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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

#411

Post by forz877 »

nklop wrote: post #314
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Offices are full of people trying to give each other eating disorders through passive aggression, politics and generally pointless power games. Seriously, does half of HN work in the real-life equivalent of "The Office"? Yes, office politics exist, but this idea that it's some sort of scheming, back-stabbing environment is a caricature I have never experienced in my nearly 30 year career.

So you've not seen layoffs? I have. It was a mad scurry of people running around looking busy and indispensible. Bullying? I've had it done to me and another time had to sit in with HR on someone else's behalf. People being performance managed just because? I saw a bunch of 40 somethings get targeted and zeroed out. It got ugly. 30x1 is not the same as 1x30 or 6x5 or 15x2 or 10x3. They all look like the same equation…

None of these things are solved by WFH.

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

#412

Post by zerr »

throwawaynumber wrote: post #252
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…

Like most of hacker news, I think you vastly underestimate really how replaceable smart and skilled people really are. There are literally millions of them, most with far lower pay and conditions than offered by FANGS.

Even more, as it is measured, the more replaceable you render yourself in your work the smarter and skillful you are, and the quality of the work is considered higher.

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

#413

Post by sanderjd »

awsthro00945 wrote: post #262
sanderjd wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you might get fired or laid off or burnt out and leave and only then discover that you have invested too much of yourself into this faceless entity that does not care a whit about you. This is one of those things where peoples' warnings to the young come from hard won experience, but where it doesn't sound right to people who have not themselves yet gained the experience. So we fail to impart the lessons and…

>This is one of those things where peoples' warnings to the young come from hard won experience, but where it doesn't sound right to people who have not themselves yet gained the experience. Speak for yourself. I am very experienced. I have worked at many companies, some of which I left abruptly, and others where my close friends were fired/laid off. But guess what? None of that matters. Just because a friendship sta…

There are two different statements one can make: "don't make friends at revolve one's life around work" vs. "don't only make friends at and revolve one's life around work". I'm making the latter statement. Edit to add: I think you're also making the latter statement, so I don't think we disagree.

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

#414

Post by tqi »

Assuming this is an unusual spike, I think it's good people are self sorting into companies based on whether or not they are embracing WFH. It seems clear from data and the conversation here that there are several different camps of people. If every company went fully remote, wouldn't we just end up with the inverse of the old situation, where there will be some % of people miserably working from home while wishing to be in an office?

Isn't the ideal scenario that we have a mix of companies with different models, so people can choose what works for them?

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

#415

Post by akiselev »

sokoloff wrote: post #60
onion2k wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10% of people leaving during a time when hiring has gotten significantly harder sounds like a serious problem for any company.

A greater percentage than that leave every year anyway, so it doesn't sound all that dire. (I'd love for it to be that dire as we've gone remote-first with pretty good support for that, but I don't think it's actually going to be as massive a tailwind for us as this and similar articles suggest.)

IME 10% turnover is basically background noise of the unavoidable "my spouse got a better job and its right next to the kid's college" sort. That's practically a near-unicorn-level employer with lots of money and negligible amount of dysfunction.

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

#416

Post by taylodl »

forz877 wrote: post #403
taylodl wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. So much this. Young professionals need to learn the difference between friends and colleagues. When working from home it's hard to blur that line. As far as chatter goes, nobody wants that. It's distracting to those around you. When we were at the office we were chatting over IM to cut down on the noise. Guess what? We're still chatting over IM while WFH. Besides, many companies are adopting a hybrid plan anywa…

Not everyone you meet at work needs to be your "Best friend forever and always." I just like talking to people. I like being able to go down the hall and solving a problem in 5 minutes that would take 3 days and 3 meetings WFH. I am "friendly" with many people in the office. I socialize with them. They aren't dear dear friends but they are acquaintances that have helped me out of tight spots and I helped them. I can'…

I'm extroverted, actually. We have several slack channels for each of the departments and hierarchies of our org. People say good morning. You can "go down the hall" and ask a question. We still do pair programming. In short, not much has changed from when we were in the office.

Once allowed we'll be going out to lunch again. I always made it a point to go out to lunch with people - people I work with now, people I've worked with in the past, and people I've met through meetups. I like going out at a minimum every other week and prefer once a week.

Maybe it's company culture? We're in multiple states and have multiple locations within the same state - and I need to work with people from all these different locations and so we've solved this "working together remotely" problems ages ago. It's an important part of our corporate culture. WFH just solved the problem of working in a big, noisy area.

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

#417

Post by sanderjd »

tomtheelder wrote: post #271
sanderjd wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you might get fired or laid off or burnt out and leave and only then discover that you have invested too much of yourself into this faceless entity that does not care a whit about you. This is one of those things where peoples' warnings to the young come from hard won experience, but where it doesn't sound right to people who have not themselves yet gained the experience. So we fail to impart the lessons and…

Enjoying the convenient food, comfortable workstation, and low level social interactions you get from a good workplace is not an investment at all. If you get fired or quit then you just get the same thing at the next job. I speak from experience having done this multiple times. Your point about not over-investing into a company that doesn't care about you is valid, but not relevant.

It is relevant because many people in our industry replace hobbies, diversions, and friendships outside the workplace with those within. If they instead merely augment them, that's great. But there can be many temptations to transition through augmentation into replacement.

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

#418

Post by sanderjd »

acchow wrote: post #286
sanderjd wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you might get fired or laid off or burnt out and leave and only then discover that you have invested too much of yourself into this faceless entity that does not care a whit about you. This is one of those things where peoples' warnings to the young come from hard won experience, but where it doesn't sound right to people who have not themselves yet gained the experience. So we fail to impart the lessons and…

> Because you might get fired or laid off or burnt out and leave and only then discover that you have invested too much of yourself into this faceless entity that does not care a whit about you. I think how much you invest into this faceless entity is independent from whether you WFH or the office, no?

In theory, yes, but in practice many offices are designed to draw employees into the company being a lifestyle rather than a place to work, in a way that is difficult to accomplish without the office. (This is why there is so much hesitance from these companies to ditch their offices!)

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

#419

Post by fatnoah »

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.

WARNING: ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE

I manage a team of 12 people at a FAANG. One team member just quit working entirely until offices open again. Any information about offices opening is immediately pounced on and celebrated. While most folks have stated that they enjoy working from home, a few others hate it. Interestingly, zero people are interested in being fully remote, even though our org has a stated goal to get more people to go remote.

That said, EVERYONE is excited at the formalization of a hybrid policy that allows up to a 50/50 split between home and work. That policy also leaves it up to individual teams to decide what, if any, restrictions they want to place on that.

I'm sure it's very different in other teams and companies, which is why I prefaced with the warning.

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

#420

Post by porker »

forz877 wrote: post #403
taylodl wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. So much this. Young professionals need to learn the difference between friends and colleagues. When working from home it's hard to blur that line. As far as chatter goes, nobody wants that. It's distracting to those around you. When we were at the office we were chatting over IM to cut down on the noise. Guess what? We're still chatting over IM while WFH. Besides, many companies are adopting a hybrid plan anywa…

Not everyone you meet at work needs to be your "Best friend forever and always." I just like talking to people. I like being able to go down the hall and solving a problem in 5 minutes that would take 3 days and 3 meetings WFH. I am "friendly" with many people in the office. I socialize with them. They aren't dear dear friends but they are acquaintances that have helped me out of tight spots and I helped them. I can'…

They sound like colleagues. As distinct from other employees or friends.

Some of my best times were working in a university department. We did all this, though the talking to people outside your team was at proscribed coffee times in the staff lounge and sometimes over lunch.

But they remained colleagues not friends. Outside the few parties a year we didn't go round people's houses. We collaborated and fought over work, as that was what brought us together.

I make the distinction between colleagues and other employees as not all employees are colleagues. Colleagues help each other out of tight spots and talk beyond "Nice weather". Friends could be either, but in my experience once everyone is married and has kids, the closest will be "friendly" rather than "friends".

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