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‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

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61–70 of 531 posts

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#61

I’m honestly perplexed what the FANGs are even thinking in being so aggressive about pushing an end to WFH. Sure it could all work out fine for them. Maybe employees will grumble for a bit, then settle back into office life. But maybe it wont’t . There’s a very real possibility that you lose a non-negligible percent of your staff (disproportionately the most talented who have other options), handicap your ability to…

Not directly addressing your point, but how common is it for someone to be a FAANG developer - extremely well compensated and smart by all accounts - and not have other options? An argument like this makes sense for the random dev shops and non-tech company dev departments across the country. For many of those, the top 1 or 2 people are arguably good enough to switch over to FAANG or HFT or some other very highly compensated thing if they really want to.

I would expect everyone at a FAANG to basically walk into a comparable or better role at a more "traditional" employer.

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#62

In my experience at least talking to some younger people there is a clear dichotomy: despite all the talk about Gen Z being "digital natives", people new in their career are much hungrier to get back into the office because they don't yet have good career networks built up and they're eager for mentorship. It is older, or at least more established workers who are less keen on that. I don't think FAANGs will have any…

This is the exact sentiment I hold as well. I think the demographics of hacker news may be slightly swayed towards people who already have established networks and industry experience.

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#63

I honestly don't know whether these articles are over-stating their case, and neither do I know how typical my own experience is, but for some reason it bothers me that the tone of the HN discussion is so reflexively dismissive. I understand that a lot of people will respond to a question of whether they intend to quit their job with a 'you bet!' even at the best of times, but I'm seeing a lot of people quitting and…

I can only speak from personal experience, but fwiw I'm currently consulting with 2 non-tech Fortune 500 companies. Both have implemented "hybrid" return to office policies where employees have to live within 100 miles of the office and be able to come in 1 day a week or 1 day a month depending on team. I've talked with executives in charge of large teams at both companies about this issue and so far it looks like th…

> employees have to live within 100 miles of the office and be able to come in 1 day a week or 1 day a month depending on team.

This is much more reasonable than what I've seen most places offer. I don't mind the sound of that at all!

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#64

I think WFH is also primed for abuse, but I haven’t heard anything from companies of what they are going to do, or what employees are going to do, about preventing and avoiding abuse. it’s easy and rather flip and just say well if you don’t do your job you’re going to get fired, what does that mean exactly, and how long would it take? I think there’s also a trust issue, a lot of people who want to return to the offic…

It's only primed for abuse if your company is so incompetent that it has no idea what your actual job is supposed to be.

For a company like that, how hard is it really for someone inside the physical office to hide the fact that they're watching cat videos all day? What does the physical office space have anything to do with it? We basically carry around portable entertainment devices that can fit in our pocket.

On top of that, a lot of companies have sophisticated HR software that monitors employee activity, some that even takes periodic screenshots.

It’s hard for me to pin “abuse” on working from home.

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#65
post #24

I’m honestly perplexed what the FANGs are even thinking in being so aggressive about pushing an end to WFH. Sure it could all work out fine for them. Maybe employees will grumble for a bit, then settle back into office life. But maybe it wont’t . There’s a very real possibility that you lose a non-negligible percent of your staff (disproportionately the most talented who have other options), handicap your ability to…

Well...FANG products have largely reached the point in development where new features are incremental and not closely tied to growth or churn in a meaningful way. Not being dismissive, simply pointing out...what fundamental leverage does a developer have against inelastic customer demand? Are customer going to stop using FANG products because advertising feature 3.2.97 isn't added this quarter?

It's feature 3.2.97 missed this quarter, but serious general stagnation in the medium and long term: if junior office dwellers replace senior workers from home moving somewhere else very little is invented, let alone implemented.

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha good point. I learned to do it so it’s easier for people to read instead of a wall of text. People usually get bored with a wall of text. My sentences are longer on desktop - but I was writing on mobile now.

I am really glad not everybody does this

I have separated

the sentences

that were in

the paragraph

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#67
post #61

I’m honestly perplexed what the FANGs are even thinking in being so aggressive about pushing an end to WFH. Sure it could all work out fine for them. Maybe employees will grumble for a bit, then settle back into office life. But maybe it wont’t . There’s a very real possibility that you lose a non-negligible percent of your staff (disproportionately the most talented who have other options), handicap your ability to…

Not directly addressing your point, but how common is it for someone to be a FAANG developer - extremely well compensated and smart by all accounts - and not have other options? An argument like this makes sense for the random dev shops and non-tech company dev departments across the country. For many of those, the top 1 or 2 people are arguably good enough to switch over to FAANG or HFT or some other very highly com…

As a FAANG employee myself, I think your opinion of the average FAANG developer is perhaps a bit too generous.

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#68
Right, so management will insist on ending WFH, key workers will resign in droves, management will convene meetings to understand the issue, resulting in new more liberal & permanent WFH policies

In short, they could avoid all the high costs related to unnecessary employee turnover by doing the same thing up front, but will fail to do so.

And the rule of thumb that you must switch jobs to advance salary & benefits is still true. The only way around it is to get the new offer and ask current employer to match it (this time WFH instead of salary), but that only works once per employer.

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#69

I’m honestly perplexed what the FANGs are even thinking in being so aggressive about pushing an end to WFH. Sure it could all work out fine for them. Maybe employees will grumble for a bit, then settle back into office life. But maybe it wont’t . There’s a very real possibility that you lose a non-negligible percent of your staff (disproportionately the most talented who have other options), handicap your ability to…

> I’m honestly perplexed what the FANGs are even thinking in being so aggressive about pushing an end to WFH. Yes, aggressive measures such as: -Allowing employees to apply to be permanent remote employees -Allowing 2 WFH days per week

> Allowing employees to apply to be permanent remote employees

We'll see how this plays out, but I'm expecting this to be just a ploy to keep people from leaving right away and 95%+ requests to be remote will ultimately be denied.

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#70

In my experience at least talking to some younger people there is a clear dichotomy: despite all the talk about Gen Z being "digital natives", people new in their career are much hungrier to get back into the office because they don't yet have good career networks built up and they're eager for mentorship. It is older, or at least more established workers who are less keen on that. I don't think FAANGs will have any…

They might be able to hire boatloads of new/early grads but attrition of senior staff is no joke. Maybe they’re large enough to throw people at the problem and survive, IDK.
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