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

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

#681

Post by esafak »

pessimizer wrote: post #377
btbuildem wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The push for open-plan spaces was motivated by cost-cutting. I think that it was just as motivated by the way you can walk a potential investor (or a worried current investor) through them, and make grand gestures with your arm indicating all of the busy beavers working on making things happen. Then the group can be walked from rockstar ninja to rockstar ninja, looking over shoulders at unintelligible screens, whil…

Adam Neumann: "Activate the space!"

https://news.yahoo.com/activate-space-wework-founder-adam-18...

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

#682

Post by daruk »

peatmoss wrote: post #505
Analemma_ wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft used to do this. Famously, they had private offices for a long time while all the competition was open-office plans. They've scaled this way back in recent years though (to much complaining, albeit totally ignored, from employees). Whether this means the brainworms got to them too or they actually have the numbers to prove that private offices aren't worth the expense, I don't know.

In my first job after college, I worked at a federal agency where people had cubicles carved out of traditional large offices. It was actually kind of nice, because you worked with people in your office, but had some separation from them as well. The peons all had desktop computers, while middle management had clunky laptops with docking stations. You knew who the executives were by their small laptops that were clea…

To contrast this, I’d say that the “few cubicles in an office” is my least favorite approach. It makes every little noise much more noticeable, and if you get stuck with a loud talker, their voice on on virtual meetings is going to echo a lot more off of the office walls. I’d prefer a regular cubicle in a large floor where the background noise all just kinda blends together.

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

#683

Post by sensanaty »

heisnotanalien wrote: post #195

I love working from home as much as everyone else here (seemingly) but I don't think people are fully appreciating how damaging not talking to people in meat space is likely to be long-term. We are embodied/energetic creatures and that energy is not exchanging the same way online (sorry if that sounds woo but it's true!). More so for the younger people, let's not forgot some of whom have never worked with people much…

Other than 1 or 2 individuals from previous jobs I've never in my life felt social fulfillment from colleagues. Even those 2 people I haven't spoken to in a long, long time and in fact only remembered they existed because I'm writing this post.

As far as social situations go, colleagues rank somewhere near the bus driver I greet every morning in terms of how much fulfillment they give me.

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

#684

Post by vladvasiliu »

Aeolun wrote: post #452
rayiner wrote: post #179

Earlier 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. That’s not populist at all. It’s just another example of the white collar class enjoying the benefits of technology and globalization while everyone else gets left behind: https://www.epi.org/blog/wage-inequality-continued-to-increa... . Before the pandem…

I don’t think we should feel ashamed of being able to do our work from home. There’s no benefit to making everyone go to the office/job just because some people cannot do their jobs without that.

I'd actually argue there's a benefit to those who need to work at the job site in having the others stay home: a commute in a crowded bus / subway where you can't breathe or spending 2 hours on a gridlocked highway is an absolute PITA for everybody concerned.

So if I can jockey my keyboard while sitting in my chair at home instead of taking the subway to do it while sitting in my employer's, that's a tiny bit more space for the guy who actually needs to go somewhere and work in person.

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

#685

Post by brewdad »

vasco wrote: post #661
steveBK123 wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you are misreading "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" Team managers/trainers do not meet most of those criteria. At most the GM meets the majority of them. Only the team owner would meet all the criteria.

What about all the trades people that own their own small businesses? Like some young guy with a grass mowing business?

That hive is too small to matter. Kind of like I don't really concern myself with all of the wildlife in Australia that would like to eat me. It doesn't affect me in the least day to day.

Amazon was once a small business. It's possible to grow that hive but the vast majority get exterminated.

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

#686

Post by nebula8804 »

derefr wrote: post #535
flandish wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This example is a stark reminder that the complaints are most often not about details but about class . The CEO was upset others were allowed to perform as if they were of the same class. It’s always class when one boils it down, imho.

Not even. He was upset because the presence of his middle-class employee in his previously-upper-class restaurant — especially with the employee visibly performing middle-class behaviors like a lack of consideration of discretion (and then not being told to sit down by the restaurant staff!) — was tarnishing the restaurant's upper-class image, i.e. the usefulness of using eating there as an upper-class shibboleth. Or…

I would love to hear the "backchannel" conversations happening between people like Musk, Altman, the Google guys and their cronies. It often "feels" like they are planning something nefarious longterm but I can't exactly see the big picture so im not sure.

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

#687

Post by ryandrake »

mfitton wrote: post #634
throwaway290 wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How horrible are those offices people talk about (I guess in US)? Is it really the norm that people look over your shoulder? I like when it's quiet and private but I also like to come work from an office... Even though it's a basic small shared space and I literally work from my laptop (can't be bothered to hook up the screen etc). I do like not having to do it every day so I am free to come or not but I look forward…

At my place, there are desks (about 4 feet wide, set in rows of 6, with people's backs facing each other and no dividers). There are about 200 desks, and about 250 employees. Desks need to be reserved, keyboard, mouse and charger all need to be brought by the employee to their desk each day. 50 or so people don't get desks and have to sit on couches, stools in the kitchen with no backs, or the floor. The CEO said tha…

There's nothing quite as ridiculous as an open office with row after row of employees sitting shoulder to shoulder, half of whom are loudly talking on video calls with their teams which are distributed among other offices where they are also sitting shoulder to shoulder in an open office. I'd be shocked that any deep concentration work gets done in such an environment.

EDIT: Furthermore, I think some execs in tech companies (particularly those who never were engineers) really believe that's how software development happens! Like if you ask your company's CEO how software gets written, he pictures this Wall Street-like trading floor where engineers are yacking at each other, and having standup meetings and flailing about at whiteboards, and that's the sound/busy-ness of engineering being done!

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

#688

Post by theptip »

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…

> A nicer office makes things better but it will not change people's minds on WFH.

I suggest you consider behavior on the margin. Despite the fact that there are lots of people vocal about how much they love/hate RTO, there are also people that are indifferent or slightly prefer one or the other. Improvements in office quality will meaningfully persuade some number of people on the margin.

It’s an open question how steep the curve is (ie how much office improvement required to persuade 1% of people to change their mind) but I think it’s myopic to just look at the partisans.

All that said, sure, there is a nontrivial percentage who you couldn’t change their minds with something like a dedicated office. But I think your claim is too strong that it’s binary and all WFH likers will not be persuaded by this proposal.

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

#689

Post by hangonhn »

lostdog wrote: post #531
hangonhn wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who like WFH will never want to return to the office unless perhaps the office is a 5 minute walk from home At my current job, there's something ironic about that. The people who never come back to the office despite being allowed to are also the people who live the closest to the office. (We have a big office that allows people to come back but is totally optional. Hotel desks for the entire office basicall…

> Hotel desks for the entire office basically. So your office is crappy? Similar story for my office. It's very close, but the facilities people made it terrible to work from. Why go in when I would get half as much work done?

Sorry, I think I used the wrong term. The desks we have are basically not assigned anyone permanently and are available as long as someone else hasn't reserved it for the day. I don't mean literal desks that they have at hotels. The office is rather nice TBH.

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

#690

Post by dadoomer »

A counter-intuitive part of the reluctance of employers to keep work-from-home, is that offices costs them money. So, if efficiency stays the same (which seems to be the case), then they should want to keep work-from-home. So why do they want to go back? Is it all about control?
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