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

cnbc.com

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

#71

Post by analognoise »

foobarian wrote: post #16
null_object wrote: post #12

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…

Interesting game-theoretic play: play chicken with return to work plans. Big co promises remote-first work indefinitely, scoops a bunch of talent from competitors who return to office first, then later go back on their word when nobody else is offering those terms. Even if some get to stay remote new hires may not be offered that. Corollary I guess is that some of us might be able to lock in a remote-only position if…

As someone who wants to stay remote, this theory gave me anxiety.

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

#72

Post by sircastor »

aikinai wrote: post #57
pjc50 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect it's individual managers who've never quite got past "if you can't see someone how do you know they're working?" Never underestimate human irrationality in these things.

This is the most blatantly ridiculous straw man, I can’t believe people on HN keep trying to make it especially against FAANG. Do you really think these companies are run by middle managers that just want to watch people work? At least at Google, a huge number of employees already work in a different floor, office, city, or even country than their managers that this couldn’t even be a factor for them.

It’s not hard. It’s not as though Sundar Pichai sends out a survey to all Google employees. He asks the VPs, and the VPs ask their reports and so on and so forth. I have no doubt there’s data from middle management that is getting weighed more than that of the people they manage.

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

#73

Post by throwaway6734 »

dcolkitt wrote: post #15

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…

As a non-fang employee, I will gladly scab any of them that are not willing to go back to the office.

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

#74

Post by pc86 »

phreeza wrote: post #67
pc86 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's certainly possible :)

Even as someone with over a decade of work experience it's somewhat aspirational to work for a FAANG and get that big paycheck and all those RSUs. But no WFH is a deal-breaker unless they start opening up offices in Milwaukee soon.

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

#75

Post by mistrial9 »

lkrubner wrote: post #41
dcolkitt wrote: post #15

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…

"destroy morale for the remaining" This depends on how you define morale. Morale can be thought of as the willingness of people to make difficult sacrifices to maintain community ties, in the sense offered by the essay "Why Strict Churches Are Strong": https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/230409?jou... . In that essay, they make the point that there are no freeloaders in a strict church, and that is what…

this is an uplifting example, however, in business, it is not sacrifice in the same way. Business is about making profit, and extracting profit is what they do.. I was told by a retired consultant with decades of experience -- fifty percent of companies manage through fear. That is, you work hard there, or require others to work hard, because, you will be punished or terminated. End of story.

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

#76

Post by klipklop »

eplanit wrote: post #56
dcolkitt wrote: post #15

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…

Handicapping FAANG companies could be beneficial to society, overall. Covid-19 brought a few positive outcomes -- less pollution last year, more WFH, ... Following that up with a decline or temporary slowdown in FAANG would be another.

What slowdown? My FB stock is up 100% since March 2020. Seems to me they are expecting even more power coming out of covid. Their influence on society has grown even stronger in the past year and a half.

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

#77

Post by HelloNurse »

simonh wrote: post #6

I think there's going to be a bit of a disconnect between worker retention and new hiring. Companies are going to want existing workers to go back to the office. Yes I think most will accommodate an increased proportion of working from home, but they're going to want to hold the line that if they want you in the office they have the right to insist. On the other hand when they're hiring new workers they're going to h…

WFH-friendly employers will lose less staff AND hire more easily than places that insist on returning people to office for no perceived good reason. But competition isn't the strong point of badly managed companies.

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

#78

Post by cableshaft »

mdorazio wrote: post #19
null_object wrote: post #12

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…

Job hunting right now.

I know if I get two job offers and one is any form of WFH Hybrid (or a "you can probably work it out with your manager") and the other is 100% Remote, I'm taking the 100% remote position, unless the hybrid is like 2x the pay.

Right now there's a lot of recruiters trying to sell me on various nebulous hybrid positions (sounds like the companies don't really know or have committed to anything just yet, or are afraid to let potential hires know what they're really planning), but there's equally as many recruiters contacting me for 100% remote (and plans to stay that way) as well.

I don't mind meeting up with other employees on the occasional fun team-building outing, but I really don't want to work in an office again.

I likely have permanent Tinnitus in one ear thanks to my time in open offices and I had to turn music up to block out multiple conversations to concentrate, for one reason why I'm not in a hurry to go back, let alone there still being uncertainty about this or future pandemics (I'm vaccinated, but delta or delta plus or the next crazy variant might still fuck me up, and I don't want to be stuck having to go to an office when I start feeling uncomfortable about the spread of those).

Also I don't want to deal with paying and transporting my dogs to doggy daycare everyday, or spend 2+ hours a day driving to and from work. I've done plenty of that in the past, and it always sucked.

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

#79

Post by wayoutthere »

sam0x17 wrote: post #55
dcolkitt wrote: post #15

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. Many just built multi-billion-dollar campuses that, in the WFH economy, are big useless pieces of real estate

The same can be said of Wall Street banks — they have significant real estate holdings that would be devalued in a scenario where a sizeable percentage of the workforce never goes back to the office. They have a vested interest in driving utilization of physical spaces.

Meanwhile in tech, I would say folks have been more productive over the pandemic. I certainly have been. So there’s no big push to go back.

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

#80

Post by kaycebasques »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #43
kaycebasques wrote: post #10

Here's a blog post outlining why I left Google this month (June 2021) to take a 1-year sabbatical: https://kayce.basqu.es/sabbatical/prologue/ (Per AnIdiotOnTheNet's feedback here is a summary of my motivations and a compare/contrast with the ideas mentioned in the CNBC post) The main thing for me was the prospect of having kids in the next 5 years. It doesn't seem like it will ever get easier to have a sabbatical th…

Personally I don't have a high tolerance for the "look at this link" style of post. It's low-effort and feels like an ad even if it isn't. Now, if said link is accompanied by a brief overview of the contents or some other insight or commentary, that's much more acceptable. For the record, I did not down vote you, I'm just offering perspective on why someone might have.

That is understandable, thank you for the feedback. I'll add some more context to the original comment.
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