Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work
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Re: Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work
#2I recommend unionizing (a federally protected activity) to enable negotiating for benefits (including remote work) collectively. This presidential administration is already gunning for Big Tech, strike while the iron is hot (for more robust worker rights).
You can be well compensated and still demand a seat at the corporate table as a stakeholder in a business.
Re: Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work
#3They built billion dollar campuses that sit almost empty and the attitude now is by God we are going to fill them even if it means all our employees have to die from Corona. It all started with open offices to create less privacy and more surveillance under the guise of collaboration. Then they hired as many H1B's as they possibly could so they can work them like slaves while paying them less because fuck Americans, they don't have the skills. I hope this war burns them down. Fuck them and their bullshit "we need you here so you can collaborate", I'm not a fucking retard and can collaborate just fine from home.
Any in office work should be 100% optional and up to the employee.
Re: Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work
#4I wonder how much of it is driven by the company leadership owning very expensive real estate that would lose a lot of value once tech workers are not forced to spend money into those rental or real estate markets.
Re: Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work
#5I wonder how much of it is driven by the company leadership owning very expensive real estate that would lose a lot of value once tech workers are not forced to spend money into those rental or real estate markets.
This is an interesting angle I hadn’t considered but I think their net worth is likely pretty diversified. If not then weighted on stocks over real estate.
Re: Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work
#6I wonder how much of it is driven by the company leadership owning very expensive real estate that would lose a lot of value once tech workers are not forced to spend money into those rental or real estate markets.
I think it's that the companies themselves own expensive real estate, campuses, etc.... not necessarily the leadership.
Re: Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work
#7I wonder how much of it is driven by the company leadership owning very expensive real estate that would lose a lot of value once tech workers are not forced to spend money into those rental or real estate markets.
Or renting very expensive office space in various cities that have harsh terms for breaking said lease.
Re: Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work
#8I wonder how much of it is driven by the company leadership owning very expensive real estate that would lose a lot of value once tech workers are not forced to spend money into those rental or real estate markets.
Can't they just sell real estate? I mean, remote working is not a thing for the vast majority of jobs out there, so office space is still a valuable asset. So if you are in IT and have offices that are not going to be used (because your employees want to work from home) then just sell/rent it to other companies in which their employees cannot work from home.
Re: Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work
#9I wonder how much of it is driven by the company leadership owning very expensive real estate that would lose a lot of value once tech workers are not forced to spend money into those rental or real estate markets.
This is why zoning is really bad. Those company could have converted some of those space into housing. Provide it to the employee as benefit for cheap/free. I believe quite significant number of employee would happily live on campus.
Re: Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work
#10I’ve been part of a lot of these conversations and it is important to note that there is a significant percentage of employees that want to go back to the office. The trick is how to please everyone. It is easy to say, let those who want to come back come and those who don’t stay home. However those that want to go back say it is because they want to be surrounded by their coworkers. Having gone back to the office voluntarily for a day recently I can confirm that going back while the majority of the team is remote is not the same.
Things seem to be hardest for younger single employees who don’t always have great work from home environments and are also sometimes lonely. Also, some of my coworkers with kids are having a hard time being productive with pressures from kids or spouses that don’t respect the working from home boundaries. Then there are people who can’t manage the work life balance and relied on a commute to tell their brain the work day is over.
Finally, there will always be under-performers who are desperately searching for a scape goat when they fail to deliver. I’ve seen this so many times after an org change, architectural change or anything that will give someone an excuse for failing to preform. These people may or may not like their new freedom but they do like their paycheck and will use any excuse for their poor performance.
Many of these problems seem solvable without forcing employees who want to work remote to come in. I personally love working remote and would never go back to mandatory days in the office if I didn’t have to. I think the trick is for executives to wrangle all of these new challenges at once. It is so much easier to just say “make things go back to where they were” so their jobs can be less complicated. People haven’t been trained how to make this new world work. In a public company it is one more unknown to juggle when they have a responsibility to shareholders to maximize profits.
So let’s start proposing solutions and promoting them. How do we make our execs feel more comfortable to let those who want to work home do so? How do we make it so easy that no exec has to worry about losing their job because they agreed to something that didn’t use to be normal?
That’s how we make this work for everyone.