Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office • Hacker News Board

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#91

Post by downrightmike » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

makingstuffs wrote: post #66

People need to stop trying to make things return to the original office model. Employees have realised we are equally as effective working from home and simply do not want to waste 2+ UNPAID hours of every day travelling to a corporate building for the sake of it. Nor do people want to spend £10+ a day on food and drinks which they have in their fridge, at home. Then there is also the social pressure of having to go…

Humans have only been working in offices since the industrial revolution, before that it was nearly all WFH. WFH is our natural state.

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#92

Post by shortrounddev2 » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #30

People who like WFH will never want to return to the office unless perhaps the office is a 5 minute walk from home (they may be forced to, but they won't want to). For many people the time and cost savings of avoiding a daily commute cannot be offset by a nicer office. Those who are happy to return to the office in general are those who do not like WFH and prefer more contacts and a change of scenery. A nicer office…

Personally, the commute is secondary. I hate being at the office. The office could be right next door to me and I still wouldn't want to go. Offices are cold, sterile, mentally unstimulating environments of constant surveillance. I never want to go into another one ever again

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#93

Post by wkat4242 » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

toddmatthews wrote: post #56

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that employers need to give you everything you want is strange. They give you the least they can possibly get away with. Sure - some small subset of employers competing for the best employees will do this. But the average employer? I'm skeptical.

At one point in time people probably said the same thing about employer provided health insurance, and now it’s expected. Tough to get good talent if other companies are providing better perks

In the US I think it's also a retention strategy. Nobody will just up and leave before they have another job lined up because health insurance is unaffordable. One US colleague mentioned $1000 per month!

It's a big deterrent IMO especially compared to Spain where healthcare is free

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#94

Post by JohnFen » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

jwestbury wrote: post #42

Honestly, I'd even take a cube farm. I've only ever worked at tech companies with fully open offices, or, at best, some cubicle walls up around groups of 10-15 desks.

Before cubes were a thing, open office layouts were the norm. When cubes were introduced, office workers hailed than as wonderful things because it meant no more of the hell that is open office layouts.

Open offices Personally, I will never again work in an open office setting, or even a "pod" setup. I've learned my lesson.

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#95

Post by stephc_int13 » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

Some people are missing the social part of the office life.

I only miss the meals with colleagues, but that is not worth the extra time wasted on commute and the productivity loss of being interrupted by noise and jack-asses.

Middle managers are missing the sense of control, I think they rarely pay for themselves, with WFH this is even more apparent.

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#96

Post by steveBK123 » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

AvAn12 wrote: post #9

Joel Spolesky has made this very point many times in the past: "Private offices with doors that close were absolutely required and not open to negotiation." I work on a Data Sci team that moved to an open floor plan in 2018. What happened? Anyone who needed to work intensively on a project would work from home instead of in the office.

Open floorplans are especially problematic if your team handles any mix of development & operational tasks.

Wall Street tech it's pretty typical to do your own SRE/L3 and honestly even L2/L1. Everything from business user "hey how do I.." customer service questions down to "the server is on fire, alerts are coming in .. ".

Open floorplans mean even if you have an agreed PagerDuty type rotation, everyone gets sucked into or distracted by it. It's hard not to want to lend a hand when you see your buddy getting blown up by some difficult user or your inbox/slack is getting filled up with alerts.

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#97

Post by r2_pilot » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

toddmatthews wrote: post #56

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that employers need to give you everything you want is strange. They give you the least they can possibly get away with. Sure - some small subset of employers competing for the best employees will do this. But the average employer? I'm skeptical.

At one point in time people probably said the same thing about employer provided health insurance, and now it’s expected. Tough to get good talent if other companies are providing better perks

Employer-provided health insurance comes from World War 2 and the US government locking market pay rates for the war. To compete, employers had to add non-monetary perks such as health insurance. Unfortunately we didn't transition out of this and it ballooned into the current mess.

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#98

Post by gspencley » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

makingstuffs wrote: post #66

People need to stop trying to make things return to the original office model. Employees have realised we are equally as effective working from home and simply do not want to waste 2+ UNPAID hours of every day travelling to a corporate building for the sake of it. Nor do people want to spend £10+ a day on food and drinks which they have in their fridge, at home. Then there is also the social pressure of having to go…

> Employees have realised we are equally as effective working from home and simply do not want to waste 2+ UNPAID hours of every day travelling to a corporate building for the sake of it.

Not only is it unpaid, it actually costs the employee money. In the worst case you need a car + the insurance, fuel and maintenance costs associated. In the best case you still need to pay for public transportation.

> Nor do people want to spend £10+ a day on food and drinks which they have in their fridge, at home.

Eating out regularly is also hazardous to your health. In my experience and opinion there is no such thing as a healthy dining option. There are varying degrees of poisonous; some options are certainly better than others; but if you're trying to be strict with your diet then forget eating out daily.

Then add the stress of a commute, workplace hazards, risks associated with commuting (I have a ZERO chance of getting killed in a car accident when I'm not travelling in a car), risks associated with communicable diseases and there is a case to be made that working in an office is actually hazardous to your health.

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#99

Post by shortrounddev2 » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:44 PM UTC

kjkjadksj wrote: post #83

mytailorisrich wrote: post #30

People who like WFH will never want to return to the office unless perhaps the office is a 5 minute walk from home (they may be forced to, but they won't want to). For many people the time and cost savings of avoiding a daily commute cannot be offset by a nicer office. Those who are happy to return to the office in general are those who do not like WFH and prefer more contacts and a change of scenery. A nicer office…

See if I lived five minutes walk from work, I’d want to be in the office even less. Why sit there between meetings if I am five minutes from my home? Why bag a lunch when my kitchen is down the block? I’d probably show face at the obligate meetings then just go home for the day if I could.

I used to live 5mins from work. The office catered lunch every day, but I still went home every day to eat lunch with my wife instead. Hated being at that place

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#100

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:44 PM UTC

WirelessGigabit wrote: post #52

I wonder how much of this comes from 'war rooms' that companies like the Big 3 do. They work on a project for 5 months all smashed together in 1 meeting room. And then you need to talk to one of them, they pick up the phone in that room, not even walking out. Absolutely horrible. Is that where this comes from?

Both come from the shared common ancestor of, how do you work when you’re a small scrappy team who’s just gotta get stuff done together? You find a room, you get the equipment you need, and you work out of it until you’re big enough to need more.

I can fully understand why people dislike this kind of thing, but the fact that it shows up in multiple contexts suggests it probably does achieve what it’s aiming for.