WFH isn't a discussion entirely
| between the manager and the employee. Why is this something
| that's being mandated from high above like the Ten Commandments.
| If someone wants to WFH and the manager is okay with it, and the
| employee can justify it with performance reviews, why does anyone
| care?
|
| This should strictly be a performance issue, and if the employee
| is unproductive at home, then either force RTO on her, or fire
| her. It feels more like the higher-ups don't trust their own
| performance review system, but it seems like that's really the
| answer. If the manager is unproductive because of unproductive
| employees, then fire the manager as well. This is NOT a hard
| problem to solve, what it requires is accurate attention to
| performance on all levels. It shouldn't be a blanket edict
| because this is 2023 and we've already shown that WFH can
| definitely work for many people.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > When asked for data to support the move, Jassy lacked a good
| answer. He said that he spoke to "60 to 80 CEOs of other
| companies over the last 18 months," and "virtually all of them"
| preferred in-office work.
|
| Are they colluding to suppress wages/working conditions?
|
| These tech companies already colluded in the past to suppress
| wages.
| foobarian wrote:
| Unless it's a thinly veiled layoff, in which case it makes
| perfect sense.
| flaminHotSpeedo wrote:
| Or if there's some other ulterior motive like promises to local
| government
| pkaye wrote:
| I think its a combination of over hiring over the pandemic,
| higher interest rates and an opportunity to reduce salaries
| for future hires.
| ochoseis wrote:
| Reduced salaries for future tech workers is going to be a
| double whammy because I doubt tech stocks are going to
| continue growing like they did in the past decade.
|
| It really boosts your income when your equity doubles or
| triples in value during the vesting period.
| ryaneager wrote:
| So people should be screwed out of their severance? Just lay
| people off, you hired them be an adult and fire them.
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| One thing I learned in adulthood is that smart (not
| necessarily ethical) people steal credit when things are good
| and avoid responsibility for anything unpopular as there is
| no payoff for it.
| rdtsc wrote:
| They are on the hook for paying severance, unemployment
| insurance and such. If the employee is the one who "quit"
| well it's "their choice"...
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| That's the whole point.
|
| Why fire people and pay them severance when you can get them
| to quit instead?
|
| Of course, you're going to lose the people with talent who
| can find other jobs - and retain the ones who can't.
|
| But seems like a trade they are eager to make.
| conductr wrote:
| They are well versed at meat grinder operations.
| aeyes wrote:
| Why even lay off with mutual agreements paying severance?
| Just fire people and deal with the consequences.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > Why even lay off with mutual agreements paying
| severance?
|
| PR
|
| > Just fire people and deal with the consequences.
|
| Or why not reduce headcount and not deal with the
| consequences? That's what they're trying to do.
|
| Everyone has been bitter of tech workers for the better
| part of a decade. You're not going to lose points with
| the public for treating tech workers like normal workers.
| rdtsc wrote:
| Why deal with the consequences when they don't have to?
| alfalfasprout wrote:
| Yeah, the problem is the people most willing to just leave
| are the ones that can get something else reasonably fast
| (which end up being your better employees).
|
| AWS has been in decline in terms of quality for years now.
| They aren't innovating well and even higher turnover will
| only make things worse. Notice how Amazon is really far
| behind in LLMs despite having so many research scientists
| on staff.
| nxobject wrote:
| I'll chip my vote in for "stealth layoff". Phrasing research in
| terms of "why do you prefer hybrid work over 'fully remote'?" is
| misrepresenting what's under debate - mandatory RTO policies.
| burgos_thrw wrote:
| So the amount of the people that report internally that they
| were given 30 days to relocate or to "voluntary resign" makes
| this very plausible.
|
| Now, I have been called from several competitors to leave AWS
| for the couple of years, but I was happy with the company,
| projects, prospects, etc. The clusterf*ck of decisions the
| company made in the past several months made me finally reach
| out to them when the RTO was announced, and I finally quit. I
| am going to work from the office (hybrid) on the next job, but
| at least I'm not going to work for Amazon. And that sparks joy.
| captainkrtek wrote:
| Either way, they're getting what they asked for: either folks
| back in the office with poor morale or resignations. Has reached
| a new level of low morale and distrust in leadership.
| eastbayjake wrote:
| Was expecting this to be about AWS's Recovery Time Objectives!
| shadowtree wrote:
| All the bragging about working multiple jobs or just clocking
| 20hours at most on so many forums like Blind, etc. is now coming
| to roost.
|
| So yeah, many abused WFH and now the backlash is here. Amazon,
| Google, Apple, Meta, Zoom, Bloomberg ... all have the same
| conclusion: you can't trust people, at scale, to work full time
| from home.
|
| These stories were posted here too! You think no exec reads HN?
| say_it_as_it_is wrote:
| What is the sentiment of the investment community? Researchers
| covering Amazon and majority shareholders influence the decisions
| that Jassy is making. He's not taking a hard line just because
| he's a tough guy who doesn't care about employees. Focus on the
| situation.
| mr_tristan wrote:
| Well, as an employee of Salesforce, I witnessed operating
| margin goals of activist investors drive a layoff this year.
| (And Salesforce just met those goals last week.)
|
| Part of me wonders if that's just broad inflationary concerns
| and uncertainty about the world economy, pushing for profits
| over everything else.
|
| Really seems short-sighted, but, so did the "hire everything
| that breathes" era in the 2010s, too.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Ooh - nice observation!
|
| Large investors are motivated to carefully examine the issue,
| with a singular focus on the company's performance w.r.t. their
| fund's goals.
|
| Presumably those fund managers are somewhat dispassionate about
| the managements' and employees' takes on the topic, excepting
| for how they'll affect the company performance.
| politician wrote:
| It was explained to me by local non-profit folks in the know that
| Amazon's RTO decisions need to be understood in the context of
| downtown Seattle real estate politics. Amazon brings a lot of
| people downtown -- fueling local businesses -- and as a
| consequence the city council provides Amazon a huge amount of
| leeway and power -- even siding with Amazon against the
| community. Consequently, if Amazon doesn't continue to publicly
| advocate for RTO, then the city council will have no reason to
| continue with the red carpet treatment which, concretely, means
| increased taxation and compliance requirements.
|
| So, there is a significant game theory component to Amazon's RTO
| position that can't be discussed publicly.
| xyzelement wrote:
| // there is a significant game theory component
|
| Funny, I read your first paragraph and thought it doesn't make
| sense from game-theory point of view. If Amazon wants to lower
| city council's power over it, the easiest thing it can do is
| not be dependent on Seattle (ie - if your workforce is
| distributed, Seattle is irrelevant)
| HappySweeney wrote:
| I always understood the reasoning to be that companies don't
| want the value of their real estate or 10-year leases to drop,
| which low occupancy portends.
| jnwatson wrote:
| I've heard that too, but I can't imagine anybody in a city
| administration having enough juice to make a CEO care at all.
| How would that conversation go?
| sharemywin wrote:
| Plus, it's hard for execs to lie to your face over a recorded
| zoom call.
|
| I'm sorry I mean be wrong about the details.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| I imagine Amazon could downsize their downtown Seattle
| footprint to match their current needs, face increased taxes,
| and still come out ahead.
|
| This seems like mostly an attrition play.
|
| The capital class also _despises_ the labor class. I wouldn 't
| down-play the pure spite motive, either.
| willcipriano wrote:
| These sort of red carpets go far beyond taxation.
|
| Things like some executives wife gets pulled over drunk and
| the police give her a ride home and a warning. The son gets
| caught holding and the case disappears. Homeless people in
| their neighborhood get told to move along to your
| neighborhood. That sort of thing.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| That's basic inequality. Amazon execs will remain rich
| regardless of whether Amazon has a higher city tax bill.
| willcipriano wrote:
| > That's basic inequality.
|
| It isn't. Beat cops probably aren't going to take your
| bribe, you have to pre-bribe the community like Amazon
| has so you are "too big to fail" in a sense. It's like
| the company town of old but built with public dollars.
| conductr wrote:
| They get the last laugh after years of tech worker
| compensation going bonkers and having to compensate those
| plebs.
| grepfru_it wrote:
| Seattle would fight that tooth and nail. Amazon could simply
| say they are thinking of withdrawing from the city and
| Seattle would throw tax breaks at them that would make NYC's
| concessions to amazon look pale in comparison. See Boeing as
| an example. Cannot have an exodus of talent, that is bad news
| bears for any major city (see Detroit as a historic example)
| __derek__ wrote:
| For anyone familiar with Seattle politics, this is absurd. The
| city council has been openly antagonistic to Amazon for the
| better part of a decade.
| gumby wrote:
| All these companies have leases burning a monthly hole in their
| pockets. So I guess they figure they should get people into those
| buildings.
|
| It's a foolish sunk cost fallacy.
| washywashy wrote:
| Companies also get tax incentives based how many butts are in
| seats. So, it's not just a sunk cost fallacy at play here
| LanceH wrote:
| A more savvy (or less short term) take is that these places are
| able to negotiate favorable leases right now. Once office space
| fills up again, those prices will go up again.
|
| I think the real reason lies between "butts in seats" and
| layoffs.
|
| I also feel like there is a class of management that feels good
| about themselves by having subordinates observe them with all
| the trappings of their office. These are the people that want a
| dress code and spend money to look good at work even if nobody
| ever sees a customer. They have to have the bigger office --
| not out of need -- to demonstrate their position. Bigger desk.
| They might have a better computer than developers even though
| they never use anything more taxing that Excel (this happened a
| lot more 20 years ago, less today). These people want to return
| to office, otherwise nobody knows how much they are in charge
| of.
| o1y32 wrote:
| My company's CEO used words no other than "we _believe_
| collaboration is better in-person " to justify forcing everyone
| to work in the office three days a week. The usual "revitalize
| downtown" or "support local business" argument doesn't even apply
| in our case because company is on a highway. You know this
| decision is not based on any concrete data but purely on the
| investment in those useless buildings and wanting to force people
| out.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| I have never had an in-person joint whiteboard session that was
| actually productive. I have had several virtual whiteboard
| sessions that were very productive (thanks cheap graphics
| tablets!).
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Just a data point, but my experience has been exactly the
| opposite of yours.
|
| And I say this as someone who invested a lot of time and
| political capital trying to find good (and within
| constraints) virtual whiteboard solutions.
| baq wrote:
| I haven't found a good one either but imagine iPads with
| pencils might just be close enough. Haven't tried though,
| sounds expensive.
| tracerbulletx wrote:
| The most annoying part about all of this is how smug and proud
| some of these companies were about announcing that they were
| remote first and hiring all of these people on promises of being
| "all in" on a distributed remote workforce which they saw as the
| future. I get that everyone likes to be able to change their mind
| at any time, but commitments that affect people's lives need to
| be honored if there can ever be any sort of working trust.
| finitestateuni wrote:
| Return To Office in early 2023 caused many people hired during
| the pandemic to uproot their family and move closer to their
| assigned office.
|
| Some of these folks are now being told that the office they moved
| closer to is not a "Hub" for their organization and that they now
| need to Relocate To Hub.
|
| Most engineering teams will not be colocated even after this
| relocation as there a multiple hubs.
|
| There is a strong belief that Amazon will have a 5 days in office
| policy starting after the holidays and further Relocate To Team
| initiatives. The delay is to mitigate the risk of attrition
| affecting Peak and to get people to move before they're told they
| need to be in the office 5 days (sunk cost).
|
| A textbook lesson in how to boil a frog courtesy of McKinsey.
| Hopefully customers enjoy the taste of boiled frogs.
| [deleted]
| gaucheries wrote:
| Offices make it easier to control employees and their time.
| jatins wrote:
| Unfortunately Amazon is one of those companies which can get away
| with this.
|
| Moats so strong that they could completely fuck over (as they
| have been doing for a while) their employees but will still end
| up okay as a business.
|
| CEOs with moats as thin as a razor will see this as correlation
| though and burn their companies to ground forcing their employees
| to RTO.
| hoppersoft wrote:
| Andy Jassy is showing 1M+ Amazon employees that Amazon has become
| a "Day 2" company.
| rescbr wrote:
| That's what I wrote on my farewell email - just a little more
| corporate-speaky :)
| Racing0461 wrote:
| RTO is filled with ulterior motives.
|
| Layoffs by another name, local city government want their tax
| base back, Real estate companies (not mom and pop stuff, real
| holding companies with reits etc) want to keep real estate from
| "crashing", ny/ca/ma type states don't want their white collar
| workers moving to low tax states and working from there , middle
| managers want to be seen and "preside over their kindgom" etc.
|
| The only group not benefitting from RTO are the actual workers.
| Terr_ wrote:
| I think it is illuminating to consider how these debates would
| go _very_ differently if employers where the ones whose budgets
| paid for all the hours /fuel spent in office commutes, and
| clearly showed that change with RTO.
|
| There's no _inherent_ reason commute costs are usually borne by
| employees, it 's just tradition--and perhaps what is/isn't an
| appealing alternate-compensation expense under tax-code.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| > ny/ca/ma type states don't want their white collar workers
| moving to low tax states and working from there
|
| NY doesn't care where you live, they'll gladly tax you and
| aggressively pursue said taxes no matter if you get any benefit
| from those tax dollars or not.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| While it is a travesty that the Supreme Court declined to
| hear a challenge to the "convenience rule", NY state only
| taxes income from work performed outside of NY state if the
| worker sometimes works within NY state and could have worked
| in NY state.
| colmmacc wrote:
| I work at Amazon, so I have that bias, but I'm very very
| skeptical of that line of argument. Remote work has the
| potential to save companies truly enormous sums of money, both
| on real estate, and on reduced salaries. For many companies,
| being able to freely hire anywhere would absolutely reduce mean
| compensation, instead of paying massive tech hub salary
| premiums. The interests of city and state governments, real
| estate companies, hardly come into it.
|
| I find it very easy to believe the straight-forward motive
| given; that leaders are concerned by the impacts of remote work
| on collaboration, innovation, mentorship and other kinds of
| productivity that come through group work. That's been my
| experience too.
|
| At the same time, I think remote work can be very successful,
| maybe even more effective than traditional office work, but it
| almost certainly takes skills and practices that are attuned to
| that way of working. It's not unreasonable to believe that an
| entire workforce wouldn't simply adapt to that in the long term
| in just a 3 year time frame driven by a pandemic.
| PreachSoup wrote:
| As a follow faang+er I totally understand the need for rto.
| Im perfectly fine with 3 days rto like my company and many
| others adopted which is perfect medium for everyone. In my
| team we get 3 days intense meetings done from Tuesday to
| Thursday. The devs have at least 2 days alone times for
| shipping the code. The company sold the buildings and the
| remaining building utilization is very high therefore the
| cost saving is also there. Everyone is happy in the end.
|
| The question is what's the reason to increase from 3 days to
| 5 days? My guess is that unlike other tech companies, Amazon
| has high offline presence especially with a global logistic
| network. They are pressured by the local governments and
| other parties that if they don't mandate 5 days rto to prop
| up the cities, they are gonna lose many benefits or deals. So
| it's probably cheaper for Amazon choose 5 days rto instead.
| bluefishinit wrote:
| > _Im perfectly fine with 3 days rto like my company and
| many others adopted which is perfect medium for everyone._
|
| It's not the perfect medium because it requires living in
| some of the most expensive real estate markets on the
| planet. How much does a house for a family of four cost by
| your office?
| PreachSoup wrote:
| What you are requesting is the fully remote company,
| that's a totally different story. I don't see which faang
| company is transitioning into that. With the faang pay
| you can choose to stay in sf, or move to other offices,
| or going remote, or leave for fully remote companies.
|
| The policy is that Remote workers are still remote. Only
| non remote workers are required return to office.
| bluefishinit wrote:
| > _What you are requesting is the fully remote company_
|
| RTO is a _new_ policy, they could simply have continued
| to allow employees to work from home.
| PreachSoup wrote:
| Yes. As I said in my previous post, remote workers are
| not required to rto. RTO only applies to non remote
| workers. Actually their visits are limited because the
| offices are kinda full now
| ghaff wrote:
| 3-days per week seems to fall into the category of a
| fairly awful daily commute is... still awful. I'd fairly
| willingly do a day or sometimes two of a two-hour commute
| each way into my city office (which I sometimes go into
| for customers) but not more often than that.
| PreachSoup wrote:
| 2 days would definitely be better for the devs. That's
| how it works for lots of us even before mandate. So the
| significant change for lots of the ppl was from 2 days to
| 3 days. That's the cost of staying in the company I guess
| bluefishinit wrote:
| I wouldn't commute 2 hours to work, even once a month.
| Too much risk to my personal safety. There's no way I'm
| driving on a highway with semi-trucks just to do some
| meetings.
| devmunchies wrote:
| > The only group not benefitting from RTO are the actual
| workers.
|
| That depends on the worker's goals. If your goal is to have
| work/life balance or "personal" productivity then, yeah, I
| empathize. But there is more investment I put back into my team
| when I'm in person. It's not just my code output. I find it
| very hard to mentor young engineers remotely.
|
| Also, if you are a stockholder, like many engineers, and if
| teams do in fact have more "synergy" (bleh) then it's also good
| for the workers via stock based comp.
| sharadov wrote:
| I read somewhere that big cities ( SFO) with tech concentration
| are giving tax breaks to companies that will bring their
| employees back in-office.
|
| Cities like SFO with estimated 30% vacancy which primarily rely
| on corporate taxes will collapse!
| mulmen wrote:
| Is that bad? SFO isn't known for being a well run city. A
| dose of bitter medicine might be exactly what it needs for
| long term health. Seattle is the same. We spend absurd
| amounts of money and get very meager results. This is what
| happens when your only tax revenue is property tax. If they
| taxed income they'd be incentivized to increase wages and
| employment. Instead they're incentivized to drive up property
| values and barely keep the working class alive.
| jzb wrote:
| I'd add that underlying all that / in addition to that is the
| fear that people aren't putting their jobs first. That's what
| drove all the "quiet quitting" bullshit.
|
| The pandemic made people stop and take stock of their lives. A
| lot of people realized that they were putting work first and
| life is too fucking short to put everything else second to
| work.
|
| The tech layoffs have further emphasized the futility of
| putting work first. You might have put your career first but
| your employer sure as shit wasn't putting you first. Why live
| far from the rest of your family in a high cost-of-living area
| to have your life dominated by work if BigCorp is just going to
| throw you overboard at the first sign of a dip in profits? Not
| even a cut to save the business, just a cut to ensure that
| activist shareholders and top-line execs preserve obscene
| profits, bonuses, and salaries.
|
| RTO is there to remind you that they control your life, right
| down to where you live. Be thankful to have a job or they'll
| take it away from you and your health insurance, too.
| borroka wrote:
| RTO is there to remind you that despite claims of talent
| shortages and after taking into account the fact that a
| substantial portion of the workforce is okay with returning
| to the office, for many companies the supply of talent is
| greater than the demand for talent.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| It is more convenient to attempt to unionize in person I
| suppose.
| borroka wrote:
| Unionization is more likely to occur when the variance of
| workers' wages (in the technology sector, this is total
| compensation) is low. In tech, the variance of workers'
| wages is high.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Only need a simple majority. By definition, the majority
| isn't high earning in a cohort. Agree we're just arguing
| over likelihood, won't know how serious people are until
| they're tired of being ground down by people like Jassy.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > By definition, the majority isn't high earning in a
| cohort
|
| I don't think that's true here. A cohort doesn't have to
| have a particular distribution, and even if it does in
| this case, that doesn't mean the cohort isn't high
| earning relative to the rest of the population.
| borroka wrote:
| Most workers in the tech sector are young, and young
| people earning below-median salaries are salivating at
| the idea of moving, at some point in the near future, due
| to their skills, market conditions, luck or wishful
| thinking, into the above-median bracket.
|
| Add to that the fact that the job market for tech workers
| is extremely fluid, and I don't think unionization is
| going to happen anytime soon.
| JSavageOne wrote:
| Hilarious that companies were complaining about tech
| shortages while simultaneously having interview processes
| consisting of multiple rounds of absurd competitive
| programming questions that require months of preparation
| for and have nothing to do with the job. There was never a
| talent shortage, that's just a narrative companies pushed
| to increase labor supply, lobby for more visas, and justify
| outsourcing
| giantg2 wrote:
| Been quiet quitting since before it was a name
| stetrain wrote:
| We laid off half of our employees, and the other half seem
| demoralized. We have no idea why so we're going to try making
| everyone come back to the office.
|
| Also hey everyone we made record profits this year! Great
| job! Pay raises are on hold though due to economic
| uncertainty. Remember, we're a family!
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| This is what's really getting under my skin. The messaging
| is not even hidden anymore.
|
| It's right out in the open that many companies are making
| enormous profits and giving out astonishing executive
| bonuses, at the same time as freezing salaries and layoffs.
|
| It's not adding up, and I'm kind of just waiting to see if
| more people are going to become as fed up with it as I am,
| or if we're all just too comfortable.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/08/25/t-mobile-
| lay... (T-Mobile to lay off 5,000 people nationwide,
| after Sprint merger promised more jobs)
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/t-mobile-
| anno... (T-Mobile US announces $19 bln shareholder return
| program)
|
| https://apnews.com/article/amazon-layoffs-jobs-cuts-
| jassy-0e... (Amazon cuts 9,000 more jobs, bringing 2023
| total to 27,000)
|
| https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-
| reports-... (A year after historic loss, Amazon posts
| $6.7 billion quarterly profit)
| gamblor956 wrote:
| RTO is not some huge secret conspiracy.
|
| Companies have long-term leases on their offices. Office space
| is the single most expensive line-item on most companies
| financials. They want to maximize the use of these very
| expensive assets, and having workers in the offices
| accomplishes this.
|
| From a more practical perspective, working from home is great
| for more senior workers who are already established in their
| careers and know what they're doing, but it's hugely
| detrimental to the career development of younger workers, who
| largely learn from working alongside their older/more senior
| counterparts. Communicating over email, slack, zoom, etc., just
| isn't the same, and you can see this across pretty much every
| white collar domain--even programming.
| costanzaDynasty wrote:
| Do what ever you want CEO's but don't be surprised when you have
| to bend over backwards for talent in other ways while advanced
| economies populations get smaller every generation and the up and
| coming areas need to be remote.
|
| But don't get it twisted, everyone sees through your HR cornballs
| pretending a food truck coming by once a week is worth a 2 hour
| commute everyday.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Not one person here even admits the possibility that some WFH
| people are not really working. Or at least Jassy believes that.
|
| Marissa Mayer ended WFH at Yahoo for exactly that reason:
|
| https://money.cnn.com/2013/02/25/technology/yahoo-work-from-...
|
| If you're CEO of a company that's shitty to work for, you have to
| suspect that everyone except the middle managers and suckups is
| just phoning it in. Literally.
| baq wrote:
| As if people actually work in the office.
|
| Please.
| jfghi wrote:
| The amount of 2 hour birthday lunches people get dragged to
| after in-person meetings not even relevant to their job is
| off the charts wasteful.
| jnwatson wrote:
| Many, many folks that come into the office are not really
| working. WFH didn't change that.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| You have never seen hours long discussions of Game of Thrones,
| Bachelor, sports, etc? Professional water cooler jockeys who
| transit from conversation to conversation to eat up the
| majority of work hours?
|
| I once read a claim that all work is done by the square root of
| the total company head count. Honestly, that does not feel too
| far off from reality.
| baq wrote:
| Feels too high IMHO...
| xwdv wrote:
| Forget about whether or not people are "working". That's just
| micromanagement.
|
| There is either work not done, or work finished. If work isn't
| being finished, then people aren't working. If it is, then
| people are working. That's all you need to know.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| This is bullshit.
|
| If you can get away with "not really working" remotely, you
| will also get away with "not really working" in the office.
| supertrope wrote:
| Have you consider alternative explanations such Yahoo! doing a
| stealth layoff by shaking off employees who want remote working
| or require it because they reside in a different metro area?
| IBM was infamous for shaking off headcount by requiring
| employees to move cities. Or management's inability to measure
| performance so they resort to lowest common denominator methods
| like ending remote work instead of just correcting individual
| bad behaviors through discussions, PIPs, termination, etc.
| klyrs wrote:
| I'll admit it, some people don't work at home, or only work
| minutes a day. But I've known people that did the same in the
| office. What did Marissa Mayer do about them?
| o1y32 wrote:
| My coworkers regularly spend one and half hour chatting during
| lunch.
|
| That's definitely worth your commute to the office and better
| than working from home, right?
| rented_mule wrote:
| I worked at a huge company 30+ years ago (~300K employees).
| There was an engineer on our floor whose entire team, including
| his manager, had left the company in a short period of time.
| The company acted as if the entire team was gone, cancelling
| all their projects. He fell through the cracks.
|
| Initially he sat at his desk all day reading newspapers and
| books, ready to do any work he was asked to do. Eventually he
| got bored and started up his own one-man business that he
| operated from the office. All the while he continued collecting
| a salary and benefits from the big company. This had been going
| on for two years when I left the company.
|
| My manager and my skip level manager both seemed quite aware of
| what was happening. But this guy was in another division of the
| company, so they didn't think it was their problem to solve.
|
| The lesson... for a big enough company, you can be just as
| invisible in the office as you are at home, but the office
| gives better plausible deniability.
| seizethecheese wrote:
| Amazon is one of the most successful companies of this century.
| This might be misguided, but let's actually grapple with why, not
| just invent strawmen to attack. Surely, Amazon has thought this
| through and really believes their company will perform better in
| office.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Is the "80% regret" number misleading?
|
| From the Fortune article:
|
| > A whopping 80% of bosses reported that they regret their
| initial return-to-office decisions, according to new research
| from Envoy, which interviewed more than 1,000 U.S. company
| executives and workplace managers who work in person at least one
| day per week.
|
| But it's not clear if 80% of the executives...
|
| (a) regretted reducing WFH _at all_ , or
|
| (b) regretted _certain details_ of how they tweaked the policy,
| e.g. how they communicated it, the number of in-office days
| required, etc., or
|
| (c) were unhappy about their data's availability, quality, or
| freshness.
|
| Unfortunately the report from Envoy [0] isn't much clearer:
|
| > 80% of executives say they would have approached their
| company's return-to-office strategy differently if they had
| access to workplace data to inform their decision-making.
|
| This is one case where seeing the original questionnaire would be
| helpful, but I'm not finding a link to it. So it's really hard to
| decide if Envoy's conclusions are justified.
|
| [0] https://envoy.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2023/08/Workplace_Data_...
| imoreno wrote:
| But he will.
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