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Workers quitting over return-to-office policies

bbc.com

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Re: Workers quitting over return-to-office policies

#11

Post by elric »

dijit wrote: post #2

I’ll be honest: I feel somewhat vindicated due my own personal struggles with the open office[0] and people arguing for the status quo on hacker news[1]. I am extremely sad at the extreme loss of life and horrible conditions caused by the pandemic. So I feel exceedingly guilty for feeling glad that an upside of it is that we can finally do away with this horrible practice of crushing everyone together so the managers…

I'm growing more and more frustrated with open offices, and with $management's unwillingness any concerns. Quitting isn't really an option: I haven't seen a single Belgian company that has an acceptable office layout for software engineers. Even desk sizes seem to be getting smaller and smaller. Remote options are few and far between (and I don't want to WFH anymore).

Re: Workers quitting over return-to-office policies

#12

Post by axg11 »

ryanSrich wrote: post #3

Of course this is happening. I’m coming up on year 10 of working remotely, and year 2 of completely async. The only forced-commute job I ever had was for 6 months right out of college. I’ve been preaching remote work for almost the entire time I’ve been doing it. I thought it would catch on much sooner, but it’s here now. I think async is the next thing that will happen. If you’re building software there’s really no…

I like the concept of async work but I’m also scared of how transactional that would make work. Most companies that preach async now have a very strong, “friendly” culture. If async catches on more widely I’m worried it would be the final push to make software development purely transactional and performance/pay would be directly tied to metrics.

I enjoy the human component of work. I don’t like _all_ of my coworkers, but it’s still a net positive to interact with them.

When I think about the ideal software job, a lot of the aspects of day-to-day work informally become async. Especially as you work with people for longer periods of time and gain mutual trust, a good workplace allows both managers and individual contributors to structure their own time.

Re: Workers quitting over return-to-office policies

#13

Post by sto_hristo »

doitLP wrote: post #4
dijit wrote: post #2

I’ll be honest: I feel somewhat vindicated due my own personal struggles with the open office[0] and people arguing for the status quo on hacker news[1]. I am extremely sad at the extreme loss of life and horrible conditions caused by the pandemic. So I feel exceedingly guilty for feeling glad that an upside of it is that we can finally do away with this horrible practice of crushing everyone together so the managers…

Everything is a mixed bag of good and bad. In fact this pandemic will probably save a lot more lives during the next pandemic in terms of preparations etc. It’s also been great for remote work. No need for additional hand-wringing.

There is no silver lining and the next pandemic will play out raw, just like this one. Antivaxers will blame it on Bill Gate's son and 6G. That is because of human stupidity - it's immutable and ever present.

So my hope is that science will come up with better vaccines quickly and natural selection will trim off the Enlightened to a more tolerable level.

Re: Workers quitting over return-to-office policies

#14

Post by chrisseaton »

xeromal wrote: post #5

>Although there isn’t any hard data to show increased quits due to ending flexible work specifically, anecdotes of worker exits are starting to trickle in. Quote straight from the article.

It's a news article, not a peer-reviewed scientific study - why don't people understand the difference?

Re: Workers quitting over return-to-office policies

#15

Post by ameister14 »

axg11 wrote: post #12
ryanSrich wrote: post #3

Of course this is happening. I’m coming up on year 10 of working remotely, and year 2 of completely async. The only forced-commute job I ever had was for 6 months right out of college. I’ve been preaching remote work for almost the entire time I’ve been doing it. I thought it would catch on much sooner, but it’s here now. I think async is the next thing that will happen. If you’re building software there’s really no…

I like the concept of async work but I’m also scared of how transactional that would make work. Most companies that preach async now have a very strong, “friendly” culture. If async catches on more widely I’m worried it would be the final push to make software development purely transactional and performance/pay would be directly tied to metrics. I enjoy the human component of work. I don’t like _all_ of my coworkers…

>If async catches on more widely I’m worried it would be the final push to make software development purely transactional and performance/pay would be directly tied to metrics.

Here's the thing; that (a completely transactional relationship between all elements of a team) doesn't actually work well to make good products. Sure, a bunch of companies would probably do it as it's easier to measure worker production that way, but async also requires a different type of management and admin work that has to change as well. A lot of current managers won't be able to hack it, frankly, without the measured 'butts in seats' element.

Personally, I think it should be coupled with an investment in HR to get more qualified and motivated people working on the problem. It's a different concept for business and teams, that's all. Applying the older paradigm is going to be a problem and while a lot of companies will do just that they will also be less successful overall.

Re: Workers quitting over return-to-office policies

#16

Post by rossdavidh »

I have worked remotely more often than not in the last 10 years. I think it absolutely works in some cases, and hybrid (e.g. 3 days remote per week) works for more cases. But...

The first time there is a bad labor market, most of the current remote jobs are going to disappear. Not all, but most, and in nearly all professions the remote jobs will mostly be contractors who have no long-term employment with the company anyway. Not saying this is the way it _should_ be, but when it comes time for layoffs, the people who were working remotely are just emotionally and practically so much easier to choose, than the people who show up in the office every day. Not saying it's right, just that it's so.

Re: Workers quitting over return-to-office policies

#17

Post by [deleted] »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #6

Quitting for that is only possible as a solution if you have remote friendly alternative to go to after you quit, but if, like in Austria, all the employers in the country went back to the office then you pretty much have no other options than to go to the office as your employer demands, since you quitting won't fix this issues :( A solution to force the employers hand to allowing remote work might be mass resignati…

[deleted]

Re: Workers quitting over return-to-office policies

#19

Post by izacus »

There's a lot of "considering" and "thinking" in this article, but how many people are ACTUALLY quitting over that?

What's the increase in turnover because of WFH policies? A few % total?

EDIT: Oh, just saw this in the article: >Although there isn’t any hard data to show increased quits due to ending flexible work specifically, anecdotes of worker exits are starting to trickle in.

Carry on then.

Re: Workers quitting over return-to-office policies

#20

Post by izacus »

chrisseaton wrote: post #14
xeromal wrote: post #5

>Although there isn’t any hard data to show increased quits due to ending flexible work specifically, anecdotes of worker exits are starting to trickle in. Quote straight from the article.

It's a news article, not a peer-reviewed scientific study - why don't people understand the difference?

I'm pretty sure people understand that this article is indeed unsubstantiated clickbait like most of other unsourced news articles.

Well, at least outside bunch of HNers which will ignore the article and just dump their personal WFH stories in this comment section as usual.

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