Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple has a new work-from-home policy, but it’s still not what employees want

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 108 posts

Re: Apple has a new work-from-home policy, but it’s still not what employees want

#31

Post by btrettel »

rightbyte wrote: post #6
skywal_l wrote: post #2

It's going to be a problem hard to resolved. It can be seen as a perk for a company to offer the possibility of remote work like bonuses or free coffee. The thing is, some people actually hate telework and would rather impose everyone to be present because this is how they feel the most efficient or because it is just how they like to work. So contrary to the traditional employer/employees balance of power, there is…

The greatest advantages of remote work are that it removes many of the downsides of a bad work environment: * No commute (not the employers fault really) * You can zone out in irrelevant meetings. * Sit down during stand-ups. * Soft 'intimidation' does not work well over the phone * No open office noise etc. Since I changed job from a chaotic place with 50min commute each way, to a tidy job within walking distance, t…

The commute often is the fault of the employer, if they decide to locate the business in an area will little housing or little housing that the employees want (for example, an area with only extremely expensive apartments or a bad school district).

Re: Apple has a new work-from-home policy, but it’s still not what employees want

#32

Post by barbazoo »

trollied wrote: post #10

What would they do with a $5 billion empty building? Things have shifted now, and employers need to realise that they need to offer remote to bag the best engineers. I certainly never want a long commute again.

It does somehow feel like they built the office real estate equivalent of the Airbus A380.

Re: Apple has a new work-from-home policy, but it’s still not what employees want

#33

Post by floatingatoll »

skywal_l wrote: post #2

It's going to be a problem hard to resolved. It can be seen as a perk for a company to offer the possibility of remote work like bonuses or free coffee. The thing is, some people actually hate telework and would rather impose everyone to be present because this is how they feel the most efficient or because it is just how they like to work. So contrary to the traditional employer/employees balance of power, there is…

I only prefer working remotely as an alternative to an office with open-air seating. Give me an office with a window and a door, and I would quite willingly work from an office. My employer has, for over a decade, refused to build anything but open-air seating. So everything thinks I prefer to work remotely, because their own feelings taint their perceptions of my actions, but they don't ask my actual motivations and take for granted that I support their views.

Please take care not to frame everyone who prefers working from an office as people who would "impose" their views on others. I work from home rather than impose my views on others, but your argument makes a very good point. I should probably step up and begin pressuring for better office design, since that would remove a crutch that the remote-work movement is unaware it's being propped up by.

Yes, some will still prefer to work remotely, but I've done offices, and I've done remote, and it's clear there are pros and cons to each that vary per project and per team. It's time for office design to be given due credit for how it drives people into remote work, so that we can stop confusing a desire for a healthy working environment with a desire to work from our homes.

Re: Apple has a new work-from-home policy, but it’s still not what employees want

#34

Post by kgermino »

rightbyte wrote: post #6
skywal_l wrote: post #2

It's going to be a problem hard to resolved. It can be seen as a perk for a company to offer the possibility of remote work like bonuses or free coffee. The thing is, some people actually hate telework and would rather impose everyone to be present because this is how they feel the most efficient or because it is just how they like to work. So contrary to the traditional employer/employees balance of power, there is…

The greatest advantages of remote work are that it removes many of the downsides of a bad work environment: * No commute (not the employers fault really) * You can zone out in irrelevant meetings. * Sit down during stand-ups. * Soft 'intimidation' does not work well over the phone * No open office noise etc. Since I changed job from a chaotic place with 50min commute each way, to a tidy job within walking distance, t…

The commute seems like a huge part of it (but maybe I'm biased, always hated a driving commute). I have a few coworkers who (when talking about housing, this was always in good taste) would nudge me to move out by them, because I could have a much bigger yard and "it's only a 40 minute drive to work."

Now they're the ones who realize they hate their commute and want to stay full remote forever whereas I'm more than ready to get back into it.

I don't think there's anything wrong with this dichotomy, but it's fun to watch.

Re: Apple has a new work-from-home policy, but it’s still not what employees want

#35

Post by throwawaysea »

jedberg wrote: post #9

Apple is a company that values loyalty in its employees. This is just a good way for them to weed out some of the disloyal. At the end of the day, there are so many people who want to work for Apple that I don't think it will be a big problem for them.

Is there a danger they're going to weed out people who would be responsible for their future success? As I understand it, Apple does not pay as well as some of the other tech companies like Facebook, who are also more permissive about remote work. And at the end of the day, Apple isn't doing anything particularly revolutionary (at least these days) that would have talent only targeting them. Even if Apple continues printing money in the short term from existing products, aren't they setting up for a long-term problem?

Re: Apple has a new work-from-home policy, but it’s still not what employees want

#36

Post by nebula8804 »

kroltan wrote: post #26
theslurmmustflo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loyalty doesn't build or design good products

As is plain to see :P

Speak for yourself. After messing with Windows 11 last night, I cannot fathom how people tolerate that trash. Went back to my M1 Mac.

Re: Apple has a new work-from-home policy, but it’s still not what employees want

#37

Post by Kranar »

pkorzeniewski wrote: post #8

It's funny how these big companies try so hard to make their office space as "cool" as possible and think employees enjoy them but the moment they are given the choice to work remotely almost nobody wants to go back to office, at least not on a daily basis..

I entirely disagree with your assessment. From what I know, most Apple employees want to go back to the office and are happy to do so. While a non-negligible minority would prefer to work from home, that's a far cry from claiming almost no one wants to go back to the office.

Re: Apple has a new work-from-home policy, but it’s still not what employees want

#38

Post by twiddling »

trollied wrote: post #10

What would they do with a $5 billion empty building? Things have shifted now, and employers need to realise that they need to offer remote to bag the best engineers. I certainly never want a long commute again.

I am trying to find the old study about companies and their decline after building white elephant HQ buildings.

Re: Apple has a new work-from-home policy, but it’s still not what employees want

#39

Post by shagie »

chrisseaton wrote: post #7
Symbiote wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We currently have something very similar to Apple's proposed policy (~2 days in the office per week, several weeks remote work per year). Some like it and will work from home as much as they can, others will come to the office but don't mind the flexibility. What was interesting was comments from an anonymous poll. A couple of people said they didn't like the policy since it meant they ended up caring for young child…

Not sure I get it - why would working from home mean that you need to look after the children more? You can still use whatever other childcare arrangements you were using before, exactly as if you were in an office.

Often a sick child (can't go to daycare / school) gets a "today I take a PTO day, you take a PTO day next time."

When one partner has WFH, neither person needs to take an absence from work, but the person who is WFH gets all the childcare.

There's also the "the person with the flexible schedule allows the other schedule to become more normalized." In the before times, one of my co-workers picked up their child on alternating days. So Monday was late in (drop off child at school) and late out (spouse picked up the child). Tuesday was early in (spouse dropped off the child) and early out (pick up child at school). This way both people were able to get in 8h days at work. With WFH, my co-worker's schedule shifted so that they were the one always dropping off and picking up the child (and having what would be considered a split shift - working a few hours in the late afternoon or evening).

For my co-worker, this was overall a net positive (school was a short distance from the house compared to a long, out of the way distance from work) allowing (even with the schedule change) less time spent ferrying a child around... but it also meant that my co-worker is doing all the child ferrying while their spouse is working a regular 9-5 that have oddities of child ferrying adjustments.

Re: Apple has a new work-from-home policy, but it’s still not what employees want

#40

Post by alanwreath »

WFH vs No WFH vs Hybrid WFH has become the new emacs vs vi vs vscode (order not important), but I wonder if it will all go away when projects like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q13CishCKXY&t=110s become as available as a web browser
Post reply on HN