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80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

cnbc.com

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Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#81

Post by kneebonian »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #62
ChuckMcM wrote: post #39

I had lunch, not too long ago, with a senior executive of a silicon valley tech company that was moaning about how much of a pain it was to get people to come into the office and how it felt like things would never return to the way they were. And I told them I actually knew of a way to get 100% of their employees to return to the office happily. When they asked what this magic bullet was I said, "Go back to offices,…

I get to have lunch with my partner every day and see them when I take breaks working from home. That’ll never happen at an office, and it’s more valuable than any comp to me. I would not entertain on site even at 500k/year (legit offer from a high frequency trading firm in downtown Chicago for an infosec cloud/iam engineer role). I can always make more money, and I only need so much to live well, but I have a finite…

Not going to lie spending some "quality time" with my wife during the middle of the work day has been pretty freaking awesome and a very hard perk to cap.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#82

Post by r00fus »

water9 wrote: post #64
atleastoptimal wrote: post #15

I understand the merits of WFH and in-person work. One thing that is however funny is the guilt tripping used by employers who have this straw-man version of a lazy WFH employee, and more so, employers who have a delusion that their workplace is important enough that people need to sacrifice a large portion of their lives just for the opportunity to be there in person. 90% of jobs aren't people's "passions" and have…

Acting like all humans will work equally as hard when they are supervised vs unsupervised is completely naïve

Thing is, I'm just as supervised at work, honestly (which is to say, not at all).

I still have 1:1s with my manager, am still accountable for my targets and organizational goals, and generally do the same thing whether I'm WFH or in office.

Office work has several advantages: 1) I like discussing in person with coworkers - sometimes coming up with fun/interesting ideas 2) office itself is more conducive to a particular type of work 3) I get some isolation from the family

But that commute...

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#83

Post by Waterluvian »

troupe wrote: post #48
atleastoptimal wrote: post #15

I understand the merits of WFH and in-person work. One thing that is however funny is the guilt tripping used by employers who have this straw-man version of a lazy WFH employee, and more so, employers who have a delusion that their workplace is important enough that people need to sacrifice a large portion of their lives just for the opportunity to be there in person. 90% of jobs aren't people's "passions" and have…

I find it funny that when people were required to be home, employers talked about what great productivity they were getting with people at home. Then when it isn't required anymore, they want everyone back in the office for...productivity. My guess is that most employers really have no way to measure if an employee is being productive or not so managers are just reporting what makes them look good...and now we are ba…

Management and entrepreneurism is incredibly cult-like and I find it increasingly difficult to quietly sit through all their ridiculous sermons.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#84

Post by rabuse »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #62
ChuckMcM wrote: post #39

I had lunch, not too long ago, with a senior executive of a silicon valley tech company that was moaning about how much of a pain it was to get people to come into the office and how it felt like things would never return to the way they were. And I told them I actually knew of a way to get 100% of their employees to return to the office happily. When they asked what this magic bullet was I said, "Go back to offices,…

I get to have lunch with my partner every day and see them when I take breaks working from home. That’ll never happen at an office, and it’s more valuable than any comp to me. I would not entertain on site even at 500k/year (legit offer from a high frequency trading firm in downtown Chicago for an infosec cloud/iam engineer role). I can always make more money, and I only need so much to live well, but I have a finite…

I'm the same with this. Both and me my partner work remote, and we spend so much more quality time together, and are able to take breaks with each other. I can't see giving that up.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#85

Post by judge2020 »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #15

I understand the merits of WFH and in-person work. One thing that is however funny is the guilt tripping used by employers who have this straw-man version of a lazy WFH employee, and more so, employers who have a delusion that their workplace is important enough that people need to sacrifice a large portion of their lives just for the opportunity to be there in person. 90% of jobs aren't people's "passions" and have…

> employers who have a delusion that their workplace is important enough that people need to sacrifice a large portion of their lives just for the opportunity to be there in person.

Being in the office only works with others in the office, so it's a balancing act between this (likely minority) group of both people managers and employees that want RTO, and the group that excels when working in their own curated, controlled environment.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#86

Post by rabuse »

phpisthebest wrote: post #61
ChuckMcM wrote: post #39

I had lunch, not too long ago, with a senior executive of a silicon valley tech company that was moaning about how much of a pain it was to get people to come into the office and how it felt like things would never return to the way they were. And I told them I actually knew of a way to get 100% of their employees to return to the office happily. When they asked what this magic bullet was I said, "Go back to offices,…

Yes, if you want to return to office... I better have an office. Not a desk in a "modern open collaboration space" or what every they used to call them

The "everything is loud as fuck and echoes" area is the term. Headphones required all hours.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#87

Post by judge2020 »

throwaway14356 wrote: post #23
karaterobot wrote: post #10

> Some leaders lamented the challenge of measuring the success of in-office policies, while others said it’s been hard to make long-term real estate investments without knowing how employees might feel about being in the office weeks, or even months, from now. In other words, the two most obvious objections to RTO turned out to be correct. That is, that when the leadership says that being in the office is more produc…

if people quit you have the evidence

Most employers instituting hybrid or RTO will have a way to apply for an exception, which is just a filter to keep high value employees (by approving their fully remote requests) while cutting employees without needing to write severance checks - a "soft layoff" if you will.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#88

Post by pushingice »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #39

I had lunch, not too long ago, with a senior executive of a silicon valley tech company that was moaning about how much of a pain it was to get people to come into the office and how it felt like things would never return to the way they were. And I told them I actually knew of a way to get 100% of their employees to return to the office happily. When they asked what this magic bullet was I said, "Go back to offices,…

Well that, and a check sitting on the desk for whatever amount the employee wants to come back to the office.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#89

Post by paulcole »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #39

I had lunch, not too long ago, with a senior executive of a silicon valley tech company that was moaning about how much of a pain it was to get people to come into the office and how it felt like things would never return to the way they were. And I told them I actually knew of a way to get 100% of their employees to return to the office happily. When they asked what this magic bullet was I said, "Go back to offices,…

> And I told them I actually knew of a way to get 100% of their employees to return to the office happily

I guarantee this isn’t true. The remote work lifers would find a reason to think that private on-site offices was bad, too.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#90

Post by rabuse »

ramesh31 wrote: post #8
pg_1234 wrote: post #2

basically because they picked a fight and lost no actual remorse

> basically because they picked a fight and lost Did they lose? Pretty sure the prevailing sentiment among the C-level has effectively become "Get back to your cube and shut up because we said so, or little Timmy won't be getting his braces." here in the US.

In the long term, they will lose out. It's like Tinder vs your local dating pool. Why limit your options to a very small subset of people, when better options are just a tap away (ssh tunnel away)?
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