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

#131

Post by btbuildem » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:49 PM UTC

Zetice wrote: post #25

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.

If all of this results in an office layout revolution that includes many individual offices opening into shared team spaces, I am 100% here for it.

It won't. The push for open-plan spaces was motivated by cost-cutting.

Layouts with many closed offices would cost far more to build, and take up more square footage to host the same number of employees.

At a time where savvy businesses have dropped their commercial leases / gone full remote, and the more conservative / less accepting of change ones are left holding the bag, I would not expect anyone to make big investments into office space.

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

#132

Post by rndmwlk » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:49 PM UTC

At my previous job, when they did their return to office rollout, I remember the head of our department waxing on about how much he missed being in the office with everyone. He missed it so much, he went on, that while he would previously have kept his office door closed so he could work in peace and quiet he actually kept it open (that day) so that he could hear all of the din of the office.

This brought me great comfort when I struggled to hear anything during any of my meetings (all of which were still remote in nature due to a diversely located team).

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

#133

Post by Someone1234 » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:49 PM UTC

Offices are a vast improvement over open plan.

But ultimately my work day is still 2-hours longer vis-a-vis commuting AND I am required to live in a much more expensive area to make that commute at all, essentially reducing my wages yet further. WFH is a 25% shorter work day (8 actual instead of 8 + 2) and I can live in a 20%~ cheaper home, how are you going to compensate that?

You can either offer me WFH or increase my wages 40% and give me an office. Seems like WFH is the economically most efficient for both employer and employee but what do I know?

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

#134

Post by Workaccount2 » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:49 PM UTC

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #27

1970-01-01 wrote: post #3

At home, the benefits are extreme. Full office, private bath, private bed, private kitchen, garaged parking, asset security, and a 30 second commute. The next wave of office workers will want it better than this, or it simply won't work.

I think a lot of people on here have not been through a real recession. Not saying that everybody will go back to working in an office, but thinking one can simply demand anything only works when employment is high. During a recession, it is either social assistance or one takes the job that is available.

I think it comes from being a software engineer in US the last 10, and especially the last 5 years, is probably the greatest working conditions of any worker ever in human history.

There are a large number of people, namely on HN, that have never known anything other than $120K+ compensation, constant stream of offers for changing jobs, all while working from their home and doing about 4 hours of real work a day.

I don't think a recession is necessarily coming, but a reversion to the mean is going to leave these people obliterated.

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

#135

Post by wkat4242 » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:50 PM UTC

jack_riminton wrote: post #79

Yes! I've been a firm believer in this for ages. Heck I'd even quite like a cubicle, no really, I would. The open plan office that is ubiquitous in the UK is the absolute worst of all possible designs

Yeah it's amazing to think we now long back to the days of the cubicle. When they were introduced I never thought things could get worse.

When I started in the late 90s I had my own office as an intern in a huge fancy building in Amsterdam. They started the cubicle transition soon after.

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

#136

Post by linuxftw » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:50 PM UTC

Veliladon wrote: post #46

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.

Not only will those employers competing for the best get the best, they'll get it at a discount rate because remote workers are on average willing to accept an 18% pay cut to remain fully remote. Employees are literally willing to pay employers to stay at home. The middle manager who is awful at their job and so insecure they need to "see employees working" is costing the business not just in talent acquisition but w…

Once you factor in taxes and commute expenses, 18% is practically break-even for even a well compensated employee, and that doesn't include the QOL factor.

Indeed, middle management is the plight of modern civilization. They'll probably get replaced by AI soon enough.

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

#137

Post by wombatpm » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:50 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #73

Tao3300 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't even suggest that. Someone might see this.

Why not both?

I had a boss who was a VP in sales. His philosophy was "On the days I go in late, I make up for it by leaving early".

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

#138

Post by NetOpWibby » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:50 PM UTC

For the first time in my life, I have space and energy to work on my fitness goals. I wouldn't be able to do that if I had to go into the office.

Ironically, I moved to California because I was told we'd be working onsite...three years later and I _still_ don't have a badge because the back to office mandate never came.

I use my lunch hour to workout because I can just eat at my desk. I wish I could afford a bigger house so I can have a home office instead of sharing my office with my bedroom but hey, Cali's expensive (but oh so nice).

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

#139

Post by JohnFen » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:50 PM UTC

gedy wrote: post #26

Even with that, no company has paid me enough in 20 years to live near the office that is safe and family friendly. Sorry not sorry. BTW I keep hearing benefits of "RTO" - but I've never worked for a company that only has a single office, so we end up on video calls with other teams and team members anyways even when the company didn't allow WFH.

> we end up on video calls with other teams and team members anyways even when the company didn't allow WFH.

This has been my experience at every company I've been with in the last 15 years. The reason why I don't find these "increases collaboration and teamwork" arguments persuasive is because when everyone has been in the office, the work processes and level of collaboration were not different at all.

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

#140

Post by intended » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 2:50 PM UTC

mdorazio wrote: post #74

mandmandam wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think a lot of people on here have not been through a real recession. You can't be serious. > During a recession, it is either social assistance or one takes the job that is available. It's only this way because we allow it to be. Huge productivity gains over the last decades have been captured by the .1%. There's nothing ambiguous or mysterious about it.

> You can't be serious. I have to agree with the parent post here. What do you think the median age of HN commenters is? I'd say it's probably mid-late 20s, in which case most people graduated after the great recession was largely over and only experienced the COVID blip that wasn't a cyclical recession in the normal sense and mostly helped tech workers instead of harming them.

The median age here would be 40s.