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

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

#91

Post by rightbyte »

randomdata wrote: post #27
rightbyte wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 greatest advantage is that you can get other things done around the house (or beyond the house) between productivity stints. Even a short walk from the office tends to create a barrier to that.

Ye forgot that one. It is high on the list.

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

#92

Post by spoonjim »

Johnny555 wrote: post #70
spoonjim wrote: post #20

“What employees want” isn’t really relevant. I’m sure employees also want 10x the salary. What matters is 1) can they use their brand, their balance sheet, their luxury office, or other parameters to maintain the workforce of the size and skills required to conduct their business, or 2) is in-person so much more effective than remote that they can compete in the market with fewer or less-skilled on-site workers becau…

“What employees want” isn’t really relevant I think John Deere said the same thing. When enough employees get together and demand what they want, they'll get it.

Exactly. What employees want and what they have the leverage to get can be worlds apart.

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

#93

Post by gathersight »

In 10 years we'll look back on these kind of discussions and laugh. The idea that human productivity is a corollary to office 'presence' is now absurd. Industrial centralization was arguably economically and socially necessary for 200+ years (especially when the alternative was serfdom) but this isn't the 18th century anymore.

Large cities made successful by centralization have become logistically hellish and expensive. It's become largely illogical to live in one.

Hybrid is a fudge and will be as burdensome for employees as it will be inefficient for their employers. Those that have hybrid forced on them will have to get used to endless scheduling admin "...is Ted in today? Has anyone seen Ted?". And in a split '2 days out' v '3 days in model' it's be hugely wasteful to have offices empty 4 days per week per person.

Companies insisting on in-person or hybrid have a dependency on their local job market. Two potentially terminal pressures with this: their local market will atrophy as the most marketable people choose to work remote roles. And they'll be disadvantaged against remote-only competitors recruiting the best and most cost effective talent around the world.

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

#94

Post by itisit »

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 will probably become an R&D campus more than anything.

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

#95

Post by ajkdhcb2 »

zwkrt wrote: post #80
pkorzeniewski wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on common sense - how many people want to waste 1 or 2 hours each day on commute when they could spend it better in so many ways? Or maybe I'm out of touch and people don't value their free time as much as I thought..

Again, this is the thought of people with nice detached houses in the suburbs. Commuting doesn't have to be the horrible pain some people make it out to be. When working for Amazon, I always lived within a 30 minute walk of the office. The walk through Seattle was always beautiful and I looked forward to it each day. I would get a coffee at the same cafe and had relationships with people there. Some days I would leav…

I don't understand why you can't go for a walk while WFH. You're still the same distance from the cafe. If anything, with less constraint on your route, it leaves you more time to walk to more varied and nicer places

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

#96

Post by caskstrength »

zwkrt wrote: post #80
pkorzeniewski wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on common sense - how many people want to waste 1 or 2 hours each day on commute when they could spend it better in so many ways? Or maybe I'm out of touch and people don't value their free time as much as I thought..

Again, this is the thought of people with nice detached houses in the suburbs. Commuting doesn't have to be the horrible pain some people make it out to be. When working for Amazon, I always lived within a 30 minute walk of the office. The walk through Seattle was always beautiful and I looked forward to it each day. I would get a coffee at the same cafe and had relationships with people there. Some days I would leav…

You are saying that you always live near your office, so who is stopping you from going to the same park or cafe while WFH?

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

#97

Post by caskstrength »

closeparen wrote: post #21
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..

We opened applications for full-remote status; the uptake was something like 5%. Almost nobody minds the office enough to fill out an HR JIRA.

JIRA? Most of your coworkers just couldn't find the right project and then fill all the necessary tags/fields correctly.

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

#98

Post by caskstrength »

siruncledrew wrote: post #18

Google, Amazon, and lots of other companies are in the same stance as Apple. Deep down, I think the issue goes past working flexibility down to a multi-billion dollar financial question of what do these companies do with their real estate assets? They've already built or bought gigantic office buildings and campuses across the US, so what do they do with them? Turn them into warehouses? Just let them sit at Idk what…

> They've already built or bought gigantic office buildings and campuses across the US, so what do they do with them? Turn them into warehouses? Just let them sit at Convert them back from open spaces to proper offices? This would make them close to 100% capacity and also reward people who are willing to work in person.

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

#99

Post by munificent »

shagie wrote: post #86
munificent wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Googler here. I can speak to my experience, but others have their own. > The campus felt designed to suck more work hours out of you. Another way to describe it is that the campus is designed to suck more employees away from the competition. If you assume the existence of an employee as a given, then the only reason for a perk must be to extract more labor from that employee. But that's not how Google is looking at i…

> Another way to describe it is that the campus is designed to suck more employees away from the competition. If you assume the existence of an employee as a given, then the only reason for a perk must be to extract more labor from that employee. There are so many stories out there of people getting a "side gig" while working remote. The "working at two companies at once" is a real concern for tech companies - where…

From a market efficiency perspective, these people working side hustles are a net win. If they are able to keep both employers happy with their productivity, where is the downside?

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

#100

Post by shagie »

logicalmonster wrote: post #83
treesknees wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that bothered me when I interviewed at Google is how much they talked up the perks. Everything from free shuttle service to free food, to all of these "extracurricular" perks like movies, laundry/drycleaning, hair cuts, etc. The campus felt designed to suck more work hours out of you. If I go play ping pong for an hour, do I now owe that hour to the company later? If I'm working past 5, will I be inclined t…

I can understand Silicon Valley deciding to offer these services. The "free services" are designed to keep you at your desk working longer. You don't need to rush out and waste part of the day if you have an intense craving for a certain type of food or need to get a haircut or do laundry. And a lot of great developers are young, fresh out of university, and the only thing they know in life is either having parents o…

> But I'd respect a company far more that just paid you over the market rate, didn't shell out as a company for extra services, and let you use your own money to decide what services you needed to manage your own life.

As a programmer, our job is to make decisions all the time - how to design the software. That leads to decision fatigue ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_fatigue ).

One part of that is "if people are making choices that aren't important to work, they're less productive at work."

Here's a decision to make - what do you have for breakfast? Where do you go for lunch? And so on...

Granted, these are trivial decisions to make - but they're decisions none the less.

What if... the company could give you catered breakfasts and lunches? Or even to the point of back in the dot com boom I recall tales of a big tech company that even allowed you to set the billing address for things like rent and the like and it would be a payroll deduction with the company handling it for you.

Those extra services are certainly there to entice and ensnare people who don't make those decisions themselves... but they're also there to try to improve productivity.

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