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A Hybrid Approach to Work

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Re: A Hybrid Approach to Work

#41

Post by [deleted] »

anonporridge wrote: post #37
Google234 wrote: post #3

That meeting room looks super uncomfortable and awkward. Why can’t they just use some simple criteria for coming back to work: if you have two vaccine shots + time for second shot you can come in to work (unless you have a medical/religious reason not to). Also, if everyone is vaccines can we do away with mask requirements?

> Also, if everyone is vaccines can we do away with mask requirements? We still don't have any hard evidence that the vaccine stops transmission. It's possible that it keeps you from getting sick while being an asymptomatic spreader. That's why we're still wearing masks even after vaccination until we have better understanding of how the vaccine affects transmission rates.

[deleted]

Re: A Hybrid Approach to Work

#42

Post by Vaslo »

bsilvereagle wrote: post #35
softwaredoug wrote: post #21

> They’re testing new multi-purpose offices and private workspaces, and working with teams to develop advanced video technology that creates greater equity between employees in the office and those joining virtually. It just doesn't work when half of the team can walk by each other's desk, do some impromptu planning, and the other half are spread out across the world effectively uninvolved in these conversations. Nob…

> Nobody wants to go through the trouble of setting up a zoom for the 2 min conversation you have about a thing I have set aside 30 minute blocks on my calendar for "drop-ins" for exactly this flavor of conversation. I'm the only person on the invite list, but others know about its existence and will find the link on my calendar as needed. Sometimes no one shows up, other days the block turns into an impromptu large…

With Microsoft Teams I just click a button and it calls the person instantly. I do this frequently for very short interactions and we can quickly yank more people in.

Re: A Hybrid Approach to Work

#43

Post by philsnow »

> We’ll also offer opportunities for you to apply for completely remote work (away from your team or office) based on your role and team needs. Before the pandemic, we had thousands of people working in locations separate from their core teams. I fully expect those numbers to increase in the coming months as we develop more remote roles, including fully all-remote sub teams.

This is the most interesting bit that I saw. For a year+ the official stance has been that there won't be any more fully-remote work after the pandemic than there was before.

Re: A Hybrid Approach to Work

#44

Post by fermentation »

philsnow wrote: post #43

> We’ll also offer opportunities for you to apply for completely remote work (away from your team or office) based on your role and team needs. Before the pandemic, we had thousands of people working in locations separate from their core teams. I fully expect those numbers to increase in the coming months as we develop more remote roles, including fully all-remote sub teams. This is the most interesting bit that I sa…

I'm assuming many folks would be scared away from going remote due to the career ramifications of their peers not going remote.

Re: A Hybrid Approach to Work

#45

Post by gjm11 »

Smaug123 wrote: post #19
wildrhythms wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not give employees the choice? Google already claims to hire 'the best'; do they not trust 'the best' to capably manage their own productivity wrt wherever they decide to work?

Well, it's explicitly stated that productivity is not their top priority, right? "We’ll move to a hybrid work week where most Googlers spend approximately three days in the office and two days wherever they work best." That's an explicit recognition that they're expecting not to get the best work from a bunch of people for approximately three days a week; presumably senior management is fine with this, or they wouldn…

They're explicitly recognizing that for three days a week, a bunch of people will not be where they individually work best.

That doesn't necessarily mean their top priority isn't productivity, because the productivity of an organization is not simply the sum of the individual, independent productivities of its members.

They may, for instance, believe something along the following lines. 1. All else being equal, most people are more productive individually at home than in the office. 2. Individuals' productivity in the office is higher when other people are also in the office, because they can cooperate. 3. Individuals' productivity is better directed (i.e., the stuff they're productive at is a better match for the actual needs of the company) if at least some of the time they're physically in the same place as their colleagues. Without that, they may work more efficiently but they are less likely to be working on the right things. 4. Because of 3 (backed up by 2) the amount of value provided to the company is greater when employees spend some time together in the office.

Whether any of that is actually true is another matter. And of course they may also just like the power-trip of seeing all their minions working busily. But it's not true that the words you quoted have to mean that productivity isn't what they care about most.

(In case it matters to anyone: I am not a Googler, have no interest in watching minions working busily and furthermore have no minions, and much prefer working from home though whether I'm actually more productive there I don't know.)

Re: A Hybrid Approach to Work

#46

Post by jpm_sd »

> Whether you choose to transfer to a different office or opt for completely remote work, your compensation will be adjusted according to your new location.

That's it, the end of geographic arbitrage. No more working from the mountains on a Silicon Valley salary. Hope everyone enjoyed it while it lasted.

Re: A Hybrid Approach to Work

#47

Post by tdeck »

davidmargolin wrote: post #6
yamellasmallela wrote: post #5

This is really stupid. Most people do not need to be in an office to get work done. Google, and all these other tech companies, made record profits this year. I just don't get why they insist on keeping people in a seat? At least for google, offering all these on-site only perks is just a scheme to keep employees at work for as long as possible.

did you even read it? Google is committing to offering fully remote opportunities now.

Just a friendly reminder that the HN site guidelines discourage comments that ask "did you even read it?"

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: A Hybrid Approach to Work

#48

Post by PragmaticPulp »

softwaredoug wrote: post #21

> They’re testing new multi-purpose offices and private workspaces, and working with teams to develop advanced video technology that creates greater equity between employees in the office and those joining virtually. It just doesn't work when half of the team can walk by each other's desk, do some impromptu planning, and the other half are spread out across the world effectively uninvolved in these conversations. Nob…

> You either choose to be fully digital, and make digital communication the way work gets done, or you harm people out of the office.

I say this as someone who managed mixed distributed / WFH teams: If in-person conversations are an advantage (and they are), no company is going to willingly surrender them for the sake of catering to the people who aren't in the office.

That doesn't mean teams can ignore the remote team members. It's everyone's responsibility to communicate and share information. However, there's no sense in reducing the efficiency of in-office employees just to level the playing field.

The strategies that worked best for my teams were to structure the hires and the workloads according to who could work best together. For example, having an in-office back end team combined with a WFH front-end team works well, because the communication is naturally segmented across team boundaries anyway.

On the other hand, if you put one of the front-end devs in the office with the back-end devs while everyone else is WFH, you need to be prepared to make that in-office person the team lead because they're going to become the primary communication point whether you want it or not.

I love my mixed distributed/WFH teams, but I'll never deny that in-office communication still reigns supreme. That said, distributed can be made to work as long as you do your planning and structuring around the natural communication lines rather than trying to fight it.

Re: A Hybrid Approach to Work

#49

Post by jmarcher »

Vaslo wrote: post #42
bsilvereagle wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody wants to go through the trouble of setting up a zoom for the 2 min conversation you have about a thing I have set aside 30 minute blocks on my calendar for "drop-ins" for exactly this flavor of conversation. I'm the only person on the invite list, but others know about its existence and will find the link on my calendar as needed. Sometimes no one shows up, other days the block turns into an impromptu large…

With Microsoft Teams I just click a button and it calls the person instantly. I do this frequently for very short interactions and we can quickly yank more people in.

Same thing with Slack. I like the idea of open hours.

Re: A Hybrid Approach to Work

#50

Post by mikeodds »

xyzelement wrote: post #16
eweise wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from jobs that actually need to be done in person, I think it really comes down to leadership egos. Probably just feels good to walk by a sea of minions on your way to the corner office.

Yup that's exactly right. Google classifies office leases as "Ego stroking and miscellaneous". It's right there in the SEC filings.

Can you link this? I tried finding it
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