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Amazon is blocking promotions of employees who don't comply with RTO policy

businessinsider.com

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Re: Amazon is blocking promotions of employees who don't comply with RTO policy

#41

Post by deadeye »

QwertyPi wrote: post #14
CSMastermind wrote: post #6

At the end of the day the counter to this is starting and building companies with remote work forces. If remote work truly is equal to or superior to in office work then you should be able to out compete in the long term using this competitive advantage.

> If remote work truly is equal to or superior to in office work then you should be able to out compete in the long term using this competitive advantage. Or they'll just buy you out. Competitive advantage doesn't work too well when your competitors have large moats of cash that you don't have access to. Honestly, people just need to organize unions. That's the only effective counter to policy like this.

Unions are for people who can't compete on skill (or no longer wish to).

I'm not saying they are a bad thing necessarily, but they don't make sense in competitive markets.

Re: Amazon is blocking promotions of employees who don't comply with RTO policy

#42

Post by RandallBrown »

hamandcheese wrote: post #15
darth_avocado wrote: post #5

Amazon is infamous for treating employees poorly. The label “PIP factory” started with Amazon. Yet, thousands of people flock to them for jobs. You can’t really blame Amazon at this point, they’ll use all the leverage they have because they know they can.

At least in my circles, I only know people who have left Amazon. I've never met someone who went to Amazon mid career.

I've met a few, but it's certainly less common.

Re: Amazon is blocking promotions of employees who don't comply with RTO policy

#43

Post by [deleted] »

zactato wrote: post #21

I know that the common perspective on HN is that remote work is good. Certainly, as a senior engineer and parent I appreciate the flexibility that remote work provides. However I think there’s a huge problem that’s silently growing. New engineers are falling behind. We’re growing a generation that isn’t developing some critical social skills. They’re not learning how to effectively learn from their peers. Maybe this…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon is blocking promotions of employees who don't comply with RTO policy

#44

Post by the_svd_doctor »

fishtoaster wrote: post #28
QwertyPi wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If remote work truly is equal to or superior to in office work then you should be able to out compete in the long term using this competitive advantage. Or they'll just buy you out. Competitive advantage doesn't work too well when your competitors have large moats of cash that you don't have access to. Honestly, people just need to organize unions. That's the only effective counter to policy like this.

You say "buy out" like it's a bad thing. Presumably that's a huge win for you if you started (or have equity in) the company - and if not, you can just... not accept the buyout offer?

Yes but the idea is that competition should help the economy in surfacing "good ideas". If competition leads to acquisition all the time, then really there isn't much benefit to the overall economy.

Re: Amazon is blocking promotions of employees who don't comply with RTO policy

#45

Post by bugglebeetle »

deadeye wrote: post #41
QwertyPi wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If remote work truly is equal to or superior to in office work then you should be able to out compete in the long term using this competitive advantage. Or they'll just buy you out. Competitive advantage doesn't work too well when your competitors have large moats of cash that you don't have access to. Honestly, people just need to organize unions. That's the only effective counter to policy like this.

Unions are for people who can't compete on skill (or no longer wish to). I'm not saying they are a bad thing necessarily, but they don't make sense in competitive markets.

Yeah, that’s why NBA players have them. Because they can’t compete on skill.

Re: Amazon is blocking promotions of employees who don't comply with RTO policy

#47

Post by rewmie »

CSMastermind wrote: post #6

At the end of the day the counter to this is starting and building companies with remote work forces. If remote work truly is equal to or superior to in office work then you should be able to out compete in the long term using this competitive advantage.

> If remote work truly is equal to or superior to in office work then you should be able to out compete in the long term using this competitive advantage.

This is a stupid take, and one that is based on a simplistic idea that the success or failure of a business are determined solely on whether random workers working on random projects for random industries with random business models will work from home or from a random office in a random city. Truly stupid. It sounds like a desperate attempt to extend "might makes right" towards employee relations.

Re: Amazon is blocking promotions of employees who don't comply with RTO policy

#48

Post by [deleted] »

zactato wrote: post #21

I know that the common perspective on HN is that remote work is good. Certainly, as a senior engineer and parent I appreciate the flexibility that remote work provides. However I think there’s a huge problem that’s silently growing. New engineers are falling behind. We’re growing a generation that isn’t developing some critical social skills. They’re not learning how to effectively learn from their peers. Maybe this…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon is blocking promotions of employees who don't comply with RTO policy

#49

Post by crowcroft »

CSMastermind wrote: post #6

At the end of the day the counter to this is starting and building companies with remote work forces. If remote work truly is equal to or superior to in office work then you should be able to out compete in the long term using this competitive advantage.

I think about this quite a bit. If the WFH evangelists are right in saying that it is absolutely better to enable WFH then surely we will see those companies pull away from their peer group at some point.

My sense is that companies are highly complex and there are too many factors to weigh to say that WFH is 'better'. It's a bit of a truism, but a 'well run' company is going to perform better than a 'not well run' company, regardless of whether it's in-office, remote, or hybrid.

Being clear that the company is going to prioritize in-office and build the way they operate around that seems like a good signal that the company is 'well run'. Especially when the alternative I see are companies that hop around various 'hybrid' work policies that make no one happy, or worse yet avoid making any proper policy because they don't want to make a hard decision.

Re: Amazon is blocking promotions of employees who don't comply with RTO policy

#50

Post by singleshot_ »

zactato wrote: post #21

I know that the common perspective on HN is that remote work is good. Certainly, as a senior engineer and parent I appreciate the flexibility that remote work provides. However I think there’s a huge problem that’s silently growing. New engineers are falling behind. We’re growing a generation that isn’t developing some critical social skills. They’re not learning how to effectively learn from their peers. Maybe this…

This is a phenomenal outcome for existing, entrenched technology workers.
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