Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

With three out of three different employees so far, all slowly did less and less work the longer they worked from home. I’m 90% sure one of them had an additional job, and another one admitted it when he quit. I don’t like to micromanage so give developers a lot of freedom. Few people have as much long-term integrity as we like to pretend we all have.

I'm not answering this directly as an "employer" but just a few imperfect observations...

Many people do not need social connections and interactions to be productive and happy. I find that most of the people who want WFH or be entirely remote fall into this group.

Many people so need social connections and interactions to be productive. They find value in dealing with people 1:1. Its how they socialize in-part, how they make friends, and provides variety in their day. They may like to WFH on occasion, but the office interaction is integral.

So... it is (IMHO) mostly the first group that we hear from in these discussions. I would argue that OP is in the group. That second group is often ignored when these questions are framed in such an abolitionists manner ('this works better for me so it must work better for everyone').

Its not just 'employers' making arbitrary decisions. It is not a simple question to answer and a whole host of other factors come into play (company culture, company size, history of remote work, location of teams/people, timezones, and so on).

(Minor note: I find myself in the first group but I appreciate that there are many sides to this)

I'm working within minutes of waking up, and shower during my lunch break -- taking about 20 minutes total, instead of the hour spent on an office lunch. I take a minute or ten to do chores like laundry, meal prep or dishes, usually no more than twice a day -- in the office, I take similar length breaks and often end up socializing with others. I often find overlooked solutions during my breaks, which are spaced out to prevent eye, neck and wrist strain, or to blow off frustration with a difficult issue. That isn't abusing WFH, it's using time wisely. I can't speak for the people ghosting, but doing chores is not abusing WFH.

There’s a lot of collaboration and spontaneous connection that happens in hallways and kitchenettes.

That’s the sort of thing that isn’t immediately obvious, but becomes more noticeable as time goes on. The first months of the pandemic people were able to coast on their existing connections, but it becomes harder years on, especially if half your team has _never_ met in person or come to company HQ.

In the before times, good remote companies would be intentional about having regular company meetings in a single location. That is a good alternative. But if you already have an office and already expect everyone to be relatively close, why fly everyone to London or SF?

Finally, everyone being remote is really bad for younger/newer employees who completely miss out on networking, mentorship, company culture, etc.

P.S. if you do a good job arranging your life (as most software engineers absolutely have the means to do) you can make a commute a quite pleasant part of your day and create a healthy separation between your work and your life.

Edit: full disclosure, I’m not an employer but I sympathize and spent a lot of time thinking about these things as a scrum master, trying to mitigate some of these problems in 2020. Now I’m not an SM and largely work independently, but I love being able to walk to the office every day (30 minute commute). I used to do hybrid but now I’m really enjoying the separation and am loathe to work from home, except on weekends.

I’m also an Urbanism nerd and don’t want to see cities revert to the 70s-era trend, which is clearly and noticeably happening, destroying decades of progress on livability. Unfortunately there’s a collective action problem; people will miss having nice cities to visit, but don’t make the connection that there is a “use it or lose it” aspect to great shared spaces.

Except that they also take advantage of the flexibility of agile. If a story is pointed for 2 days and it takes 3 it's better to take that as a missed estimate than a developer not producing as much as they should. Hammering them because they let a deadline slip leads to all sorts of bad things. But, again, even as a fellow team member I can't tell if they worked for 2 days and fucked off for one or it legitimately just took longer than expected.

And "results are there" is just hand waving away the problem. Nobody can measure developer results in any sort of systematic fashion. If you've got a way then by all means share with the world.

Time does matter because the agreement between companies and workers is money for time/effort. I'm not giving back salary if my project flops and they're not giving me (much) more money if it makes the company millions.