Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 278 posts

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#31

Post by jrumbut »

x87678r wrote: post #10
ahelwer wrote: post #3

The really interesting thing here is the possibility of part-time work. I recently switched from full-time work to independent contracting, and have a single part-time contract while looking for a second. Honestly, part-time contracting work is really, really nice. The pay is more than enough to live on and I have a ton of free time which I am devoting to rock climbing, finally writing a bunch of blog posts, and lear…

health insurance is my big wish. 20 hrs/wk with health insurance I'd work for 1/3rd my salary. EDIT: I have a family like most people. EDIT2: I'm thinking about how insurance isn't as expensive as giving up more than that in salary, but maybe I need the security of steady work on the resume, sick leave and a job to lean on if things get tough.

Check out college/grad school. You can do a couple classes and get excellent coverage for cheap.

When I did it it worked out to paying $3k for an MS, but I bet you could look harder and get the degree and a discount over just buying a high quality plan.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#32

Post by tuna-piano »

popotamonga wrote: post #17
ahelwer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're single and willing to pay over $500/month you can get some pretty okay health insurance. Families throw a huge wrench in that plan though. Currently I'm just using COBRA. Nothing crystalizes support for medicare-for-all faster than ten seconds looking at the public health insurance marketplace.

How come its so expensive? The top top insurance in my european country is $100 and a pretty good is 30.

Well for many reasons (good and bad) healthcare is more expensive in the US than any other country.

But why is healthcare bought individually more expensive than healthcare an employer buys for all their employees?

One is real and one is hidden.

The hidden price difference is that most employees think they pay $200 per month in health insurance, but actually their employer is paying $600 and chips in $400 so the employee only pays $200. And of course, $200 taken out of a paycheck before you receive it doesn't feel as bad as a monthly $200 charge to your credit card.

The other reason is adverse selection: When an entire employee base gets health insurance together, the people needing expensive care and the people not needing any care all average out together.

But in the individual market, less healthy people are insured but more sick people are. Healthy people forgo health insurance, so the average cost per person rises.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#34

Post by bpanon »

popotamonga wrote: post #17
ahelwer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're single and willing to pay over $500/month you can get some pretty okay health insurance. Families throw a huge wrench in that plan though. Currently I'm just using COBRA. Nothing crystalizes support for medicare-for-all faster than ten seconds looking at the public health insurance marketplace.

How come its so expensive? The top top insurance in my european country is $100 and a pretty good is 30.

because medicine and hospital are big business here and an 2 hour emergency visit costs 3-5k+, overnight 10k+

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#35

Post by mc32 »

cmiles74 wrote: post #27
mc32 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remote work is possible, but it’s not for everyone. Some people are good at it; they adapt well and remain productive. But... as Marissa Meier found out, some people are utterly bad at it, or some take advantage of the privilege of self management and milk the system. So they will have to measure and gauge to see the balance of benefits and detriments of permanent change.

The quality of management will be the same regardless of if the employee is working from the office or at home. The person who was allowed to "milk the system" in the office, surely, will be allowed to do the same when they are working from home. It seems unreasonable to me an employee's manager would change their behavior based on where the employee happened to be working. I don't believe Marissa Meier demonstrated…

Simply put. Some people need “structure” (that can be in the form of peer pressure, accountability, visibility, etc). Without it they flounder. At work if someone is not mainly on their job, people will eventually come to know them as slackers. Working from home allows quite a few slackers to fly under the radar.

It has parallels in learning. Some people are self paced self learners and can learn remotely. Some need the pace and management by going to a physical classroom with an instructor.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#36

Post by picodguyo »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #4

IMHO companies need to either embrace WFH fully or not at all. This current "we're kinda mostly WFH but not really sometimes" is the worst, as you have archaic processes still in place from pre WFH days that are still enforced, and most importantly, if management is in the office and you're not, over time, the colleagues who will be in the office will seem to get really lucky in regards to promotions and opportunitie…

Agreed, I worked on a small company where we offered the choice to work from home or come in. Half the company hated coming in and half hated working from home. The end result was low energy in the office and poor bonding across the team. I personally prefer working from home, but I don't think anyone has figured out how to do the remote thing without alienating a portion of the workforce, which is why many companies are hanging on to in-office policies (e.g. Netflix).

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#37

Post by ghaff »

lnsru wrote: post #29
st1x7 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - for someone living in a big city half office, half WFH is the worst of everything. It means that I have to maintain an expensive home office, don't get all the benefits of working in an office with other people (which I prefer) and I can't move out of the big city.

You’re describing my situation. I have no dedicated room for my home office, just table with my own decent monitor and company’s decent workstation plus some hardware from the office. My place looks ugly with all that equipment, but it’s still better than punching a card daily in the office. Moving to a cheaper area is too good to be true.

Or you get a coworking space (in normal circumstances) and it's just a cost like commuting is for a lot of people.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#38

Post by shock »

mc32 wrote: post #7
PeterStuer wrote: post #5

The nuance you might not get from just the title: "Microsoft will now allow employees to work from home freely for less than 50 percent of their working week, or for managers to approve permanent remote work. " In order for true relocation to be an option, that 'manager approval' must be unequivocal, unrevocable and transferable, when, as happens very frequently at Microsoft, the worker gets a new manager.

Remote work is possible, but it’s not for everyone. Some people are good at it; they adapt well and remain productive. But... as Marissa Meier found out, some people are utterly bad at it, or some take advantage of the privilege of self management and milk the system. So they will have to measure and gauge to see the balance of benefits and detriments of permanent change.

> or some take advantage of the privilege of self management and milk the system.

People milk the system in the office too. It's human nature to expend as little energy as possible for maximum rewards.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#39

Post by ck425 »

dudul wrote: post #2

This article seems much more nuanced than the title. Looks like it's mostly part time WFH, modulo specific authorization from one's manager.

Is it common for companies not to have this already?

Both places I've worked so far have had this. There's an office and everyone has a desk and is presumed to be in the majority of the time but if you want to WFH you just did and let your team know. There was an understanding that for certain events you should try be in the office (big planning/roadmapping meetings, retros and manager 121s) but otherwise it was at will.

If for some reason you needed to WFH for an extended period of time that was a conversation they were open to. For example a colleague's partner was ill so he WFH for a month to help with the kids, or another colleague was changing meds and that was easier to cope with if they WFH that week.

Maybe I've just been lucky with employers but flexibility around WFH has always been a given for me.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#40

Post by throwaway0a5e »

znpy wrote: post #22
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #4

IMHO companies need to either embrace WFH fully or not at all. This current "we're kinda mostly WFH but not really sometimes" is the worst, as you have archaic processes still in place from pre WFH days that are still enforced, and most importantly, if management is in the office and you're not, over time, the colleagues who will be in the office will seem to get really lucky in regards to promotions and opportunitie…

Yes and no. My current employer and the previous one had more than one branch, geographically located in different areas (and nations). To me all the colleagues from other branches were "remote". As far as I can tell, it made no difference to me if they were in their office or at home, I still interacted with them via tickets, instant messaging, video calls etc. And yet we all worked together.

Exactly this. Multinational companies are relaizing that they've already incurred the cost of distributed teams and that since there's really no difference between your manager being in Munich, Germany and Munich, North Dakota they may as well cut costs by allowing the latter case.
Post reply on HN