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There aren't enough remote jobs to go around

chartr.co

21–30 of 96 posts

Re: There aren't enough remote jobs to go around

#21

So a remote job will become a trophy? If you suck, you are in the office kindergarden panopticon, until you either get good or quit?

Where’s the evidence you can deliver if it’s never been seen. Definitely people I trust no matter what their schedule. Definitely people who worked fine before pandemic and people I hired during the pandemic that are close to useless and just pretend to work if they’re not in the office.

I think this is what my current place had in mind when they wrote my contract. They have the option to bring me on site 'if the business needs' it. But they're happy with my work and only ask me to come in for specific meetings, which average one every 8 weeks.

Re: There aren't enough remote jobs to go around

#22
post #4

This is a bold claim made on a very shaky set of data. Most companies aren't going to explicitly post jobs for remote, just because a lot of talent management platforms don't really support it well. I think the goto is to post the job as available in every location the company has an office, and see what the applicant wants to do. Of course employers want people to come back. They have millions if not billions of dol…

Or worse, a pattern I've seen is list a single job 3+ times - once for each office location and then again for remote.

Re: There aren't enough remote jobs to go around

#23
post #13
post #4

This is a bold claim made on a very shaky set of data. Most companies aren't going to explicitly post jobs for remote, just because a lot of talent management platforms don't really support it well. I think the goto is to post the job as available in every location the company has an office, and see what the applicant wants to do. Of course employers want people to come back. They have millions if not billions of dol…

This logic (we have billions in real estate investments that somehow we need to use. So let's use them by bringing people back to the office) is an example of cost sunk fallacy. The 3 multinationals I worked for are aware of this fallacy. Amazon is another example of company writing-off hundreds of millions right away (FirePhone). All this preamble just to point that there are other things beyond just "we must fill t…

It's worse than that. It presumably costs more to operate a building than to mothball it and at least try to sublease it. If there's really no value in filling the building up with people, it's a bit like deciding to drive your car around aimlessly because "I own it so I should use it."

Re: There aren't enough remote jobs to go around

#24

Companies may ask, but usually people quit and productivity drops. For me return to office would be 60% pay cut. Good luck finding another developer :)

Everyone thinks they're a special snowflake, but the reality is that 75% of devs are easily replaced

Re: There aren't enough remote jobs to go around

#25
post #13
post #4

This is a bold claim made on a very shaky set of data. Most companies aren't going to explicitly post jobs for remote, just because a lot of talent management platforms don't really support it well. I think the goto is to post the job as available in every location the company has an office, and see what the applicant wants to do. Of course employers want people to come back. They have millions if not billions of dol…

This logic (we have billions in real estate investments that somehow we need to use. So let's use them by bringing people back to the office) is an example of cost sunk fallacy. The 3 multinationals I worked for are aware of this fallacy. Amazon is another example of company writing-off hundreds of millions right away (FirePhone). All this preamble just to point that there are other things beyond just "we must fill t…

It's not guaranteed that it's a sunk cost fallacy.

I'm going to make up some dumb numbers: suppose people are 5% more productive in the office, but the office has an amortized cost of 10% total compensation. You shouldn't open an office. But say you've purchased an office outright, and maintenance is now only 2% of the cost of total compensation (8% of cost was paid up front). In that case, you would want people in the office.

In the real world, this is more complicated, because you also add in employee preferences as a reason for or against an office, you can't neatly measure productivity, you probably didn't buy the office in cash, you leased it, or borrowed money to buy it...).

Re: There aren't enough remote jobs to go around

#27
post #4

This is a bold claim made on a very shaky set of data. Most companies aren't going to explicitly post jobs for remote, just because a lot of talent management platforms don't really support it well. I think the goto is to post the job as available in every location the company has an office, and see what the applicant wants to do. Of course employers want people to come back. They have millions if not billions of dol…

Seeing lots of people on teams very vocal about not wanting to work with remote people either and saying no to anyone that has the inkling of it. Something the remote crowd might not realize is happening.

I've seen those posts on HN.

Something the in-person crowd might want to consider is that a lot of interesting roles are going to involve lots of work with people who aren't in the room with you no matter whether you're in office or WFH. If you go in being highly vocal about no remote work, you may not be considered for roles that aren't fully remote but do involve a lot of videoconferencing.

And maybe that's OK with you, but do think about it.

Re: There aren't enough remote jobs to go around

#28
post #3

>Indeed, as reported by The Washington Post, 50% of job applications on LinkedIn last month were for remote work positions, despite the fact that from-home postings made up just 15% of the listings on the site. This doesn't actually tell us anything nor did the source linked in the article clarify further.

Remote work seems like it would pull a lot more applications considering geography isn't a limitation.

Re: There aren't enough remote jobs to go around

#29
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing lots of people on teams very vocal about not wanting to work with remote people either and saying no to anyone that has the inkling of it. Something the remote crowd might not realize is happening.

Sounds like a pretty toxic environment. Working with remote employees is no different than working with someone in another office. Consider the pre-pandemic prevalence of "phone booths" and one person conference rooms, so you can be in a meeting as the only local attendee. As far as the other location is considered, you are remote just with access to a bigger coffee maker.

Working with remote employees is no different than working with someone in another office.

True, but it's possible that a company had nearly 100% co-located teams prior to COVID.

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