‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect • Hacker News Board

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#101

Post by philote » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

klipklop wrote: post #59

dcolkitt wrote: post #15

I’m honestly perplexed what the FANGs are even thinking in being so aggressive about pushing an end to WFH. Sure it could all work out fine for them. Maybe employees will grumble for a bit, then settle back into office life. But maybe it wont’t . There’s a very real possibility that you lose a non-negligible percent of your staff (disproportionately the most talented who have other options), handicap your ability to…

Nobody wants to give up a something once it becomes a part of their life that they enjoy. The FANG workers got a taste of not having a daily long commute and don't want to give this small life improvement back. Getting back several hours of your life is pretty big. FANG companies however have gotten a taste of nearly unlimited power and have not heard "no" in years. They too don't want to give this up. This is why th…

Before the pandemic FANGs seemed to want everyone in the office as much as possible. That's why they have their own cafeterias/restaurants, daycare, workout rooms, etc. They wanted employees in the office, working a minimum of 40 hours a week. I'm guessing even though remote work is going fine for now, they're concerned they're not going to be able to keep getting over 40 hours of week out of employees. (This is conjecture on my part, I have no idea how many hours FANG employees tend to work).

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#102

Post by jfim » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #29

dcolkitt wrote: post #15

I’m honestly perplexed what the FANGs are even thinking in being so aggressive about pushing an end to WFH. Sure it could all work out fine for them. Maybe employees will grumble for a bit, then settle back into office life. But maybe it wont’t . There’s a very real possibility that you lose a non-negligible percent of your staff (disproportionately the most talented who have other options), handicap your ability to…

I suspect it's individual managers who've never quite got past "if you can't see someone how do you know they're working?" Never underestimate human irrationality in these things.

This varies on the manager. There are managers who do want to see butts in seats, but there are also managers who want to know their directs outside of "what's the status of JIRA ticket X-1234" in a scheduled zoom meeting. Sure, there are 1:1s if the agenda isn't too full, but it still feels kind of contrived as opposed to bumping into someone in the break room and asking them about their weekend, hobbies, or recent projects.

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#103

Post by himinlomax » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

Hypothesis: an underestimated reason why people don't want to go back to the office is not (just) because they like WFH, but because offices suck hard for knowledge workers when they need not. The reason why is based on a major historiological mistake, see the book Deep Work (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25744928-deep-work)

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#104

Post by seanmcdirmid » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

sircastor wrote: post #72

aikinai wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the most blatantly ridiculous straw man, I can’t believe people on HN keep trying to make it especially against FAANG. Do you really think these companies are run by middle managers that just want to watch people work? At least at Google, a huge number of employees already work in a different floor, office, city, or even country than their managers that this couldn’t even be a factor for them.

It’s not hard. It’s not as though Sundar Pichai sends out a survey to all Google employees. He asks the VPs, and the VPs ask their reports and so on and so forth. I have no doubt there’s data from middle management that is getting weighed more than that of the people they manage.

> It’s not as though Sundar Pichai sends out a survey to all Google employees.

They actually send surveys to everyone. They also talk to the VPs, but surveys have weight.

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#105

Post by sn41 » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

seneca wrote: post #14

eric4smith wrote: post #7

I think regardless of the stats, there is a movement of people wanting a better work and life balance. But what will this mean for society? For one, I see in the immediate future a bit of a reduction in commerce for a while. This is simply because people will have less money To spend. Duh. Still… humans always persist and adapt. Therefore in maybe 5 years there will be more of a Renaissance and a big change in how we…

Meta-response, but what is with the carriage return after every sentence, (and sometimes in the middle)? It's a jarring way to write.

Reminded me of good-old Troff pages.

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#106

Post by dalbasal » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 2:43 PM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #15

I’m honestly perplexed what the FANGs are even thinking in being so aggressive about pushing an end to WFH. Sure it could all work out fine for them. Maybe employees will grumble for a bit, then settle back into office life. But maybe it wont’t . There’s a very real possibility that you lose a non-negligible percent of your staff (disproportionately the most talented who have other options), handicap your ability to…

>>It’s pretty clear that it’s not short-term unsustainable

I wouldn't rush to this conclusion. Robustness and sustainability are related, but not equivalent. Being wrong the other way might be higher consequence, in their estimation.

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#107

Post by enoughalready » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC

ziggus wrote: post #38

Fine, you want to WFH? Awesome, expect a pay cut. Part of a modern white-collar salary has some expectations built into it, like the fact that people need to be compensated for the inconveniences of leaving their homes and coming to the office and therefore having to pay for things like childcare, cars, clothing, parking, etc. Don't have those expenses anymore? Then why should I compensate you the same as if you did?…

Salaries aren't based on expenses, but that'd be pretty neat if they were. :D

With that said, I'd gladly make less than those that have to work in the office.

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#108

Post by seneca » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC

himinlomax wrote: post #103

Hypothesis: an underestimated reason why people don't want to go back to the office is not (just) because they like WFH, but because offices suck hard for knowledge workers when they need not. The reason why is based on a major historiological mistake, see the book Deep Work ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25744928-deep-work )

Completely agreed. I like working from home, but more to the point I can't work in an open office plan.

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#109

Post by burlesona » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

As a hiring manager, a lot of candidates I’ve been talking to lately have been telling me they are looking for a new job in part because their company has decided to stay all-remote and they hate it. The first thing they want to know is if we have an office and/or will open one soon.

People just have different preferences.

I think what we’re seeing right now is a significant expansion of remote roles. Previously if you worked remote, chances are it was a lesser job than you could get in the big tech hubs. Now the quality and quantity of remote work jobs has significantly increased.

As a result, there will be a big shuffle as a lot of people who previously would have preferred remote but couldn’t find an actual remote job they wanted soak up the new opportunities.

As for the space they leave behind, there are some people who have been hungry for a taste of Silicon Valley in-office life who will happily take those jobs, as well as TONS of tech workers already settled in the Bay Area but working at smaller companies who might jump at a chance to move into FAANG.

The question is just one of supply, demand, and market-clearing prices.

If FAANG collectively decide they want everyone back in the office and after all the turnover they struggle to replace the people they lost, then they’ll have to raise pay to compensate. But they have plenty of room to raise pay further if needed, so there’s no real reason to think they can’t fill up those roles.

The bigger impact is on startup formation and any other smaller business that doesn’t have the budget room to compete. I think that is increasingly being priced out of the Bay Area, almost exclusively because of housing shortage, which does not bode well for the long-term. But we’ll see.

As to your point on the cultural and institutional knowledge impacts of said turnover… I know it sounds crazy but I don’t think they care. So long as you can survive the turnover, it’s often easier, faster, and less impactful to just “rip off the bandaid.” When you try to drag out a transition you end up with a lot of people unhappy and grumbling internally, but who don’t leave yet. Those people kill morale, and letting them go is often one of the best things that can happen to the team’s productivity. So yeah, it hurts, but if you know that you’re going to lose a survivable percentage of your team due to some policy change, it’s often better to just get it over with quickly than to let it drag out. You see this all the time with companies offering enhanced severance packages, exit bonuses etc. when they need to make a big change.

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#110

Post by phreeza » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

sumtechguy wrote: post #93

phreeza wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a FAANG employee myself, I think your opinion of the average FAANG developer is perhaps a bit too generous.

What many miss is also these large companies are doing something very interesting in the labor market. They are starving the competition. They spend a bit extra on labor but they get a long term benefit of lower number of effective competitors. MS did this for years in the 90s. Apple/Atari/Sony/IBM did it in the 80s. Being in office ('free lunch', perks, etc) is part of that lock in. If people are at home then they a…

I agree with the first part, not so sure about the conclusion though. What makes you think that WFH increases attrition? The FAANGs could easily spend some additional dollars to make "their" WFH more attractive than the competitions, similar to what they did with offices.