As someone who lives near a lot of FB employees I’m happy for them as well as for all the others who won’t have to suffer the impact of those employees commuting.
This is an all around good thing.
Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees
161–170 of 489 posts
Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This doesn't work. As soon as a meeting has 2 people in person, the first time a zoom glitches or a leaf blower is in the background; the 2 in the office will feel disdain for remote. If the office mic in the room only picks up one person, the remote person will be left out; the 2 in office will feel disdain for the remote miscommunication.
Just get rid of all your meeting rooms, and have everyone do the meeting from the desk, so it sucks for everyone.
I mean, that's kind of horrific, but it's the sort of thing people are thinking of.
The other mechanism is, even if people are in offices, construct teams so everyone is in a different one, and so everything is remote even if you are in an office.
Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is why facebook can do full wfh. They don't care if you look at facebook all day.
Businesses need to stop caring about if you're on facebook 8 hours a day. If you're getting your work done at the end of the week that's all that really matters. The idea that the business owns your ass for a minimum of precisely 40 hours a week where you must be solely focused on the outcome of the business is both toxic and nonproductive.
I think that would be a great - but we also employ by the hour not by the task which I also think is great. Sometimes I get tickets marked with three story points and think "Ha, let me just push up a quick patch" and other times I discover a dark dark hole at the bottom of assumptions that eats away at days.
It's really hard to generally evaluate employees on productivity - especially in CS - and so our compromise is that we all lie a bit and say "We're paying you for 40 hours a week" and we reply "Yes - my compensation is tied purely to the fact that I am here for forty hours".
I think it's a much longer road to better employee respect.
Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees
#164I currently have 10 fully remote engineering jobs. The bar is so low, oversight is non-existent, and everyone is so forgiving for under performance I can coast about 4-8 weeks before a given job fires me. Currently on a $1.5M run-rate for comp this year. And the interviewing process is so much faster today, companies are desperate, it takes me 2-3hrs of total effort to land a new job with thousands to chose from.
You should spend some of that money on good legal counsel
Why should they? Unless it's some kind of contract I don't think you can be sued for not doing your job - you can be fired (and likely would be), but incompetence doesn't generally lead to legal problems.
Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees
#165I've been back in my company's office in person (medium-sized tech company) for the last week with a small subset of employees before we all go back, and I've become pretty convinced that these hybrid models will not go well. Even while wearing masks and social distancing, I feel far more connected to the others that work in the office, and whether it's fair or not, personal connection and trust play a huge role in collaborating effectively and deciding who gets what work, who gets promoted, etc. If everyone can choose whatever combination of remote and in-person they want, it seems impossible to me that there won't be extremely strong in-group/out-group effects that will cause big organizational problems for companies. But I'm saying this as a young person excited to work in person, so maybe others (parents, those with long commutes) feel it's still worth it.
Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees
#166Let'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.
This strawman about middle managers in the WFH conversation is exhausting and annoying. Do you really think middle managers are some evil scum-sucking lizards that actually enjoy things like hour long commutes and wearing uncomfortable clothes? They're people just like you are, and they enjoy sitting at home in their pajamas just as much as you do.
Maybe, just maybe the issue is that middle managers have actual, legitimate reasons that WFH isn't a universally good thing. Contrary to what you may think, not every worker in tech is a high-performing star that produces flawless code if you just leave them alone in their home office. A lot of employees are lazy and will take advantage of the reduced oversight to slack off, a lot of employees are people who need constant hands-on mentoring or direction, and a lot of employees are just simply more productive when there's someone to impress nearby.
So while I respect that you might be the perfect worker bee who does whatever work is assigned with no oversight or hand-holding required, most employees are not that, and in-person oversight/mentoring (and if in-person oversight can't happen, get ready for increase monitoring on your work laptop usage) legitimately is necessary.
Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
We surveyed the opinions of our 2021 summer intern population before they started and something over 90% of them expressed a preference to be in the office. Of course, summer interns are a slightly odd population as the choice they're making is probably between doing their internship remotely from their bedroom at their parents house or spending ten weeks in the big city so there is that.
I would only hire that 10%, those 90% are saying I need more hand holding.
It has nothing to do with hand holding. Almost every blocker is tribal knowledge that there is no way to acquire other than asking.
Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees
#168Wonder if they will hire more in UK/Canada now?
Not sure about the UK, but as someone who lives in Canada and works at a tech company, I've recently been getting a blitz of linkedin messages and facebook ads encouraging me to apply to facebook as a remote employee.
Was that for all roles or only 5+ years of experience?
Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
> My biggest question right now about sustained wfh is how much of the current productivity is the result of relationships that were built in the office. None. I started 3 different consulting jobs during the pandemic and always felt very productive and very connected to my colleagues, even though I never met them.
After working remote for ten+ years I disagree. There are things one can better understand about a person in a face to face meeting. When discussions become differently casual. Also some discussions are simpler in a completely informal circumstance ("random" meeting at the watercooler) than a virtual meeting of any kind. Of course ymmv but blunt "None" isn't right.
People talk online too; it’s different for people who grew up using text messages and social media where they’re accustomed to building and maintaining online relationships.
I’m old, so don’t look at me, but when you look at the cohort of folk who are dealing with wfh successfully and productively, it’s, in my direct observation, younger folk.
None is perhaps true for more people than you think.
The ones who are struggling are the people who don’t “do chat” (ie the “oh no! I despise slack” group and the “let’s have a call to discuss that” group) and managers.
...and to be fair, it’s a lot harder to be a manager remotely; I can’t deny that.
...but people can build meaningful relationships online; it’s just different, and that’s hard for older people, in general.
Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees
#170I've been back in my company's office in person (medium-sized tech company) for the last week with a small subset of employees before we all go back, and I've become pretty convinced that these hybrid models will not go well. Even while wearing masks and social distancing, I feel far more connected to the others that work in the office, and whether it's fair or not, personal connection and trust play a huge role in c…
> But I'm saying this as a young person excited to work in person, so maybe others (parents, those with long commutes) feel it's still worth it.
Parent of three, going on four. Get me out of here!