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Real reasons why tech giants are hugging “Remote Work”

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Re: Real reasons why tech giants are hugging “Remote Work”

#31

Post by whateveracct »

Lammy wrote: post #24
rcurry wrote: post #15

Working remote just makes so much more sense. My old routine was - get up, have some coffee, start dreading the one hour commute, then do the one hour commute, then get to work and spend an hour decompressing from the one hour commute... now it’s get up, pour a cup of coffee, start enjoying working on stuff in my bathrobe. And the coffee is way better than what the office was paying for :-)

I'm sure we'll all come to love the new routine — get up, have some coffee, work until you go to sleep. Even if you personally are capable of enforcing work/life separation there's zero chance an entire company will when so many people already fear the Performance Review looming over their head.

That's just not gonna happen. I currently work remotely as a software engineer at a BigCo (not a tech company) and the company policy has consistently been to great weekend work & long hours as a team & company failure.

I just don't see an every-waking-hour workday dystopia ever happening if the industry goes more remote.

Re: Real reasons why tech giants are hugging “Remote Work”

#33

Post by nicksergeant »

highfrequency wrote: post #21
voisin wrote: post #6

It is a huge bet that productivity in the long run is equal to or greater than the savings in rent. When you do the math on the occupancy cost per square foot relative to the labour cost on a per square foot basis (using a company’s occupancy numbers divided by square footage of the office), it works out to 4 - 7%. If you increase employee turnover slightly or decrease productivity in the long run by a small amount,…

The main potential savings is not from avoiding office leases, it's from hiring engineers for 1/3 of the cost or less from places like Europe, India, and Brazil.

Time zone sensitivity is a very real thing for companies who hire remotely, so I don’t think this is necessarily going to change. Much of the “ can now work remotely” is likely predicated on the fact that those employees are in the same time zone.

Re: Real reasons why tech giants are hugging “Remote Work”

#34

Post by Ididntdothis »

hiram112 wrote: post #30
pzh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s also a matter of culture. For remote employees to be fully productive, the company’s culture needs to be heavily geared towards remote. You can’t have 50% of the employees in the office having impromptu hallway conversations and whiteboard discussions while the rest of the team that is remote is half-isolated, separated from the in-office idea generation, and only gets to hear about what was decided by email. Yo…

> the in-office superstars and leaders who are highly paid, and the cheaper remote workers who have a glass ceiling on their career progression and are mostly relegated to the execution of the in-office team’s vision. I went remote a few years ago, and last year, without even asking permission, I dropped the lease on my overpriced DC tiny condo and moved a few hours away where rent is half the price, and eventually I…

"While I definitely had more opportunities to network and hobnob with management while in the office, the reality is it didn't matter in the long run. My salary hasn't gone down since moving, and I save money on tolls, lunches, gas, and now especially rent which is pretty significant."

I think being in the office can be very beneficial if you have the ability to talk to management and be viewed as some with potential for promotions. I have tried this but somehow I don't have the ability. My path was always to deliver stuff without needing much guidance. So now I am remote. I will probably not move up much but I have carved out nice niche for myself.

Re: Real reasons why tech giants are hugging “Remote Work”

#35

Post by staticassertion »

slavapestov wrote: post #16
voisin wrote: post #6

It is a huge bet that productivity in the long run is equal to or greater than the savings in rent. When you do the math on the occupancy cost per square foot relative to the labour cost on a per square foot basis (using a company’s occupancy numbers divided by square footage of the office), it works out to 4 - 7%. If you increase employee turnover slightly or decrease productivity in the long run by a small amount,…

> It is a huge bet that productivity in the long run is equal to or greater than the savings in rent. And also, that not every potential employee who can add value to the organization wants to relocate to the same place. I think that’s a more important bet in the long run. > Oh, and if you give your employees a bunch of money to fit out their home offices and start paying for their internet at home and give them mone…

> Isn’t this called “salary”? I don’t expect my employer to cook and feed me lunch

You might not, but many tech companies in SF do exactly that, and it is a legitimate part of your compensation.

Re: Real reasons why tech giants are hugging “Remote Work”

#36

Post by bitwize »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #3

Cynical but in a dumb way. A moment of thought will tell you that lost productivity by being all remote outweighs the benefits money that the FAANGs are saving. If they could just shovel that money they're saving to the employees to get that productivity back, they would. A smarter cynical take would be that it's more likely that 1) they know their employees don't want to risk COVID-19, 2) they don't want to risk the…

Since seven out of ten times the alternative to remote work is a fucking open-plan circle of hell, how does lost productivity due to remote compare to lost productivity due to needless distraction and germs propagating like a crowd wave at a football game through open-plan spaces leading to more sick days? (Forget COVID-19, colds and flu can cause significant reductions in work output.)

My guess is remote workers are more productive.

Re: Real reasons why tech giants are hugging “Remote Work”

#37

Post by voisin »

highfrequency wrote: post #21
voisin wrote: post #6

It is a huge bet that productivity in the long run is equal to or greater than the savings in rent. When you do the math on the occupancy cost per square foot relative to the labour cost on a per square foot basis (using a company’s occupancy numbers divided by square footage of the office), it works out to 4 - 7%. If you increase employee turnover slightly or decrease productivity in the long run by a small amount,…

The main potential savings is not from avoiding office leases, it's from hiring engineers for 1/3 of the cost or less from places like Europe, India, and Brazil.

Why do you need to institute any new WFH policies as applicable at the domestic level to do this? They’ve already been doing this presumably to the extent they wanted.

Re: Real reasons why tech giants are hugging “Remote Work”

#38

Post by voisin »

option wrote: post #20
voisin wrote: post #6

It is a huge bet that productivity in the long run is equal to or greater than the savings in rent. When you do the math on the occupancy cost per square foot relative to the labour cost on a per square foot basis (using a company’s occupancy numbers divided by square footage of the office), it works out to 4 - 7%. If you increase employee turnover slightly or decrease productivity in the long run by a small amount,…

The full WFH also means your talent pool to hire from is more global, and, on average, cheaper

Why do you need to institute any new WFH policies as applicable at the domestic level to do this? They’ve already been doing this presumably to the extent they wanted.

Re: Real reasons why tech giants are hugging “Remote Work”

#39

Post by Lammy »

whateveracct wrote: post #31
Lammy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure we'll all come to love the new routine — get up, have some coffee, work until you go to sleep. Even if you personally are capable of enforcing work/life separation there's zero chance an entire company will when so many people already fear the Performance Review looming over their head.

That's just not gonna happen. I currently work remotely as a software engineer at a BigCo (not a tech company) and the company policy has consistently been to great weekend work & long hours as a team & company failure. I just don't see an every-waking-hour workday dystopia ever happening if the industry goes more remote.

> not a tech company

I think this may be the key. I work in-person in a Tech BigCo main office, and emails/chat/posts/pings are already a constant on any night or weekend. I don't know how it would be possible to avoid when we work with teams on every continent — some external so their working hours are non-negotiable. It's cool if you can be a good enough performer to disconnect at 5PM and never contribute to the problem by reading or responding. Some people have to—or think they have to—do that show of "putting in extra effort" to make it by their next performance review.

Re: Real reasons why tech giants are hugging “Remote Work”

#40

Post by voisin »

bobthepanda wrote: post #13
voisin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

N = 1. The fact is no one knows how it shakes out across teams and organizations and whether it heightens the learning curve for new employees who do not benefit from the informal chatter around them, or whether it increases employee turnover in the long run. Seems irresponsible to make organization wide bets like this without proper testing. “Move fast and break things” applies to culture too I suppose.

Even if it makes some people more productive, it also doesn't necessarily apply to everyone , and wasn't a core complaint of remote workers that remote work policy was too one-size-fits-all? I would imagine you would see more flexibility afforded by employers but full remote is probably a fantasy.

Individual flexibility can have detrimental impacts to team performance. So then shouldn’t the flexibility be awarded to whomever’s P&L is hit by a decrease to productivity? How else do you internalize the negative externalities? How would this differ from the pre-Covid status quo?
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