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

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

#121

Post by mattw2121 »

Natsu wrote: post #109
troupe wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. In our case, we do have good, long-standing metrics: we measure how happy our customers say they are with our service. Since the whole point is to have happy, repeat customers and they have no reason to lie about being happy, we can trust this. That went up significantly a…

One point to remember is that during the pandemic, customers were much more sympathetic to everyone. The overall quality of customer service has gone done since the pandemic (even in companies that returned to office) and we, the customer, are forgiving of that. Pre-pandemic, we were not nearly as forgiving.

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

#122

Post by ThinkBeat »

Shocking how the CEO of Evoy could come up with that result. (and then getting to present it on global tv)

I believe the company is trying to help companies shrink their physical offices. I am not 100% sure since the website for Envoy seems like satire.

""Envoy Workplace is the only fully integrated workplace solution for all your workplace needs. Join thousands of companies that rely on Envoy to efficiently manage hybrid workplaces, so everyone inside can connect, collaborate, and thrive. In today’s world, it’s almost impossible to optimize space without smart space technology. Reducing your office footprint cuts costs. Smart space solutions help you understand how your space is being used, so you can decide if and where you can cut. """

I am pretty sure if tomorrow they have on a CEO of company making their living off of renting out as much office space as possible he will have a survery with a different result.

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

#123

Post by Libcat99 »

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 have an office with a door at home. Why would I want one I have to drive an hour to?

I go in the office every other week for a day when some other coworkers will be there. It's my least productive day, but it is good for planning with coworkers.

Pay for my commute (on top of salary) and I'll think about it.

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

#124

Post by marcosdumay »

judge2020 wrote: post #87
throwaway14356 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are assuming the employees will just accept their exceptional situation instead of using it to gain some time and jumping ship. You are also assuming the managers know beforehand who are high-value employees.

I doubt either of those are true.

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

#125

Post by imbnwa »

Plasmoid wrote: post #100
r00fus wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 particul…

I think RTO would have been a lot more palatable if most offices weren't intentionally built with 1hr+ commutes from residential areas.

What is the intention?

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

#126

Post by imbnwa »

deprecative wrote: post #95
atleastoptimal wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also naïve to assume that the work people do when supervised is always valuable and not optimizing for the appearance of work, rather than work itself.

It's also naive to assume that optimizing for productivity is some goal we should work toward when zero reward structures are in place for it. The thing to optimize for is just enough productivity.

Particularly when pay increases in this craft are largely found by job hopping until you possibly land a FAANG job or approximate

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

#127

Post by ilaksh »

throwaway72957 wrote: post #98
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…

We have a generous hybrid work policy: you can WFH, but you may be required to attend on-site sessions and meetings, for example if we're doing architecture brainstorms or design reviews. We've not found this to work well over zoom. Overall, this works out to a day or two a month, but most people choose to come in at least 1 day a week for various reasons (mostly social). We casually observed there seemed to be a spl…

You do have cause: decreased productivity.

Make sure you have good ways to measure work product. For example, you can see if people are pushing to git repos.

Set aside a couple of times where people are required to log into chat or voice room every day. Have them type in a report on what they are working on and be available during that narrow window to answer follow up questions.

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

#128

Post by ajkjk »

mkl95 wrote: post #58
troupe wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 back to where managers will look better with lots of people running around the office. My guess is that CEOs and VCs have some obscure reason to force people back into the office. Perhaps related to real estate, especially considering how h…

I doubt that very much. Most likely it's because unlike before, in WFH when nothing is happening it feels like there's nothing they can do about it.

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

#129

Post by [deleted] »

dragonwriter wrote: post #70
mkl95 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 back to where managers will look better with lots of people running around the office. My guess is that CEOs and VCs have some obscure reason to force people back into the office. Perhaps related to real estate, especially considering how h…

Even if your firm isn’t exposed to real estate, its probable that a lot if its shareholders are and are interested in ending the slump in commercial real estate. Plus, while the overall employment situation is strong, the tech downsizing wave may not be over and if you can get people to self-select out, you can maybe avoid having to officially have layoffs.

[deleted]

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

#130

Post by notatoad »

pg_1234 wrote: post #2

basically because they picked a fight and lost no actual remorse

i don't think this is anything other than the intended outcome.

C-Suites knew attrition would be high, and regardless of what the managers who had to implement the policy might have thought companies knew that return to office was just layoffs in disguise.

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