I loved having my own office briefly during the end of the 2000s, but that's not really a perk in my mind. If I'm going to commute 45 minutes into an office, the value is being next to the people I'm there to work with. Going from my home office that I've spec'd out and make exactly how I want my workspace to be, to another isolated lonely corporate office, seems, like a side-grade.
Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
671–680 of 838 posts
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#672Earlier quoted context omitted.
So many of the comments are acting as though the underling employee actually is of a different class. I'd bet anything this young person is used to having his family name make him welcome at any table he wishes to join, even in the Hamptons. He's on the well-worn path through a brief stint as a junior analyst before he's running some bank or hedge fund somewhere and the CEO of GS hesitates to approach his table. This…
You just made up a scenario that has a less than 50% probability of being true, in order to.. come to the defense of a CEO worth $100M+ ? LOL cmon man.
I believe part of that is true based on the location and ivy league background but also the ceo has disdain for lower ranked employees appearing in his bubble and daring to appear on the same level
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#673Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 inve…
Estimates I saw said individual offices were not much more expensive compared against the other costs to employ people. But the costs were simpler to quantify than the benefits. Or the benefits were denied. The motivations for open spaces included faith in collaboration or productivity increases. Even when studies found decreases.
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#674Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're assuming that someone working from the Hamptons is as productive as working from a desk in the office or his own home. I highly doubt this is true and especially so for young junior employees. After you've been there a while, learned more and are more effective at your job, you're more likely to get the benefit of the doubt but even that has limits. Why are we pretending like this is all weird? New or junior e…
>> You're assuming that someone working from the Hamptons is as productive as working from a desk in the office or his own home. I highly doubt this is true and especially so for young junior employees. I've had co-workers in these situations for a long time. In theory there is no difference. But then... - suddenly you can barely hear someone on a conference call because they are on a 4G-tether on a beach, - or becau…
Blocking off the day makes sense because you want get work done. Meetings can wait until I'm at the office because I'm too distracted to get real work done in my flex-desk.
Who cares if employee works at the beach?
You need to provide value not appearance of value.
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#675Earlier quoted context omitted.
(Shrug) If that's what it takes, that's what it takes. Commuting is for suckers, regardless of how many numbers are on your paycheck.
Pay cuts are for suckers too.
I mean, yes, that's the obvious take, but can you honestly say there's nothing you could be doing that would make you more money, but that would completely suck, prompting you to do something else instead?
Just today I'm seeing stories about how the UPS truck drivers have managed to negotiate themselves pay and benefits up to $170,000/year. Would you rather make $150,000 a year at your desk at home, or $170,000/year schlepping packages for UPS?
If your answer is "$150K," you're taking a pay cut for a better work environment. Does that make you a sucker? No? Well, that's what WFH is about. If you have to leave your current job and find another one to make it happen, it could make sense as long as your paycheck and future prospects aren't too badly hurt. (And assuming you want to WFH, of course, which many people will not.)
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#676Earlier quoted context omitted.
Won’t work? How will these non-workers pay for things? They’ll have no choice but to work.
Ever hear of The New Deal? It was necessary because many, many US citizens hit hard by The Great Depression figured out in that time how to live without depending on regular (or any) work. Tent cities; hunting; scavenging; farming; begging; stealing; mutual aid networks; etc. It wasn't the best life, but for many it was found to be preferable to the factories or the docks. To even consider returning to living a life…
We've since invented air conditioning (among other things), so I doubt this is a relevant point.
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#677Earlier quoted context omitted.
My vaguely populist take is that the pandemic, WFH/remote and hybrid gave the mass white collar class a taste of what the C-suite has had for years.. flexibility. Sure, these guys might go into the office but they do so from their pied-a-terre / 3rd home / whatever within a 5 minute chauffeured drive. They do this while maintaining a nearby suburban/exurban estate and maybe a lake/beach/ski houses where they spend th…
In my experience, VP+ level also maybe spend half the year on the road and are commonly on 10pm calls with e.g. customers and general managers in Asia. Certainly they're usually well-compensated but they're not spending their days by the swimming pool in their villa either. I suspect that a lot of people reading this would hate the job even if they could do it well.
I would be thrilled to have a job I hated for $5M a year. I would only have to bear it a year and I could retire.
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#678Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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." But "collaboration"....
Those hallway conversations where the real magic happens, man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUdRhB_M7qk (safe for work)
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#679Earlier quoted context omitted.
My vaguely populist take is that the pandemic, WFH/remote and hybrid gave the mass white collar class a taste of what the C-suite has had for years.. flexibility. Sure, these guys might go into the office but they do so from their pied-a-terre / 3rd home / whatever within a 5 minute chauffeured drive. They do this while maintaining a nearby suburban/exurban estate and maybe a lake/beach/ski houses where they spend th…
If I had a small-medium company I would hand out money for renting coworking spaces. If enough people do this, coworking spaces will pop up more and more and compete to get the best deals. People who wants to WFH can pocket the difference and those who crave for socialization will have a place for such. A large company can probably do that with smaller offices or with setting up the coworking spaces themselves and re…
And yet WeWork is probably going to end up out of business. Maybe if I didn't have any real estate footprint yet, I'd consider an all coworking spaces footprint. The more general problem is that, even if I were fine with driving into a local office, I probably wouldn't know anyone much less work with anyone there on a given day.
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#680Earlier quoted context omitted.
My vaguely populist take is that the pandemic, WFH/remote and hybrid gave the mass white collar class a taste of what the C-suite has had for years.. flexibility. Sure, these guys might go into the office but they do so from their pied-a-terre / 3rd home / whatever within a 5 minute chauffeured drive. They do this while maintaining a nearby suburban/exurban estate and maybe a lake/beach/ski houses where they spend th…
> US commuters might have had a boiled frog scenario where you slowly just get used to having a worse & worse commute as you age You never have to move to the exurbs though :)
I like the exurbs. And my closest office--which I haven't spent a day in for at least the past 5 years--is basically in an exurb as well. (I go into our urban office more frequently for customer visits.)