Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? • Hacker News Board

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

#471

Post by rumdonut » Sun, Feb 05, 2023, 9:08 PM UTC

mr_tristan wrote: post #385

Not an employer, but work at a pretty big company where the CEO made a pretty big tell: he mentioned that remote work seemed to cause a loss in overall productivity. But then almost all engineers chafed, and he had to clarify: we was talking specifically about the sales organization. My sense is that leadership making these decisions simply isn't really tuned into how engineering operates. And that's mostly it; they'…

Salesforce? I read Benioff’s comments differently. He gave an example of lower productivity in sales, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t apply to engineering. It was just an eye-catching example that 50% of sales wasn’t accomplishing anything or whatever it was.

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

#472

Post by kelnos » Sun, Feb 05, 2023, 9:08 PM UTC

sseagull wrote: post #213

gemstones wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s a lot of collaboration and spontaneous connection that happens in hallways and kitchenettes. I echo others here - I've not seen a meaningful, revenue-driving conversation happen in these in a decade of work. Do you have specific examples of valuable collaboration in one of these environments? > Edit: full disclosure, I’m not an employer but I sympathize and spent a lot of time thinking about these things as…

> I echo others here - I've not seen a meaningful, revenue-driving conversation happen in these in a decade of work. If you restrict yourself to that metric, maybe. But theres more to life (and business) than that. Does everyone on HN seriously care that little about fellow workers? Not necessarily asking to become close friends, but I feel a workplace that is business-only to be sterile and depressing. It’s interest…

I've made many lifelong friends from the workplace, but most of those were not made through the course of day-to-day work, but through hanging out after work. Sure, being at an office during the day facilitates that (easy to gather a group of people at the end of the workday to go out for a drink), but that's by no means the only way of doing it.

Personally I find the negatives to required office work far worse than the positive of social opportunities in the office. Maybe I'm too biased to have an objective opinion on this (I'm in my early 40s and already made my office friends after years of being required to be in an office), but I would much rather have the flexibility of remote work, which still allows me to meet up with co-workers after work if we choose to do so. I absolutely agree that there's much more friction and inertia that would make those sort of meetups less frequent. But for me, that's a worthwhile trade-off.

I think businesses that are embracing remote work should still maintain a (smaller) office where employees can come in when they want to or need to, for whatever reason. Sure, this doesn't work when people are geographically distributed all over the place. But that can also be a choice when looking for a job: just as I might look for an employer that's remote-first, others can look for employers with office cultures.

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

#473

Post by giantg2 » Sun, Feb 05, 2023, 9:09 PM UTC

SpeedilyDamage wrote: post #353

giantg2 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe for managers. But really it should be about delivering completed projects, especially for technical folks.

Technical folks simply cannot do their jobs without solid working relationships, and those are not as well formed digitally. Remote work will continue to reduce over the next couple of years. If you don’t have a real reason for being at home during the work day, expect to be back in the office soon.

"Technical folks simply cannot do their jobs without solid working relationships, and those are not as well formed digitally."

Any real data on this? All the data our company has shows increased performance during WFH, such as an increase in deliveries and decrease in cycle time. So even if it's not as well formed, it seems it's formed sufficiently.

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

#474

Post by sodapopcan » Sun, Feb 05, 2023, 9:09 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #456

sodapopcan wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hear hear. I worked at a place that pair programmed all the time (I liked it that way—it's why I joined the company) but it meant that I always had to eat lunch at my desk. To me it's crazy to be talking all morning then talk all through lunch then talk all afternoon! But to each their own.

Wait what? Why does pair programming mean that you have to eat lunch at your desk? You are just as capable of taking a bag lunch to a cafeteria, or going out to eat...

Because I want an hour a silence during the day. Eating in the kitchen means eating with people and having to talk more, or at least listen more.

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

#475

Post by dmitriid » Sun, Feb 05, 2023, 9:09 PM UTC

pxue wrote: post #381

nostromo wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working in person isn't the issue here -- not having friends is the issue. People do make friends at work, and that's a good thing. But it should never be your primary place of making friends. (Friends and family won't lay you off like a job might. Having a network outside of work is critical if that ever happens.) Asking your coworkers to come into the office just so you can get some needed face time with other peop…

C'mon that's just bullshit. Once working, you spend 8h a day with a group of people. It's by far the easiest way to make friends since the needed repetition of making contact (a minimum requirement for friendship) is already solved by going to work together. Making friends as an adult is hard. Work is the easiest shortcut in establishing meaningful relationships with strangers. Edit: addressing some of the comments b…

> Once working, you spend 8h a day with a group of people.

Until they, or you:

- quit and move to another company in 2-3 years

- move to another department in the company

- get fired

Then what?

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

#476

Post by tonfreed » Sun, Feb 05, 2023, 9:09 PM UTC

Not an employer, but my read is this:

When I'm in the office, I have little, off the cuff conversations I can't have online, where I can express and develop a thought that would otherwise be gone as quickly as it came to me.

IRL, I have thousands of opportunities during the day to get 10 seconds of feedback, online I'm not likely to get a response because of the context switching overhead.

I don't want to be 100% in the office, but the one day a week we have at the moment is definitely positive for the whole team.

Tl;dr: the creativity that can be achieved by having people to bounce ideas off is multiplied when they're in the same room.

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

#477

Post by rewgs » Sun, Feb 05, 2023, 9:09 PM UTC

solatic wrote: post #295

Remote work requires a certain culture and skillset. You must be a good writer, type quickly, be self-expressive online even when not prompted by management. You must self-document and self-promote. Believe it or not, many, many people are not good at that or don't fit that mold. Yet they can still be productive. They just require more supervision and the ability to express themselves in a manner that suits them. If…

> You must be a good writer, type quickly, be self-expressive online even when not prompted by management. You must self-document and self-promote.

This right here. One of the failings of remote work being talked about in the comments here is, IMO, easily attributable to the company's focus on spoken (whether in-person or via Zoom) communication rather than written.

I have a strong preference for written communication with regards to work, whereas most of the companies I've worked for have preferred spoken. My preference isn't superficial, it's based on what appear to be obvious advantages -- past communication can be referred to again later, planning and documentation kind of organically occur via written communication, complex ideas can be given more time to be developed in an email vs off the cuff/probably worse explanations when spoken. The few times I can get people to actually just read the long email I just wrote, outlining a whole plan and my justifications for certain decisions, everything is super smooth.

But most of the time, peoples' eyes glaze over and they go "wow this seems like a lot, let's plan a Zoom meeting to discuss." The meeting happens somewhere within 1 - 10 days, usually being pushed at least once, I explain everything I wrote (often times just reading straight from the email), but then at a certain point peoples' eyes glaze over once again and they say "sounds like we're really getting into the weeds here, do you mind typing this up into an email that I can read later?" I then proceed to scream into the void.

Rinse and repeat, and after literal weeks, finally the contents of a perfectly cogent email that could have been read and understood in ~10 - 15 minutes have finally sunk in. It is absolutely maddening.

A strong culture of written communication is now one of the single most important things I look for in a company. I'm not against spoken communication, far from it -- having actual in-person or at least Zoom time is nice, and for brainstorming or discussing a plan, written communication isn't as good (though I've had quite a few great Slack brainstorming sessions). I'm not a shut-in, very sociable, and I enjoy a nice balance of remote and in-person work. But for work, which is by definition something for which I strive to minimize time spent/sanity lost and maximize income received, written communication is far and away my preferred method.

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

#478

Post by cientifico » Sun, Feb 05, 2023, 9:11 PM UTC

1. We generate trust faster and stronger when we are physically present.

2. Teams with high trust tend to be happier and deliver better and more.

3. Some people need to be in the office. Hybrid approaches (some people at the office, some not) suck. So full-office, or say goodbye to the people that need the office.

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

#479

Post by jltsiren » Sun, Feb 05, 2023, 9:11 PM UTC

Volundr wrote: post #376

65 wrote: post #342

I'm in my 20s. I live alone in a city where I don't know anyone. Remote work destroyed my mental health. All I wanted was to be able to go into an office and talk to a real life person. I would go weeks at a time not talking to a single person in real life. I don't think people understand the plight of the young office worker until they've experienced the torture of solitary confinement. Day in, day out. All alone. I…

I hear you and doubt nothing about your plight, but frankly that feels like a you problem. I can sympathize while also rejecting the idea that I should have to come into the office so your not lonely. Have you considered a co-working space? It seems like that could get you what your looking for. Beyond that I'd look to get creative around finding ways to get social outside work. A martial arts or social dance class f…

You should look at the bigger picture. People usually find friends as a byproduct of of some activity, such as work, studies, hobbies, or activism. If you remove the activity people spend a third of their waking hours on from the list, the result is a massive reduction in the number of friends people have. And it's going to hit the people who can't easily make friends the hardest.

This is not an individual problem. It's an issue that affects the entire society. Social isolation feeds many undesirable things, such as political polarization and extremism. If a society wants to survive, it has to deal with the issue somehow.

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

#480

Post by virtual_void » Sun, Feb 05, 2023, 9:12 PM UTC

roncesvalles wrote: post #460

kelnos wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've made plenty of real, meaningful, long-term friendships at work. But I also have solid friend groups of people I've met outside work. I value all of them, but I'm not going to give up the opportunity to have more flexible working arrangements because some people seem to think they can only make friends at work. > We go to school and make friends with other people at school. Why is it wild that you'd want to go to…

This is exactly the attitude that I'm protesting against. I don't agree that you can make even close to the same depth of friendship with someone who you see 2 hours a week, vs someone you see 8 hours a day 5 days a week for months. Work or school are really the only places where you can spend that much time with someone. Then again, part of the problem is that people have forgotten what real friendships are like. "F…

You’re assuming your feelings about how other people make meaningful relationships are universal. It can be true for you yet untrue for others. It seems a bit much to state it as fact.