A Hybrid Approach to Work • Hacker News Board

Re: A Hybrid Approach to Work

#71

Post by foobarian » Thu, May 06, 2021, 1:55 AM UTC

garet2 wrote: post #59

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 harm people out of the office I have seen this implication frequently in these discussions, that remote workers will get fewer promotions, lower ratings, etc. The assumption is that this therefore makes remote work non-viable. I don't really get that. Trading off better compensation through promos and ratings is just a business decision for the potential remote worker. Personally, I would trade never getting a…

> trade never getting a promotion again for remote work

Trade you say? Sounds like win-win to me! Not being made to manage/lead a bunch of other engineers sounds pretty nice

Re: A Hybrid Approach to Work

#72

Post by UncleMeat » Thu, May 06, 2021, 1:55 AM UTC

garet2 wrote: post #59

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 harm people out of the office I have seen this implication frequently in these discussions, that remote workers will get fewer promotions, lower ratings, etc. The assumption is that this therefore makes remote work non-viable. I don't really get that. Trading off better compensation through promos and ratings is just a business decision for the potential remote worker. Personally, I would trade never getting a…

This is 100% my calculus. I do not care if remote work harms my career because it is so amazingly valuable to me in other ways. Being given the choice to decide what my priorities are is way better than being told "well it'll hurt your career so we won't let you do it".

Re: A Hybrid Approach to Work

#73

Post by osipov » Thu, May 06, 2021, 1:57 AM UTC

singron wrote: post #69

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…

Xoogler here. Google has been doing remote-work from the office for years. The campuses are so big and have so many buildings that meetings are often held over VC anyway so people don't have to walk back and forth. I occasionally had VC meetings with people elsewhere in the same building. Meetings between campuses are also common and obviously require VC regardless of laziness. VC is automatically added to meetings,…

Can confirm this description as correct. The individual contributors are effective at remote work but the management still wants the luxury of keeping the employees in an office location. Google's people management is notoriously weak and is one of the weakest in the IT industry in my experience. Poor managers prefer management by "walking around" which translates to organizational games played though unaccountable face-to-face meetings and political back-and-forth. Also, the senior management (reasonably) expects that once remote work is freely available, the employees will relocate to other areas of the country to minimize their cost of living. Once that happens, senior management loses sway with municipal and state governments that dish out kickbacks to companies based on their impact on the tax revenue.

Re: A Hybrid Approach to Work

#74

Post by UncleMeat » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:03 AM UTC

wildrhythms wrote: post #15

davidmargolin wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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?

That seems to be what they are doing. They are estimating that 20% of the company will be permanently remote. Last I saw, something like 25% of the company expressed interest in permanent remote work. So in most cases people will have the choice.

Re: A Hybrid Approach to Work

#75

Post by mbzi » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:05 AM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #48

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 te…

I like you are having success here, and the key item "natural communication lines" which I very much agree with. We will always deliver conway's law.

I am curious on 1) the size of your teams, and 2) your opinion on how this would work with E2E product domain based teams (mixed skill sets) vs skills based teams e.g. User engagement team (front and backend devs covering sign on, emails, etc) vs Backend engineers (maintain all backend systems, etc).

Re: A Hybrid Approach to Work

#76

Post by garet2 » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:10 AM UTC

foobarian wrote: post #71

garet2 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you harm people out of the office I have seen this implication frequently in these discussions, that remote workers will get fewer promotions, lower ratings, etc. The assumption is that this therefore makes remote work non-viable. I don't really get that. Trading off better compensation through promos and ratings is just a business decision for the potential remote worker. Personally, I would trade never getting a…

> trade never getting a promotion again for remote work Trade you say? Sounds like win-win to me! Not being made to manage/lead a bunch of other engineers sounds pretty nice

At these companies, "management is not a promotion"™, so it's not exactly that. But yeah, you usually have to deal with more people stuff, even as an IC.

Re: A Hybrid Approach to Work

#77

Post by benrbray » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:16 AM UTC

elliekelly wrote: post #68

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 te…

I’m not sure I completely buy that in-person conversations are a net positive. Constantly being interrupted with drop-in conversations definitely hurts productivity. The vast majority of the time those conversations could have been an email and our two minute chat is going to take me ten minutes to get back in the zone of what I was working on.

It's a matter of etiquette, and of boundaries. In-person conversations are definitely a net positive if your coworkers are well-mannered.

Also, there's this new invention called "doors" that I wish companies would get on board with. I hear that "opening" one's "door" can be used as an invitation to chat. :)

Re: A Hybrid Approach to Work

#78

Post by throwaway197812 » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:17 AM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #61

DeRock wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that 60% figure is misleading, it must represent people who have just come in to pick something up or drop something off. I'm working at another company in the valley, that is much more HW oriented, and its less than 10% of employees who are coming in with any regularity.

Almost no one is back in the office currently. The 60% is people who are expressing interest in returning to the office according to employee surveys.

The actual quote is "In fact, in places where we’ve been able to reopen Google offices in a voluntary capacity, we’ve seen nearly 60% of Googlers choosing to come back to the office." That doesn't sound like surveys; I think the 60% of people came to the office once or twice interpretation is more likely.

(Also possible that the offices that were opened were more heavy on hardware / "lab" roles, so while maybe it was officially "voluntary", those people effectively had to choose between coming back to the office or doing fake / busy work at home.)

Re: A Hybrid Approach to Work

#79

Post by mycologos » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:21 AM UTC

mikeodds wrote: post #50

xyzelement wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

(The parent comment is a joke.)

Re: A Hybrid Approach to Work

#80

Post by throwaway197812 » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:25 AM UTC

singron wrote: post #69

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…

Xoogler here. Google has been doing remote-work from the office for years. The campuses are so big and have so many buildings that meetings are often held over VC anyway so people don't have to walk back and forth. I occasionally had VC meetings with people elsewhere in the same building. Meetings between campuses are also common and obviously require VC regardless of laziness. VC is automatically added to meetings,…

people often actually click the right buttons to start the VC even when they aren't expecting VC guests

In at least one Google building I worked in, for a while conference rooms were in such short supply that if you didn't start the VC, after a few minutes some calendar bot would decide that the room wasn't being used, remove your reservation from the room, and five minutes later someone else would show up and try to kick you out.