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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

#161

Post by caskstrength »

biasedbrain wrote: post #158
caskstrength wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Didn't they choose their jobs, and with that, their co-workers? What do you mean? Did they tell you about guy with questionable hygiene and that other guy with chronic allergy that makes him cough all day long during your interview?

If they learned that they have awful coworkers, they can quit again. I just don't get the sense of entitlement many people seem to have.

I agree that some of radical pro-WFH people might seem entitled, but I think in reality they just too fed up with open-spaces and commute and see pandemic as their last chance to normalize WFH across the industry. Also, I honestly don't see why it is such a big deal to let every team decide how they want to work.

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

#162

Post by chaostheory »

r00f wrote: post #129
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…

Don't you find it selfish that someone is forced to start commuting to office again, only because somebody wanted to be surrounded by coworkers? I've been fully remote since 2010, and I would be completely frustrated if I was told "You need to sit at the office now, because John is feeling different in half-empty office"

Let’s not forget all of the pollution that rush hour traffic entails. Even if you drive an EV, there’s still the prospect of pollution from tires.

Everyone likes to talk about supporting efforts for climate change until they are presented with an actionable choice that negatively affects their personal habits.

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

#163

Post by mensetmanusman »

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…

Give management a new role: ‘make the office worth going to’

e.g. no meetings in dusty conference rooms that could be done remote, instead, actual interactive events that are occasional but useful for relationship building and collaboration.

The future of going in 5 days a week is gone, the pandemic and the internet killed that. When you do get the team to go in, make it worth it.

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

#164

Post by jonathankoren »

MattGaiser wrote: post #157
jonathankoren wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Filled your relationship time”? What are you expecting these coworker relationships to be? Dates? They’re coworkers. I’ve rarely interacted with coworkers outside of work. Also, I don’t think you’re going to have much of a problem socializing if you’re going around humblebragging about how you’ve optimized your work and personal time for peak employee performance.

I am defining “relationship” more broadly to encompass all my human (and dog in my case) relationships. I am not humblebragging about optimization. I have 24 hours in a day. They are generally all spoken for, meaning that for something to go in, something else must go out.

You said you were young, so let this old person give you some advice. If you think interacting with coworkers is opposed to being a productive employee, you’re gravely mistaken. Also if you think you need to optimally schedule every day to maximize work, you need to rethink your life.

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

#165

Post by GoOnThenDoTell »

ekster wrote: post #88
nwatson wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cult with huge pockets would love the Apple spaceship. Perhaps one could timeshare to multiple cults.

You could convert it into weird housing and make a mint. Rich people would line up to own a condo there.

It’d certainly be an interesting landmark to live in

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

#166

Post by nucleardog »

goalieca wrote: post #37
notpachet wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many of these problems seem solvable without forcing employees who want to work remote to come in. Agreed. Most of the issues that you highlighted that cause employees to prefer being in-office (loneliness, children and other distractions at home, work/life balance) are not attributable to being remote per se. Exacerbated by it, sure. But we should probably be addressing those problems head-on in a more intentional…

> (It actually runs counter to the work/life balance problem you mentioned I’m not an old fart but I’m on my way. I find is brilliant to talk about house repairs and kids and vacation tips with my colleagues. It really brings some chill to an otherwise chaotic day in an absolutely volatile industry.

I still do this remote.

I meet with my team once a day for 15-20 mins, and once a week for a full hour. I meet with each of the team leads once a week for a half hour. I meet with my boss once a week for an hour.

This is important for a few reasons:

1. Keeping coordinated with work. We get that out of the way first.

2. Replacing the work-type water cooler conversation. There’s a lot of problems, random thoughts and questions, etc that may never rise to the level of scheduling an actual meeting but are valuable to resolve. The meeting is already there and the time is already spent, so the barrier and cost to bringing these up are nil. This has led to a lot of improvements and moving things forward in a way they wouldn’t have been otherwise.

3. Personal connection. Once we’ve got the work sorted out, just hang out and chat for a few minutes about all the things you’ve mentioned.

I spend like 5-6 hours a week on meetings like this, just beginning/end of day so it’s not a interruption to anyone and everyone I’ve asked finds these meetings valuable.

We’ve had to onboard a lot of people since we went remote and I’ve developed good working and personal relationships with many of them. And I still get the chance to ramble about home repairs and kids.

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

#167

Post by cdrini »

acituan wrote: post #115
cdrini wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when does significant mean majority? It means significant; ie nontrivial; a number you can't ignore. I think the comment is asking the HN community for potential suggestions/solutions that allow for the remote-loving crowd and the office-loving crowd to coexist (presumably in a single company), since their needs are a little at odds with one another.

Majority by definition implies significance, and I wanted to clarify they weren’t meaning majority. I think I am missing the point you’re trying to make.

Majority implies significance, but significance doesn't imply majority. It felt like you were projecting something onto the comment that wasn't actually there. But I understand where you're coming from.

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

#168

Post by bradlys »

trunnell wrote: post #113
cratermoon wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd happily go back to working in the office. If I had an actual office , not a 4-foot wide folding table that's part of a line of eight of them in 12 rows in a room the size of a basketball court. I haven't had an "office" to go to work in since 2000. I've shared spaces with anywhere from three to all of my co-workers. "Recent research shows that such offices result in 73 per cent less face-to-face interaction, and…

"Private offices with doors that close" - that's the standard at Fog Creek Software, the company behind Stack Overflow, Trello, and other great products. Microsoft also provides offices (or at least used to). These companies might be on to something. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/12/29/the-new-fog-creek-... An opposing perspective: note that the cost for private offices is very high vs. cubes. Assuming Class A…

I think those are rates per year - not per month. So maybe make that contribution to your paycheck per year - not per month. (Kinda surprised no one here knows that and hasn’t mentioned it yet)

Source in case you don’t believe me: https://www.squarefoot.com/leasopedia/dollars-cents-much-cos...

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

#169

Post by hn_99 »

sgift wrote: post #89
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This cuts both ways: people from wealthy countries with high cost of living can never complain about competition from people who will be happy to take 1/4 of their salary to do the same job.

It's not like companies tried that before with outsourcing. It didn't work quite as well as hiring someone who lives in another city in the same country.

I'm very curious about this, why doesn't it work? I can understand it may be hard for smaller companies to add an entirely new location since it would change team dynamics. But for large corps already having teams across regions, why wouldn't the concentration shift heavily towards lower cost regions?

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

#170

Post by NonContro »

3gg wrote: post #120
trunnell wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Private offices with doors that close" - that's the standard at Fog Creek Software, the company behind Stack Overflow, Trello, and other great products. Microsoft also provides offices (or at least used to). These companies might be on to something. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/12/29/the-new-fog-creek-... An opposing perspective: note that the cost for private offices is very high vs. cubes. Assuming Class A…

Thanks for the link, but I'm not sure about the conclusion. Why do you think the company would reimburse you for $3500/mo for freeing up office space or using less of it? A company basically pays you for your cost of living. That's why pay is high in the Bay Area or NY, and why you take a massive pay cut when you move out. If you choose to work remotely or sign up for shitty work conditions, they are not going to rei…

Companies pay you minimum you're willing to accept. People don't have a habit of accepting jobs they know will cause their personal budgets to run red.
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