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Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees

cnbc.com

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Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees

#41

Post by anon_tor_12345 »

magneticnorth wrote: post #29
digbert wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Clearly great news for Facebook employees. For some Facebook employees, definitely. Personally, I think I'll be finding a job elsewhere now.

I'm curious to hear why - what do you see as the drawback of more remote coworkers?

i onboarded last summer as an intern and it was pretty miserable. language barrier with my intern manager mediated by zoom/blue jeans/portal plus the famously poorly documented codebase made it damn near impossible to get things done. i got a return offer but i'm pretty sure it was because everyone was struggling (skip said as much). i'm surprised they're doing this.

Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees

#42

Post by JulianMorrison »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #35

The bloomberg article mentions potential CoL adjustments: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-09/facebook-... It is interesting that the Slashdot crowd was fairly universal in panning the idea of paying people less if they lived in a low cost area. In my 17 years as a designated "teleworker" at a SV megacorp, they adjusted compensation ratios. This meant that they didn't reduce my salary when I moved from…

I think it would be reasonable to pay people extra if they live in an expensive place, and the company actually needs them to be in that place. Like maybe they have to be able to get on site at short notice, so they need to live right by the office, or the data center.

Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees

#43

Post by schoolornot »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #35

The bloomberg article mentions potential CoL adjustments: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-09/facebook-... It is interesting that the Slashdot crowd was fairly universal in panning the idea of paying people less if they lived in a low cost area. In my 17 years as a designated "teleworker" at a SV megacorp, they adjusted compensation ratios. This meant that they didn't reduce my salary when I moved from…

For new hires I suppose it's okay but to adjust the pay of an existing worker whose output remains the same afterwards because they relocated is a bit insulting to me. It's a pay cut, not a "COLA".

Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees

#44

Post by dheera »

magneticnorth wrote: post #12

I am really curious to see where we'll be in a year, two, three down the line wrt remote/office/hybrid work at major companies. This forced experiment has had some surprising outcomes about the effectiveness of remote workplaces, but working from home for only a year, in pandemic conditions, is clearly not the same as indefinitely in normal times. But there's reason to think that may go even better, not worse; I am r…

A big problem with hybrid is that you're forced to live in the same locality as the office, and most companies aren't subsidizing rent, but at the same time you need a decent office setup at home to be effective and that isn't cheap.

I moved apartments (from a studio to a 1-bedroom) at the start of COVID because it was basically impossible to work out of my bay area studio for a full day. I didn't even have a desk, because prior to COVID I basically only used it to sleep and rest, not work. I got a good rent price on the 1-bedroom because of COVID, but rental prices are going back up already.

Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees

#45

Post by stephc_int13 »

someelephant wrote: post #28

Let's be real. The loser here is middle managers. Not all of them. Just the ones who feed off of the high they get from having control over the office environment.

I feel the same.

Middle management is not always useful, they mostly have the role of herding dogs, but if the work is not dumb and soul-crushing I don't think most people need to be herded.

(and I am talking as someone who built companies and led teams)

Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees

#46

Post by jfoutz »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #35

The bloomberg article mentions potential CoL adjustments: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-09/facebook-... It is interesting that the Slashdot crowd was fairly universal in panning the idea of paying people less if they lived in a low cost area. In my 17 years as a designated "teleworker" at a SV megacorp, they adjusted compensation ratios. This meant that they didn't reduce my salary when I moved from…

Really drives home the point, business is not a meritocracy.

Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees

#47

Post by ludamad »

foxpurple wrote: post #22
admissionsguy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> has had some surprising outcomes about the effectiveness of remote workplaces Curious, what are the outcomes?

Replacing predictions with experienced reality. Seeing things continue as normal and at full pace while working from home which many expected was not possible. Our company was quite restrictive of working from home previously but after last year seeing that we had our most productive year ever, things loosened up a lot.

Does anyone have a convincing break-down of the overall economic effect? Remote has meant I sleep more (compared to a long commute). As well, my home has advantages - there's a dog here, patio access, etc. I think communication can be hard to do right, but I'm not sure if this resulted in more faults

Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees

#48

Post by JulianMorrison »

ditonal wrote: post #40
magneticnorth wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious to hear why - what do you see as the drawback of more remote coworkers?

I'm mixed on remote work, even as an engineering IC, despite claims that only management want in-office. To me, the downside of remote coworkers is we've already seen a dynamic at many companies that start with "we'll allow remote workers" straight to "if we allow any in-person collaboration, then remote workers will be second-class citizens, so to pre-empt that, we will actively discourage any in person collaboratio…

I'd think the obvious rejoinder to that approach is, if they want to work remotely, they take the rough with the smooth. No, they are not going to be as plugged into casual office conversations. Their choice.

Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees

#49

Post by Izikiel43 »

digbert wrote: post #39
magneticnorth wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious to hear why - what do you see as the drawback of more remote coworkers?

Mostly that by having remote co-workers I get many of the downsides of remote work without any of the upsides. Once a few colleagues are remote, all collaboration has to assume remote as the default. Even if I'm in the office I'm still stuck with remote collaboration, but I still have a commute.

Why don't you become remote then? Remote all the things!
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