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The damaging results of mandated return to office

entrepreneur.com

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Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#111

Post by Kiro »

Uehreka wrote: post #37
diego_moita wrote: post #19

I wish we stopped with the "companies should do this/should do that". Existing big companies are too comfortable and lazy for the remote work revolution. Remote work is a radical change in culture and work organization. It will take new companies with new workflows and organizational ideas to make it work well. We're not there yet. Managers don't understand yet how to do it, they need to read a lot of documentation (…

…what? Sorry to harsh the vibe, but that second paragraph reads like something out of 2014 when people were first reading REMOTE. At this point remote work is nothing new, and while many large companies don’t like it, many large companies are going along with it (and developing the culture, documentation, etc.) because it works well as a way to attract talent. And some startup founders are trying to go “full Musk” an…

You've been lucky and haven't experienced a regular company that is not remote ready. I'm sure most tech companies are in a much better position then the ones where the only communication software is Skype. It's a serious uphill to convert such a company to a remote one.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#112

Post by dclowd9901 »

simonw wrote: post #2

"Unispace finds that nearly half (42%) of companies that mandated office returns witnessed a higher level of employee attrition than they had anticipated." My guess is that you're also more likely to lose your best performers - since they will have higher confidence in being able to find a remote-friendly job somewhere else.

I’ve noticed companies give special dispensation to their top workers to work however they like. So much for an egalitarian workplace.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#113

Post by BLKNSLVR »

pipeline_peak wrote: post #79

Great, I can hear about sports and eat shitty complimentary pizza while eavesdropping on some 20 ur old intern get bullied by his superior for driving an old car/having bad facial hair. Corporate environments bring out the worst in people. I don’t believe 70% of workers are looking to be lazy by wfh. We want to sift thru the toxic bullshit so we can actually do our FUCKING work. Yes I’m bitter

> 20 ur old intern get bullied by his superior for driving an old car/having bad facial hair.

It seems that, for whatever reason, covid has increased the intolerance of shitty behaviour like this. Possibly because remote working meant people could choose to have less contact with toxic co-workers, and so upon return to the office it was far more obviously toxic than before covid when it may have been somewhat normalised.

This is how it should be. Penalise the fouls.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#114

Post by dclowd9901 »

jupp0r wrote: post #57

Companies who mandate return to the office should pay employees for the additional commute time at their hourly rate. If this becomes too expensive then productivity gains from being in the office are apparently not worth it.

Logistically, how does this work? Do employees need to install trackers on their phones to catalog hours?

Not saying it wouldn’t be ideal to have that segment of the day paid for, but I’m just trying to get my head around how the tightwad money folk deal with such a nebulous target.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#115

Post by dclowd9901 »

threads2 wrote: post #89
ge96 wrote: post #62

I have to return to office since I left my previous remote one, been remote for 3 years. Silver lining (cope) for me is losing weight and slowing down passage of time. Also interacting with people IRL is nice, seeing physical people. I don't get out much other than going to the bars once in a while. But it sucks... Losing an hour a day for driving and I gotta get up earlier to get ready/drive. And I'll be working in…

> slowing down passage of time My days/months have been flying by and I thought I was just because I'm getting older. Thanks for mentioning this in the context of working from home. I feel a little better now. Maybe I should get an office job too.

Stasis causes memory to meld together. Even an office job will become a stasis at some point.

If you really want to undercut that effect, inject new experiences into your life as often as possible.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#116

Post by jupp0r »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #114
jupp0r wrote: post #57

Companies who mandate return to the office should pay employees for the additional commute time at their hourly rate. If this becomes too expensive then productivity gains from being in the office are apparently not worth it.

Logistically, how does this work? Do employees need to install trackers on their phones to catalog hours? Not saying it wouldn’t be ideal to have that segment of the day paid for, but I’m just trying to get my head around how the tightwad money folk deal with such a nebulous target.

Google Maps directions from home to office printed out and emailed to payroll.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#117

Post by Kiro »

alistairSH wrote: post #25
diego_moita wrote: post #19

I wish we stopped with the "companies should do this/should do that". Existing big companies are too comfortable and lazy for the remote work revolution. Remote work is a radical change in culture and work organization. It will take new companies with new workflows and organizational ideas to make it work well. We're not there yet. Managers don't understand yet how to do it, they need to read a lot of documentation (…

Except almost all white-collar offices (in the US at least) went remote during the first 2-3 years of COVID. Most did so successfully. Yet, many now want to return to traditional office work with little evidence that’s a better way to work.

I don't think most did so successfully. A lot of companies did it without any sort of software or procedures to support remote working and never managed to implement it during the time. They still rely on Skype.

Tech companies are not representative.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#118

Post by jupp0r »

deathanatos wrote: post #72
jupp0r wrote: post #57

Companies who mandate return to the office should pay employees for the additional commute time at their hourly rate. If this becomes too expensive then productivity gains from being in the office are apparently not worth it.

I agree with you 100%, they should, but companies would look at you like you're demanding an absolutely bonkers amount of money. (They'd much rather the employees come back for free! And they'll complain about the higher than expected attrition the whole way…)

I agree with you that it's not realistic, but you understand the point I'm trying to make. In the end of the day you are taking a pay cut with this. With a one way 1h commute and 8h of work it's a 20% pay cut. I'm not surprised that smart people treat it accordingly.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#119

Post by mrtksn »

ornornor wrote: post #110
mrtksn wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, it wasn't a mainstream success so far but there are teams who cracked it. There are some companies who are proudly WFH-only and global. The sweatshop model surely doesn't lead to quality but there are other models where companies open a local branch where they actually can have the company culture and yield just as good results. I wouldn't trust too much on the "secret sauce that makes us special" theory, th…

In my opinion, it’s more about the local culture. People in different countries/continents work differently, have different expectations around how much initiative non-managers should take, etc. I’m not saying one is worse than the other. What I’m saying is that trying to mix these levels and hoping to exploit cheap labor to offshore doesn’t work well in my experience and what’s saved on paper is paid tenfold in cust…

Completely agree on the culture, it's not that people in one place are inferior to the other - it's just that that's the way how work is done in their country and they keep doing it as long as they are in that environment. When the same people physically move to another country, they end up absorbing the local culture and adopt and behave like the rest of the team.

That said, with all the communications in place today I think the culture is becoming global with newer generations having less and less difference between countries.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#120

Post by jupp0r »

abduhl wrote: post #76
jupp0r wrote: post #57

Companies who mandate return to the office should pay employees for the additional commute time at their hourly rate. If this becomes too expensive then productivity gains from being in the office are apparently not worth it.

Careful with this kind of demand. It’s possible that companies may pay the office workers their increased rate simply by reducing pay to remote workers.

If they think that this is good allocation of their resources, why shouldn't they? (rhetorical question, it's because remote workers are not 2h of commute time per day less productive).
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