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Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work

arstechnica.com

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Re: Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work

#11

Post by bamboozled »

sdevonoes wrote: post #8
vhold wrote: post #4

I 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.

Who would buy the real estate if everyone works from home?

Re: Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work

#12

Post by sdevonoes »

bamboozled wrote: post #11
sdevonoes wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Who would buy the real estate if everyone works from home?

As I said: not everyone can work from home. IT? Sure.

Re: Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work

#13

Post by treis »

sdevonoes wrote: post #8
vhold wrote: post #4

I 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.

They could but Apple will look pretty dumb spending 5 billion on the spaceship only to sell it a few years later for (presumably) a lot less.

Re: Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work

#14

Post by New_California »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #2

I 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.

Unions are cancer on private companies and should be abolished.

Re: Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work

#15

Post by walkedaway »

bamboozled wrote: post #11
sdevonoes wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Who would buy the real estate if everyone works from home?

Residential zones are always in demand. No reason commercial can't be rezoned, and developers are always looking for prime locations.

Re: Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work

#17

Post by notpachet »

sdevonoes wrote: post #8
vhold wrote: post #4

I 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.

For smaller companies this is likely feasible. But for Apple/Google/etc, I imagine there were a lot of architectural / design decisions that went into their campuses that assumed a single monolithic tenant working in a largely open-office format.

That probably makes those spaces harder to sell/rent. It's unlikely they'll find a single large buyer with the same needs. They'd probably have redesign the campuses a bit to better support multiple tenants.

Re: Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work

#18

Post by sokoloff »

sdevonoes wrote: post #8
vhold wrote: post #4

I 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.

To whom would Apple sell their new spaceship if remote working in tech became pervasive? Who would buy Google’s campus?

I’m pro-remote work, but if all of tech does it, that seriously dents tech-style real estate.

Re: Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work

#19

Post by dang »

New_California wrote: post #14
toomuchtodo wrote: post #2

I 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.

Unions are cancer on private companies and should be abolished.

Please don't post like this - it breaks the site guideline against name-calling (which applies also to arguments) and generally goes against the desired culture of the site, which is curious conversation.

Of course you can still have your views; you just need to post about them in the key of curiosity. That includes, btw, respect for the opposite point of view, since curiosity is somewhere short of certainty.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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