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Most employees of NYT won’t be required back in physical offices until 2021

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Re: Most employees of NYT won’t be required back in physical offices until 2021

#131

Get ready for a wave of outsourcing of everything from tech to bpo like the US labor market has never seen in the coming 6 months. Once employers go through the initial pain of setting up remote work, the more than 50%(and sometimes as much as 80%) cost savings will be irresistible. If you are not in government, healthcare, or other industry that does not have legal requirements to maintain a US presence and you work…

Eh, companies have had this option and many have engineering offices in lower cost of living countries long before the current situation. There are a lot of reasons for companies to hire in the US.

What wouldn't surprise me though if/when remote becomes a bigger chunk of certain types of jobs, is if salaries across US regions equalize more given that local labor market rates become less of a factor for setting salaries. In the extreme case (which won't be the norm), your decision to live in a high CoL city is no different from your decision to live on expensive oceanfront property.

Re: Most employees of NYT won’t be required back in physical offices until 2021

#132
post #102
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably realise a home based workforce needs fewer bosses.

Why do you think that? If anything, managers can help better connect a more distributed workforce. (And those connections are one of the definite downsides of everyone being remote.)

Because if you have competent people, managers don't need to do much, we just coordinate ourselves to achieve our goals and our boss asks us from time to time if everything is going OK.

The catch is, it takes a good manager to hire and keep good employees that can self coordinate effortlessly.

Re: Most employees of NYT won’t be required back in physical offices until 2021

#133
post #19

Here's a photo of the newsroom so you can get a sense of the degree to which they work in proximity: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/12/18/opinion/sunday/18...

So unlike a modern tech company, they sit farther apart and at least have barriers between their desks?

No, thats just the core newsroom which is floors 2 and 3. Rest of the floors are a little different.

Re: Most employees of NYT won’t be required back in physical offices until 2021

#134
post #102
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably realise a home based workforce needs fewer bosses.

Why do you think that? If anything, managers can help better connect a more distributed workforce. (And those connections are one of the definite downsides of everyone being remote.)

Because code can replace remote management in a far more efficient system

Re: Most employees of NYT won’t be required back in physical offices until 2021

#135
post #131

Get ready for a wave of outsourcing of everything from tech to bpo like the US labor market has never seen in the coming 6 months. Once employers go through the initial pain of setting up remote work, the more than 50%(and sometimes as much as 80%) cost savings will be irresistible. If you are not in government, healthcare, or other industry that does not have legal requirements to maintain a US presence and you work…

Eh, companies have had this option and many have engineering offices in lower cost of living countries long before the current situation. There are a lot of reasons for companies to hire in the US. What wouldn't surprise me though if/when remote becomes a bigger chunk of certain types of jobs, is if salaries across US regions equalize more given that local labor market rates become less of a factor for setting salari…

IMO FAANG is doing its best to try and hoover up all the tech talent that wants to work for them. Which is to say that while they won't necessarily have to pay people an arm and a leg to attract them to overcrowded high-COL areas, they do still want to hoover up people who happen to already live in high-COL areas.

COVID has shown us that remote work is feasible, but it still introduces frictions that employers/employees may not want to put up with, and the main thing attracting people to high-COL areas in the first place is the relative ease of networking and switching jobs. The death of the high-COL tech hub is greatly overexaggerated.

Re: Most employees of NYT won’t be required back in physical offices until 2021

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wow, I guess I'll just tell my team you want them to die and they should find another job This is what I told my boss when these orders came down... they are still deciding what to do. Edit: Be aware, I have enough emergency savings for around 3 years worth of fuck it. I'm not you and you should not be me.

Building on this. If you have the risk tolerance. Just stating that you have to work remotely (if its legitimate) at-risk health, child care, family care I'm sure there can't be a ton of pushback on an individual level. Otherwise it might be a GREAT signal to leave a company who in the midst of a pandemic is irrational.

Companies being willing to throw their employees into meat grinders has generally been rewarded by the market (which also tends towards the irrational).

Re: Most employees of NYT won’t be required back in physical offices until 2021

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe if we had a functioning welfare state, the government would be encouraged to respond to a pandemic appropriately so as not to overwhelm its resources. Scandinavia seems to be doing better than the US at the moment. As it stands, it looks like the US is using its lack of a social floor to force people back to work under unsafe conditions, regardless of whether that’s rational or necessary, which will result in m…

This is true in the same way that if a homeless person had a million dollars he might not be homeless. The trick is how to get a functioning welfare state when your government is fundamentally broken. Note that the even the CDC failed spectacularly at its primary job; its literal raison d'etre. You can criticize that the CDC lacked funding, but that is wrong[^1] and it misses the point: not being able to properly fun…

> not being able to properly fund our agencies is itself evidence (if not proof) of government incompetence.

It's proof that powerful interests are successful in starving the beast so they can get away without oversight.

Re: Most employees of NYT won’t be required back in physical offices until 2021

#138
post #84

Everybody talks about online mobs and trolls but what happens when the entire workforce is online? How vicious can one (mob) be against another co-worker when you can't phisically see him to calibrate what's really going on and the reaction to what you do?

Well hopefully you don't have vicious mobs at your workplace.

I don't right now, but I certainly have people who dislike each other for some reason or another, and I'm worried about what that looks like when they all start going 3, 6, 9 months without seeing each other.

Re: Most employees of NYT won’t be required back in physical offices until 2021

#139
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked remotely most my life but as a new parent...I really want an office.

As a (not quite so new) parent I really want a coworking space that's a five minute walk from my apartment. That way I can do school dropoffs and pickups so much more easily. In my dreams expanded remote work means lots more coworking spaces popping up. I know, I'm a dreamer...

[deleted]

Re: Most employees of NYT won’t be required back in physical offices until 2021

#140

Get ready for a wave of outsourcing of everything from tech to bpo like the US labor market has never seen in the coming 6 months. Once employers go through the initial pain of setting up remote work, the more than 50%(and sometimes as much as 80%) cost savings will be irresistible. If you are not in government, healthcare, or other industry that does not have legal requirements to maintain a US presence and you work…

Ah yes, the outsourcing FUD train is ramping up.

Remote work has been a possibility for employers for a few decades now. Nothing has drastically changed since the new wave of WFH to change that, other than its more widely discussed.

> 50%(and sometimes as much as 80%)

is there a source for this?

I'm not convinced that the only reason "everything gets outsourced" hasn't happened yet is because employers are lazy.

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