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Why is every layoff 10-15%?

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Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#131

Post by justahuman74 »

jjav wrote: post #106
jmt_ wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to be able to choose which I want on a day-by-day basis. Some days I am much more productive in the office because I need to, say, communicate with a bunch of people or there's some sort of back and forth that needs to occur. Or I just need to get out of the house for a bit. Other days, I just want to stay home and spend the time focusing on something in particular without being bothered. But I need both…

> Some days I am much more productive in the office because I need to, say, communicate with a bunch of people But on that day all of those people might've chosen to work from home so you sit all alone in the office. The hybrid solution only really works well if the office days are the same for everyone.

Forced-hybrid is just using a sledgehammer on the calendar rather than providing the flexibility that is actually liked by optional-attendance-office.

If the staff actually find this face-to-face time valuable, they'll organize and go into the office themselves, personally I've had zero requests from anyone to do that outside of explicit team-building activities.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#132

Post by nickstinemates »

calineczka wrote: post #119
nickstinemates wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For our ~200 person company, remote has been more expensive than an office in the financial district, sf, fwiw. Cost of travel for team get togethers/offsites for a distributed team is expensive.

Is it more expensive than keeping an office for entire year, though?

Yes

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#133

Post by [deleted] »

irrational wrote: post #123
spamizbad wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CEOs are also going to face significant budget scrutiny and will have to really justify signing a 10 year lease (which won't be cheap) instead of investing in things that are proven to drive growth. Class A office space outside of super expensive cities runs about $35/sqft on average. Employees need about 175 square feet each. So every employee is $6125 more expensive -- but that's only assuming you're renting somepl…

I’d really like to know what the numbers are for the company I work for. Even if they rent a building in a business park (because there is not enough room on campus for a group), they will completely revamp the building from top to bottom and make it completely bespoke. The last time I worked in one of these buildings, they brought in artists who spent a week stenciling words and artwork over a concrete wall. How muc…

[deleted]

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#134

Post by robin_reala »

irrational wrote: post #125
Clent wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many or a few? Most software engineers find themselves most effective in work from home. This breaks in favor at 3:4 or higher. The software engineers that want to work in office are the odd-balls. I am interested in the break down when one factors in whatever concept of '10x developers' -- which do the most productive of us prefer?

I haven’t met any SWE that want to go back to the office. Heck, even my managers manager has said she never wants to go back, and she is a complete extrovert. These developers online that claim they want to go back must be as rare as hen’s teeth.

About 30-40% of my engineering team prefer spending 2-3 days a week in the office, if we’re doing anecdata.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#135

Post by justahuman74 »

Schnitz wrote: post #36
chrisbolt wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Won't many small and mid-size companies have come up under covid and not have an office lease in the liabilities column? Were they started during Covid? Office leases are typically at least 5 years, so most existing companies will still have them, hence return. Edit: removed assertion assertion

There’s a lot of 50-100 person offices used by 5-10 people a day right now because the friendly nudges and incentives to bring people back to the office are falling flat.

If there's only 5-10 people a day, they should be getting nice offices rather than the typical open plan. That might actually entice others to come in.

In lots of tv shows the high-social-value characters have very nice offices (ie, it has a door and a couch). I'd go in-person for one of those.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#136

Post by nostrademons »

robin_reala wrote: post #134
irrational wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t met any SWE that want to go back to the office. Heck, even my managers manager has said she never wants to go back, and she is a complete extrovert. These developers online that claim they want to go back must be as rare as hen’s teeth.

About 30-40% of my engineering team prefer spending 2-3 days a week in the office, if we’re doing anecdata.

My team seems to have roughly 40% prefer full-remote, 40% prefer hybrid, 20% prefer full office.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#137

Post by justahuman74 »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #92
mjevans wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Success might be difficult to define. If this produces the results that are desired by Elon and the investors then it's probably a success from their perspective. I worry if that's the case, it'll be like all the buy out, chop up, and liquidate value takeovers they made movies about.

Elon Musk took on significant debt (i.e. interest payments) when he acquired Twitter, and Twitter was already losing money when he did. It will take significantly more than just liquidating Twitter's assets for him to succeed, he essentially needs to turn Twitter into successful company.

The debts are a choice though, he could just sell other assets if he didn't want that.

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#138

Post by bitcharmer »

blowski wrote: post #127
spamizbad wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CEOs are also going to face significant budget scrutiny and will have to really justify signing a 10 year lease (which won't be cheap) instead of investing in things that are proven to drive growth. Class A office space outside of super expensive cities runs about $35/sqft on average. Employees need about 175 square feet each. So every employee is $6125 more expensive -- but that's only assuming you're renting somepl…

Your figures sound about right, based on my experience. In London, the cost per employee I’ve used is £15k pa. That includes office space and maintenance, taxes, plus IT costs, entertainment, HR, etc. The cost for fully remote employees is £9k pa. That is, the cost of the office is £6K per employee. There are additional costs for remote employees, like remote support. But these balance against not having to buy offic…

> The cost for fully remote employees is £9k pa

I'm really surprised by such high figure. How was this clalculated?

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#139

Post by blowski »

bitcharmer wrote: post #138
blowski wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your figures sound about right, based on my experience. In London, the cost per employee I’ve used is £15k pa. That includes office space and maintenance, taxes, plus IT costs, entertainment, HR, etc. The cost for fully remote employees is £9k pa. That is, the cost of the office is £6K per employee. There are additional costs for remote employees, like remote support. But these balance against not having to buy offic…

> The cost for fully remote employees is £9k pa I'm really surprised by such high figure. How was this clalculated?

I didn't personally calculate it, or see exactly how they came to it. But I know it included things that all employees need, whether remote or not, plus a few things specifically needed by remote employees. For example:

* Laptop

* Accounts like email, Slack

* Entertainment (e.g. Christmas party)

* HR (this covered specific HR services like payroll, not the whole thing)

* IT support

* Travel expenses

* Home working budget

* Training

Re: Why is every layoff 10-15%?

#140

Post by eru »

Spivak wrote: post #57
UncleOxidant wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He seems to be writing for CEOs. Reading further he seems to figure that CEOs will be able to reassert control of employees by forcing them back to the office since employees are not going to be able to easily jump ship for another job. As CEO now is your opportunity to rethink remote work. You may decide you want to continue as is, or you may want to make changes. You have an opportunity to act. Not that returning t…

We're just gonna gloss over, "quick your employees don't have leverage, make changes they won't like" like that isn't indicative of a capitalist hellscape? If shit like this doesn't radicalize you into democracy in the workplace then we're fucked. Especially since right now that lack of leverage was literally manufactured on purpose by the fed.

Different employers offer different compensation packages. That package includes salary, but it also includes things like the extent of 'democracy in the workplace'.

To a certain extent, as an employee I'm happy to trade off some 'democracy' for more money in that package.

As an employer, I would be happy to give people more 'democracy' if that's cheaper to provide than more money.

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