Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by CodeGlitch » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 4:12 PM UTC

animanoir wrote: post #91

todd3834 wrote: post #10

I’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 vo…

I find astonishing that some people want to go back into the cage.

Agreed. Stockholm syndrome?

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

#102

Post by biasedbrain » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 4:15 PM UTC

h4waii wrote: post #28

todd3834 wrote: post #10

I’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 vo…

Well said, I do want to point out that some of those who want to go back "to be surrounded by their coworkers" might be missing the fact that those who don't want to back might be because they don't want to be surrounded by their coworkers; they want to be surrounded by people they choose to have relationships with, not ones foisted upon them.

Didn't they choose their jobs, and with that, their co-workers?

I'd like to see them argue "I don't want to come to the office because I don't like to be surrounded by people like you" as well. Is that a common argument?

I think people who are unhappy with their working conditions should just look for another job. It's fine to try to convince bosses that changes would be beneficial, but I don't have much sympathy for all the whining.

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

#103

Post by abz10 » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 4:16 PM UTC

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #92

Ericson2314 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With employers being much fewer, the no-poach stuff, etc. this is a bad solution. Employers have always been more organized and holding more market power than employees.

No-poach stuff? There are literally millions of companies that allow remote work, are they all part of the no-poach cartel?

Some tech jobs are only available in a handful of companies that were a part of the cartel. Some of us took the bet that a big investment in education in one of these specialties would pay off. The cartel effectively suppressed the pay off. Now these companies are complaining that the supply of specialists has dried up.

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

#104

Post by bravetraveler » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 4:18 PM UTC

My employer is refusing to take a stance

Leaving up giving a yes/no on what WFH will look like contingent based on how the pandemic unfolds

The problem? People (myself included) have mentioned we're walking if office work becomes required

Why? We were already doing WFH before the pandemic; this isn't a chance to renegotiate that

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

#105

Post by adjkant » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 4:18 PM UTC

todd3834 wrote: post #10

I’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 vo…

I've very much liked what my company/team/office is doing so far:

1. No hard rules on when to be in the office, simply that you must be close enough to make it into the office when you need to.

2. All meetings are remote first unless everyone is in the office (protects disadvantaging people who don't choose to come in)

3. A slack channel for people to coordinate when they will be in the office. This is big as it means that people can group together when they want to socialize easily, so it's 20 people in on one day vs 4 diff people in a day in a week. I've seen team coordinate this as well, often with social activities after.

4. Cross-team social events that encourage people to go into the office without having any professional consequences when you don't come in. In person hackathons, a many game long Catan tournament, etc.

I think there's much more to sort out, but generally this seems to have few complaints. Everyone gives up a little here, but it is very flexible. Some examples:

- The people who want to be in for social reasons can be

- Those who work better in an office / separation from home can come in whenever they want

- Have a new hire? Everyone can try to come in for the first week to help onboard and get to know people, then go back to mainly remote.

- The people who want full remote get most of what they want and don't get professionally disadvantaged by not being in the literal room. The only downside is having to be near an office, but they can easily do a few weeks working from completely remote location X still.

I think many full remote people who want to get out of major cities will have qualms with the last one, but I think those people are looking for fully remote companies without any hybrid model. I'm all for that existing and becoming more popular, but I think we have to realize that the hybrid model simply can't fully accommodate these people, and the answer is to split our models. One open question then is can you split that model at a team/org level, or does it have to be at the company level?

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

#106

Post by 3gg » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

todd3834 wrote: post #10

I’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 vo…

> 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?

Looks like you work for a relatively good company. Others have, for example, threatened with dropping health insurance unless the workers come back -- yes, in the middle of a pandemic. I am not sure those execs care about how you make them feel. Therefore, my answer to your question, is to organize and fight back. It's a class struggle, not a happy conversation.

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

#107

Post by ryandrake » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #18

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.

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.

To be fair, Apple and Google have tons, tons, and tons of real estate in the Bay Area, not to mention globally. They would probably sell those other non-iconic "basic office buildings" before thinking about selling their main campuses. I mean if you drive through Mountain View and Cupertino, there are entire streets where every building is a Google or Apple building. Plenty for them to sell and still keep their headquarters.

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

#108

Post by 3gg » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 4:30 PM UTC

biasedbrain wrote: post #102

h4waii wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said, I do want to point out that some of those who want to go back "to be surrounded by their coworkers" might be missing the fact that those who don't want to back might be because they don't want to be surrounded by their coworkers; they want to be surrounded by people they choose to have relationships with, not ones foisted upon them.

Didn't they choose their jobs, and with that, their co-workers? I'd like to see them argue "I don't want to come to the office because I don't like to be surrounded by people like you" as well. Is that a common argument? I think people who are unhappy with their working conditions should just look for another job. It's fine to try to convince bosses that changes would be beneficial, but I don't have much sympathy for…

I see what you mean, but I think there is a bit of a hidden fallacy here. Work is work for many people and not a fun place to socialize, despite this common and widespread idea that for some reason we should be doing the latter. Also, most people do not even get to choose their co-workers anyway. So it's not that one absolutely dreads being around their co-workers, but rather, it just boils down to one question: where you want to be glued to a chair? In a shitty cube in an open space office where you are bombarded by distractions after a 45min commute of smoking exhaust gas and air pollution from traffic, or at home, where none of the just mentioned conditions exist?

I kind of concur with the original comment too. Single guys in their 20s might want to go back to socialize, perhaps driven by this idea of socializing at work. Guys in their 30s, low on kool-aid reserves, no kids but maybe partner, might prefer to stay at home. Once the kids show up, now you have an external force that might push you back into the office. Guy in his 50s with grown-up kids? He's having a hell of a blast retiring in a remote cabin while cashing in on the big bucks. Unless he is a VP or a micro-manager; then he might be miserable for his inability to crush people's lives remotely.

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

#109

Post by thedevilslawyer » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 4:32 PM UTC

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #92

Ericson2314 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With employers being much fewer, the no-poach stuff, etc. this is a bad solution. Employers have always been more organized and holding more market power than employees.

No-poach stuff? There are literally millions of companies that allow remote work, are they all part of the no-poach cartel?

Are you sure? The most I've seen on job boards are about 200 to 400 remote companies. Even assuming a magnitude more no more than a couple thousand. Your assumption on literal numbers are off and need significant correction.

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

#110

Post by sharken » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 4:33 PM UTC

paulryanrogers wrote: post #53

sharken wrote: post #20

Besides this war between companies and tech companies, I'm glad that I live in a part of the world where vaccine mandates are not happening.

> I'm glad that I live in a part of the world where vaccine mandates are not happening. Haven't heard this sentiment much. So I'm curious what's problematic about such vaccine mandates?

A vaccine mandate should not be mandated by corporations, instead it should happen on a country level if necessary.

To me it's a slippery slope to allow corporations to mandate what happens to our own body.