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The Five-Day Office Week Isn’t Coming Back. WFH Is Here to Stay

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Re: The Five-Day Office Week Isn’t Coming Back. WFH Is Here to Stay

#11

Post by toomuchtodo »

xxpor wrote: post #9
jschveibinz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the C-suite level, the bottom line should be the biggest concern. If productivity is as good or better than before, then the obvious choice is to reduce facility related expenses, have more offsite workers and make more profit. Middle management (and/or CxO’s as you refer to them) will want to return to status quo because the job of aligning the workforce under corporate policies becomes so much harder when the wo…

Personally speaking, the big split is if I actually have to collaborate with someone or not. If I just need to focus on writing code, wfh is great. But if i actually need to design something, use a whiteboard, and have a conversation, it's a million times easier in the office. This is why I think productivity went up in the short term, companies had plenty of stuff in their backlogs already and WFH let it get done fa…

Hashicorp is fully remote and is worth billions of dollars as a public company. I think there are challenges working remotely from a collaboration perspective, but there is evidence those challenges can be mitigated or solved.

Re: The Five-Day Office Week Isn’t Coming Back. WFH Is Here to Stay

#12

Post by blockwriter »

ssss11 wrote: post #6

I’m seeing a big push in the corporate world to get workers back in offices. Any idea why? Is it just the rent they’re paying and they want that to be got a reason? Is it that CxO’s believe we’ll all produce better work off in the office? Something else?

I read a history of England during the Restoration, and the author described why the government favored a tax on salt rather than a tallow. Tallow could be made at home, but a salt on tax brought in revenue and also made the household less productive. I have to wonder if entrenched, hierarchical structures reflexively view increasing household sufficiency as a threat.

Re: The Five-Day Office Week Isn’t Coming Back. WFH Is Here to Stay

#13

Post by icouldbebetter »

Good. The corporate environment before the pandemic needed a shake up. All this land and office space developed and paid for so that middle management can hover over their employees is a fiscal waste. It's also not sustainable. If commuting to the office is not absolutely necessary, then businesses should only look at their bottom line to see if a permanent physical workspace is necessary. I don't think onsite collaboration should be done away with but instead it should be downsized and voluntary. Employees should take the initiative to come to the office with something to do in mind.

Re: The Five-Day Office Week Isn’t Coming Back. WFH Is Here to Stay

#14

Post by qwertyuiop_ »

ssss11 wrote: post #6

I’m seeing a big push in the corporate world to get workers back in offices. Any idea why? Is it just the rent they’re paying and they want that to be got a reason? Is it that CxO’s believe we’ll all produce better work off in the office? Something else?

“You scratch my back I will scratch yours.”

1. Control. The people at the top got there by pure ambition and thirst for power so if they have employees WFH they lose the fundamental juice they get.

2. Politics. The WH,Mayors and others are pushing the corporations because the Commercial Real Estate won’t exist tomorrow if this trend continues. There are trillions at stake. They scratch the back of lobbyists who in turn scratch the back of politicians who I turn scratch the CXOs

Re: The Five-Day Office Week Isn’t Coming Back. WFH Is Here to Stay

#15

Post by xxpor »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #11
xxpor wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally speaking, the big split is if I actually have to collaborate with someone or not. If I just need to focus on writing code, wfh is great. But if i actually need to design something, use a whiteboard, and have a conversation, it's a million times easier in the office. This is why I think productivity went up in the short term, companies had plenty of stuff in their backlogs already and WFH let it get done fa…

Hashicorp is fully remote and is worth billions of dollars as a public company. I think there are challenges working remotely from a collaboration perspective, but there is evidence those challenges can be mitigated or solved.

Oh I'm not saying it's possible, but I do think it requires a culture of remote first. I believe Hashicorp was remote from the beginning. That's a lot different than trying to pivot an existing large company to fully remote.

Re: The Five-Day Office Week Isn’t Coming Back. WFH Is Here to Stay

#16

Post by technofiend »

qwertyuiop_ wrote: post #14
ssss11 wrote: post #6

I’m seeing a big push in the corporate world to get workers back in offices. Any idea why? Is it just the rent they’re paying and they want that to be got a reason? Is it that CxO’s believe we’ll all produce better work off in the office? Something else?

“You scratch my back I will scratch yours.” 1. Control. The people at the top got there by pure ambition and thirst for power so if they have employees WFH they lose the fundamental juice they get. 2. Politics. The WH,Mayors and others are pushing the corporations because the Commercial Real Estate won’t exist tomorrow if this trend continues. There are trillions at stake. They scratch the back of lobbyists who in tu…

Less dramatic is simply a complete lack of empathy. The CEO of my company is really a sales guy at heart and got upset enough to start pushing for return to the office once the company lost deals because his competitors were putting people on planes for face to face meetings and we were still exclusively using Zoom.

But the thing is his IT support organization and other people in non-sales roles are also being told they too will RTTO. Surely the risk to their health far outweighs whatever immeasurable benefit to the firm accrues from butts in seats? But to a sales person who deals in relationships I'm sure anything but people working from the office feels unnatural.

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