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Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

reuters.com

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Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#821

Post by runarberg »

ejb999 wrote: post #111

I have been fully remote my entire career (several decades), in fact in 30+ years have never been on site anywhere for more than 2 weeks total. Wouldn't have it any other way. But as a counter-point, seeing a whole bunch of people who were never remote before, how little work they are actually doing, it is no surprise to me that a lot of employers are going to start forcing - to the extent possible - employees back i…

> I think a small percentage of people are self-motivated

Why does that matter? We should probably start asking how much does it actually correlate with productivity, before assigning it importance.

I have a hunch that even if there even is such a thing as self-motivation, and even if there is a correlation with production, the effect size is probably not high and is conflated with other factors which explain a much higher proportion of the variability.

An employer which cares about their workers will (a) grant them the freedom to work from home, and (b) provide them with the structure to do so effectively. In the absence of such structure I can see how motivation could replace it and make up the productivity, however that should not be the worker’s responsibility. The loss in productivity is 100% on management for failing to provide to structure to keep the workers productivity while remote.

self motivation seems to me to be a poor excuse to shift the responsibility of management to the worker.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#822

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #669
librish wrote: post #84

I think anyone who's claiming that remote work has been "proven" to be better or worse is wrong. There are some studies but they use estimations and proxies, carrying the same flaws as doing performance reviews based on lines of code. We've proven that the big tech companies can go fully remote and not completely crash and burn, that's about it. Some people love the lack of commute and less semi-forced hanging out, s…

People should have an option to go fully remote, not be forced to do X number of days because reasons. This is the problem that remote work solves. It gives you some sense of autonomy so that you don't feel like a completely subservient slave. Also you said objectively it has not been proven but your subjective opinion is that it's better to be in office. What I will counter is that remote is almost certainly better…

it seem that "completely subservient slave" caused some controversy. it wasn't my intention to demean real slavery, like the factory workers sub-contracted by google and apple.

perhaps "completely subservient." would have been better and less redundant :)

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#823

Post by k4ch0w »

willjp wrote: post #315

I seem to be the minority, but this makes me sad. Personally, I find it much less productive to work in an office, with all of the background chatter, interruptions, distractions, meetings. It's my fourth year of full remote work and I don't miss the office one bit. I really enjoy being able to prepare healthier/fresh lunches, and I probably work too much overtime either way.

You're actually the majority, the people wanting to go back to the office are the minority. You'll see in the fine print Google allowed certain employee's the ability to go remote. Basically, the high performers and talent they can't afford to lose to their competition.

People have had a taste of not having to spend time getting ready in the morning, can take their kids to school, and forget an hour commute. You would be hard pressed to find many banging on the door to go back to the office. I know of one person in my circle out of about 30 who want to go back. His reason is lack of boundaries with his family about when he's at work.

I personally would never go back to an office, it's not worth my finite time.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#824

Post by luismedel »

winternett wrote: post #694
librish wrote: post #84

I think anyone who's claiming that remote work has been "proven" to be better or worse is wrong. There are some studies but they use estimations and proxies, carrying the same flaws as doing performance reviews based on lines of code. We've proven that the big tech companies can go fully remote and not completely crash and burn, that's about it. Some people love the lack of commute and less semi-forced hanging out, s…

Remote is neither better nor worse. The problem is that we're still clearly not past the Covid threat, and a rush to bring everyone back together to spur economic activity downtown (based on tax revenue it will generate) will create a lot of technical debt if it is timed wrong. We need to have better productivity tools. No one has leveraged text to speech well in work communication, but somehow YouTube and TikTok can…

There's a lot of comments and obviously I've not read all of them, but I find this comment nails it in every paragraph.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#826

Post by BlargMcLarg »

trophycase wrote: post #779
asdff wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single thread I see on this has this exact same comment. It's like a bot wrote it. Is it that hard to imagine that an onboarding experience remotely can actually be done well, or that you could actually make friends with people existing solely on zoom? I think people are making that assumption, just because it feels right or maybe because their own org is just throwing juniors by the wayside and hoping covid wi…

What if people don't want this tech pseudo-utopia? I understand where you're coming from and definitely agree that commuting is a problem but... we're already on the verge of a population crisis in developed nations, loneliness and alienation are at all time highs. I really really don't think that remote work is the utopia you imagine it to be. It's going to lead to more people who never leave their home or apartment…

We don't know that yet, do we?

For many, the exact forced socialization through work, commutes and office culture that's going on is what drains them to the point of isolating themselves afterwards. I expect most people no longer working under that system to find a way out of their social isolation, given the friction for those venues isn't too high.

Maybe if we stop pushing people into a catch-all environment and give them time, money and means to solve their problems, they will.. solve their problems. All of those three have been dwindling over the past few years.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#828

Post by oxfordmale »

librish wrote: post #84

I think anyone who's claiming that remote work has been "proven" to be better or worse is wrong. There are some studies but they use estimations and proxies, carrying the same flaws as doing performance reviews based on lines of code. We've proven that the big tech companies can go fully remote and not completely crash and burn, that's about it. Some people love the lack of commute and less semi-forced hanging out, s…

In software Engineering there is no evidence that working from home is less productive. Personally it is quite the opposite with open offices still being the norm in most companies.

However, it is important to adapt your company to a remote working culture. You can't simply replace your physical meetings with Zoom meetings. In order to ensure a good team spirit, it is also important to organise regular meet ups between all your remote staff at least once a quarter.

And regarding your approach to "quickly" resolve things, I shall refrain from repeating the words that software engineers use for people like you. You are assuming that your issue is the highest priority issue that needs to be resolved immediately. This can be highly disruptive for Software Engineers, especially when multiple business stakeholders tend to do the same.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#829

Post by DebtDeflation »

whartung wrote: post #154
DebtDeflation wrote: post #122

Why do so many assume that there are only 3 options: - 100% remote. - 100% office. - Some rigid hybrid scheme of n days per week in the office every week where n = 3 +/-1. Why not "mainly remote but be in the office when it makes sense to be in the office"? This is how my team has been operating since last July - remote first but every 1-2 months we'll do a week onsite somewhere. Now we're getting pressure to start b…

> Why not "mainly remote but be in the office when it makes sense to be in the office"? Depends on the space utilization. The company paying for real estate that "might" be used isn't very efficient. If they have a temporary work area system, it's different. Then they can down scale their real estate footprint and accommodate ad hoc visitors, by reservation, or the occasional "group meeting". But if they're dedicatin…

It's a valid point, but most companies went the first year and a half of the pandemic without using their real estate at all and the last 6 months barely using it. Smart companies should have optimized their real estate footprints by now.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#830

Post by easytiger »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #773
easytiger wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing highly paid office work with slavery is incredibly insulting.

You could either be genuinely insulted or just trawling the internet policing it for misused words. It’s hard to tell which is the case.

And you could be trolling the internet trying to police any opposition to concepts, however ridiculous, that you find favourable to your philosophy.

The word cannot either have been misused as people have subsequently expended great energy defending its use.

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