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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

#811

Post by dennis_jeeves1 »

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.

Most were effectively fools to not realize that before Covid. Now when will they start realizing that out of the 5 days that they work in a week they are working without compensation anywhere from 2 to 4 days effectively for the Govt/corporate/overlords because of taxation at various levels. ( taxesincome/property/sales, inflation etc.)

To summarize the meta problem is the minions, not the corporations. In this day of automation most people should be having a lot of free time and relatively little work, but here were are in the year 2023 working and commuting our asses off.

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

#812

Post by skissane »

HelloNurse wrote: post #791
skissane wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who is more upper class, a relatively impoverished Prince of the Holy Roman Empire or a billionaire by marriage and luck? I think Western society has been undergoing a transition between two different class systems. (Marxists would surely connect this with the economic transitions from feudalism to mercantilism to early capitalism to late capitalism.) In the mediaeval class system, class was determined by social st…

I was just picking two specific old men that you don't know but probably knew each other, one already dead, as an extreme example of old money (and aversion to work) vs. new money (and excessive ambition). My point is that different people look up (or down) to different people by different criteria: "net worth" interests competitive capitalist adventurers, "who your parents were or where you come from" remains a high…

> My point is that different people look up (or down) to different people by different criteria: "net worth" interests competitive capitalist adventurers, "who your parents were or where you come from" remains a high priority when someone is wealthy enough for their lifestyle.

I certainly find it plausible that if A and B are of roughly similar wealth, but A was born into wealth whereas B lucked/worked/married into it, A might see that as a reason to look down on B.

However, I suspect if A was born into $100 million and B lucked/worked/etc into $100 billion, then all else being equal, I doubt A would look down on B in the same way. I expect they'd more likely view B with envy, as a potential business opportunity for themselves, as a friendship which might give them access to things they themselves can't afford, than as a social inferior. When the gap in wealth becomes big enough, it tends to drown out all the other factors.

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

#813

Post by theGnuMe »

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…

This is true until the recession which will force people back... and it will suck.

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

#814

Post by Aeolun »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #684
Aeolun wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sp…

> that's a tiny bit more space for the guy who actually needs to go somewhere and work in person

For a little while. Until the bus company decides not enough people are riding anf the 1/15 minutes bus becomes the 1/hour bus :/

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

#815

Post by hnfong »

giantrobot wrote: post #638
IKantRead wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect many people on HN have never had a proper office with a door. While I do agree with your overall premise, having had offices at multiple roles over my career, it is a major improvement over cubicles and open office. Having a space to work in complete, uninterrupted quiet is wonderful. The simple social signal of the door being opened or close implying availability to chat works great to balancing heads down…

> I suspect many people on HN have never had a proper office with a door. In my time at Apple I had a real office with a real door for about half of my time. Of that only about half was an office I didn't have to share with someone else. The lone offices were the most productive I ever was while working there. I could close the door and go unbothered for hours. I turned off the lights and had my own lamp that was muc…

Your experience resonates with me, but just to play devil's advocate, wouldn't a good noise cancelling headphone fix most of the problems?

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

#816

Post by hnfong »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #125
Veliladon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The middle manager who is awful at their job and so insecure they need to "see employees working" is costing the business What makes you think upper management in public companies isn't mos interested in self-preservation also? The idea that upper management is some benevolent and wise dictator while middle management is a different class of incompetent morons is strange. They're cut from the same cloth.

There's often an alignment problem where upper management often has some stake/ownership in the business being successful, where the lower/middle managers might see their work as just a salaried job, and hence not as driven to work for the success of the company, and might optimize for things like their own ego when it costs the company money.

There's only so much upper management can do to set incentives (Goodhart's law) without micromanaging the middle managers.

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

#817

Post by hqsolomo »

I don't want an office. I don't even want to go outside.

More pay would absolutely bring me into the office though- especially if it means I can afford the wear and tear on my car plus the 20 hours of my life drained being stuck in traffic each month.

But at the same time, I'd much rather be given the freedom to prioritize life over working... So I'd consider coming in every business day if I could make full-time rates at part-time hours. Just cut my salary and working hours in half and let me do my thing!

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

#818

Post by midoridensha »

lampshades wrote: post #352
CoastalCoder wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean this as cras, but even better is "lunch" with the wife. I.e., when the two of you are finally home alone and awake, because school is in session. I suspect for some marriages, WFH has been a real blessing.

And for other marriages, WFH has been a disaster. I know so many people who have ended up divorced after they were both WFH everyday.

Things like this make me thing the idea of basing society on monogamous marriage is unrealistic and doomed to failure. It only worked in the past when work prevented couples from spending much time together, and social pressures prevented them from separating.

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

#819

Post by ElFitz »

rayiner wrote: post #787
ElFitz wrote: post #782

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A farmer’s dog may be eating the scraps, but has a fundamentally different role in the farm as an enterprise than the animals the dog is herding. And yet they are both animals, often get treated as less than most people, the shepherd dog only gets the proverbial scraps. Precisely the analogy’s entire point. I’m Glad I didn’t have to spell it out. > A definition that excludes CEOs from the upper class isn’t a very w…

> And yet they are both animals, often get treated as less than most people, the shepherd dog only gets the proverbial scraps. Yes, but focusing on those factors gives you an incomplete understanding of the dog’s place on the farm. At the end of the, day the dog is helping the farmer extract value from the sheep. Indeed, the dog’s very specialized skills wouldn’t have much value outside the context of the farming ent…

I’m not hung up on equality. I’m hung up on the huge gap between some and the rest of the world.

Which, to me, reflects a huge gap in power and freedom.

One decides what the other does. One can decide how much the other will earn. One can decide wether or not the other will still have a job tomorrow. The other needs a job if they want to have a roof over their head and food on the table in six months.

Which is why I still don’t find your definition satisfactory. Sure alignment of interests matters, but to me it’s not enough.

It’s been an insightful discussion, and I’ve truly enjoyed it, but I’m afraid we won’t be able to reach a conclusion we can both agree on.

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

#820

Post by mrbgty »

Zetice wrote: post #240
mrbgty wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will the company stay in business without workers? They'll have no choice...

An understaffed company will last infinitely longer than an individual without a job.

That's a wild generalization
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