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A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

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Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#161

Post by mabbo »

wjamesg wrote: post #64
mabbo wrote: post #26

Simply put, if my employer told me I needed to be in the office more than 5 days per month, I would find a new employer. I'm more productive than ever. I'm happier than ever. I'm eating healthier. I sleep better. My marriage is stronger. My finances are kicking ass. I won't give this up.

You are quite privileged

You're right. I am living an incredibly fortunate, privileged life. That's why we're considering which charities to donate to, which local groups have needs we can help.

When life is good, share it.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#162

Post by ckgjm »

rockinghigh wrote: post #75
kodah wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some people who cannot work from home. These people have been especially vocal. Sometimes they include people who have kids, other times they include people who get their social interaction in at work. I think the office should accommodate them as well as remote workers. The biggest challenge I've faced being on a remote team (read: not necessarily WFH) is that people who are at the primary physical locatio…

The main reason people who have kids cannot easily work from home is because schools are closed and they have to take care of their kids during the day.

That’s why WfH really means Work FOR Home for many. I know of many who really worked 2 shifts, balancing between WforH and WfromH.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#163

Post by ckgjm »

Really good points here. I’m experienced in remote collaboration across global sites and my previous company allow for the occasional WfH. But the covid situation brought about something different.

The boundaries between private and work life became fuzzy and there’s this implicit expectation that one will be available all the time- where can you be apart from home? And that’s not healthy.

It has also been challenging to families with kids as they need to juggle between work For home and work from home. I’ve now seen folks responding to emails and queries as though we work different time zones!

I’m in tech and my team are mostly waiting to get back into office. But I believe that working on prem or wfh should be a choice.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#164

Post by alextheparrot »

dbcurtis wrote: post #125
alextheparrot wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really is the worst of both worlds for the employees. Employees are still bound to a physical location, but you also have to maintain a home office and heterogenous communications stack [0]. Also, coordinating who is in the office when is a nightmare and can often lead to oversubscribed days. The only utility I can see is if you need to run for appointments that are easier to do when working from home, but this…

Meh. I started my current job during pandemic. Some weeks I am in 100%, others zero. I have a desk in the ghost town, but spend a lot of time in the lab for hands-on stuff. I would be perfectly happy with a “desk hotelling” situation on a permanent basis. The plant is someplace I visit when I need to hook up probes.

I don't think hoteling is intrinsically bad, just when it is paired with the sort of space constraints the original poster described. If you only have space for 50% of the staff, it is going to be a bad time whenever an important meeting comes up where more than 50% of the staff want to be in person.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#165

Post by Bakary »

dont__panic wrote: post #159
Bakary wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of these hurdles seem really unimportant compared to the salary savings

Kind of like making products out of crappier constituent parts seems really unimportant compared to the cost savings. Does it make sense on the short term balance sheet? Of course. But, to quote Christmas vacation: "Sometimes things look good on paper, but lose their luster when you see how it affects real folks. I guess a healthy bottom line doesn't mean much if to get it, you have to hurt the ones you depend on. It…

This is assuming that programmers from countries with lower salaries are less competent, which is not always the case. It's harder and harder for workers in the developed world to justify that they are more productive than others. For millions of smart people around the world the hurdle to a better life is just the right visa or residence permit.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#166

Post by nine_k »

ghaff wrote: post #122
alextheparrot wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really is the worst of both worlds for the employees. Employees are still bound to a physical location, but you also have to maintain a home office and heterogenous communications stack [0]. Also, coordinating who is in the office when is a nightmare and can often lead to oversubscribed days. The only utility I can see is if you need to run for appointments that are easier to do when working from home, but this…

I'm not sure it's quite worst of both worlds. One of my company's local offices would be a 90ish minute commute. That's doable for a day a week but not really sustainable a lot more frequently than that. (I used to have another job with a similar commute; it was rough on a regular basis even if I didn't go in many days.) You can definitely increase the radius of where you can live but you're right that you can't go l…

If you travel to a different place once in 1-2 weeks, you have your main location with everything optimized for comfortable work, and your travel setup which allows you to work tolerably when outside. Two 28" displays and an ergonomic keyboard vs a 14" laptop, a rack full of synths and a large keyboard vs a DAW and a tiny keyboard, a full workbench with dozen power tools vs a contractor chest, etc.

When you have to spend an equal amount of time in two workplaces, you have to invest equally in each. Either you (or your company) spend twice as much on a nice setup in two places, or, more probability, you have two half as nice setups in two places.

Also, if your workplace is routinely used by someone else half of the time, you both waste time and energy on putting things right, adjusting screens, chairs, desks, etc. You either learn to do it in a reproducibly perfect way, or make do with what you've managed today.

Some permanence has certain advantages.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#167

Post by cudgy »

aspaceman wrote: post #148
psim1 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by "slyly" you mean without notifying their employers, this could backfire on them in small and big ways. In a small way, it would affect local/state taxes that are withheld. In a big way, employers--whether rightly or wrongly--want to know where the employee lives in order to set a cost-of-living salary. If the employer finds out you're taking a SF salary while living in Bend, there are likely to be consequences.

I think they mean ask for forgiveness instead of permission, as the saying goes.

Sounds like a great employer ... asking permission to move. What’s next? Provide them with spousal income figures so the employer can adjust your pay accordingly?

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#168

Post by cudgy »

formercoder wrote: post #84
ska wrote: post #7

I suspect a lot of the "we're all going to be remote from now on" sentiment is overblown. It seems to me more likely that there will be a few more remote friendly companies, and a very few more remote-only companies after the dust settles, but the real shift will be for most "office based" workers will be the expectation of partially working from home. There is a big difference between "never going to an office again…

My guess is the following will take place: companies will generally be more open to WFH. Those who spend more time in the office will develop stronger networks and relationships, will be able to advocate for themselves more easily, and thus will be more successful. People will snowball back into the office as they see this happening. Keep in mind I’m generalizing, I’m fully aware that you can create a culture that do…

“ Those who spend more time in the office will develop stronger networks and relationships, will be able to advocate for themselves more easily, and thus will be more successful. People will snowball back into the office as they see this happening.”

Completely disagree with this. The future is going towards decentralization of work using tools like virtual reality and other communication mediums that have yet to be created. This area is already hot and huge sums of money are going to be spent to optimize for it.

Workers that rely on the traditional staying in the office to gain relationships and schmooze with the boss will be left behind. Besides, why is it assumed that the bosses will be in the office?

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#169

Post by sedachv »

psim1 wrote: post #138
standardUser wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a group of coworkers who've taken the initiate to slyly relocate during the pandemic, in some cases signing leases and buying houses. I think their idea is to either stay fully remote indefinitely or find a different remote job if the company won't abide. The remote revolution may be overblown in general, but for programmers, the appeal is particularly strong. They've seen the promised land and it turns out it…

If by "slyly" you mean without notifying their employers, this could backfire on them in small and big ways. In a small way, it would affect local/state taxes that are withheld. In a big way, employers--whether rightly or wrongly--want to know where the employee lives in order to set a cost-of-living salary. If the employer finds out you're taking a SF salary while living in Bend, there are likely to be consequences.

> set a cost-of-living salary

This is total nonsense, and you should never put up with this rationalization if HR tries to pull "cost of living" on you. Explain to them that it is called a "labor market" for a reason. Prices in markets are determined by supply and demand; pricing is not driven by cost except as a floor. This is economics 101.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#170

Post by withinboredom »

walshemj wrote: post #87
j0ba wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine. They can just take a salary cut if they need their employer to provide them an officespace.

So workers have to pay for the costs of the office now -did you think that through

That’s a tax write off in the US.
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