Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

541–550 of 838 posts

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

#541

Post by Zetice »

deathanatos wrote: post #497
Zetice wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's trivial to you that a few extra pieces of drywall and a handful of additional planks of wood would launch the cost of a buildout into the stratosphere? Are you even reading the comments about studies showing the lost productivity (and therefore revenue) caused by open office spaces? I didn't say it wouldn't cost one penny more than an open office, I said it wasn't wildly different. So many buildouts go halfway a…

When I consider "the cost of the buildout", I consider that to be the cost to do the buildout, nothing more. Productivity gains/losses are outside the scope of that. I.e., the claim, as I read it, is that construction of an open office is more expensive than a non-open floorplan, per employee. (If you consider that, yes, I think open office is the long-term worse option, and the parenthetical in my comment pretty cle…

I don't really know what you want me to do with this comment. Okay? What part of any of this suddenly exponentially blows up the cost of building many little offices (not average sized offices, unnecessary for this)?

You asked me to justify it, I did, and you replied with a generic moan. Alright?

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

#542

Post by lampshades »

ilaksh wrote: post #480
lampshades wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently going through interviews and I think "collaboration" and communication is a real thing WFH is missing. You say that people can collaborate real-time from any corner of the planet but that hasn't been my experience. I have had two companies in the last few weeks (out of like 5) where my recruiter had no idea what stage of the process I was in because at some other point some recruiter had picked me up. I…

Those are process failures. People need to be responsible on some electronic communication medium and if they can't do that then they have to be fired.

I don't disagree but I've been dealing with it for years now (since COVID) and nobody has seemed to be able to fix it.

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

#543

Post by lezojeda »

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…

[dead]

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

#545

Post by Brusco_RF »

eschneider wrote: post #500
Brusco_RF wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, this is an example of rigid thinking that isn't productive or accurate. Apply marginal thinking the way economists do. People's propensity to return to the office falls on a spectrum ranging from 0 ( the people who are already back in their cubicles ) to 9 ( "You'll need a SWAT team to get me back to the office" ). A 5 on that scale is a marginal worker. Provide an incentive for them to return, like a n…

It's much more "offer me work SO rewarding, the commute is worth it" or "money SO good, it makes the commute worth it." Office amenities probably won't get if done, as many folks can just setup the home office the way they want it, or at least as well as most private offices.

For me it's the colleagues. Rubbing elbows with people much smarter and further in their careers than I am is worth making the ~20 min commute. But any incentive provides the same effect.

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

#546

Post by nsxwolf »

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…

I've been WFH for 20 years. My family's life has been built around it including choice of schools, my wife's job, activities, etc. We own one car.

If I were to take a job downtown, my wife would have to get a different job, we'd have to pay for some level of child care, arrange transportation for school, drop various activities, buy a second car so I could drive to the train station (which comes with maintenance, insurance, registration, etc).

The amount of money that would make any of this worth it is not small. You'd have to cover the additional expenses and then write a big check on top to compensate for disrupting our way of life.

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

#547

Post by mensetmanusman »

eloisant wrote: post #372
mensetmanusman wrote: post #278

At some point many years in the future, more lives will have been saved due to WFH trends (pollution, accidents, etc.) than were taken prematurely by COVID. Fascinating silver lining.

COVID didn't create WFH, it merely accelerated its spread.

Accelerated by many decades.

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

#548

Post by bradleyjg »

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.

I reckon at some point someone will figure out that the physical environment can be modified to make knowledge workers more productive, and start walloping their competition.

I’ve tuned out the entire wfh debate for this reason. We just need some patience and we’ll have an answer. There’s no need for all the angry debates.

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

#549

Post by generic92034 »

steveBK123 wrote: post #375
thegaulofthem wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may both be richer than you (they’re certainly richer than I), but they’re definitely not of the same class.

Yes, even well paid worker bees are still worker bees. The queen bee who owns a share of the hive, decides how many bees to hire/fire, where they work, when they work, what % of the honey to share with the worker bees, etc.. now thats a different class.

What about managers/trainers of sports teams, if the stars of the team get a significantly higher salary? The manager/trainer might order them around, but does that make them belonging to a higher class, even if they earn way less than their "subordinates"?

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

#550

Post by bitbckt »

peatmoss wrote: post #201
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.

To me it beggars belief that companies spend so much on humans only to put them in an environment where it’s impossible to concentrate. I reckon at some point someone will figure out that the physical environment can be modified to make knowledge workers more productive, and start walloping their competition. I am on a distributed team with no in-person interaction, and I love commuting even though I don’t see anyone…

Sun used to assign offices to two people.

I personally don't mind sharing office space with less than about four coworkers. In a small(!), shared office there is enough social pressure to keep concentration periods quiet, or agree on shared music choices, &c. and still maintain the advantages of having what amounts to a team meeting space for collaboration in the same footprint.

Post reply on HN