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Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

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Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#21

Post by mc32 »

blhack wrote: post #11
bfrog wrote: post #4

And so begins the bay area salary bubble pop

Don't forget about the commercial real estate bubble pop, and potentially a massive pump in prices of family homes as a result. I think that investors are going to be moving their money out of commercial real estate, and into residential. Edit: to be clear: I don't live in the Bay Area, and I think the housing prices there could go either way: 1) People spend more time in their homes and spend an even larger portion…

Yeah I wonder if this will affect midMarket street development. To the chagrin of pols they might have promise further breaks to attract marquee tenants/HQs to these sorts of areas.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#22

Post by reaperducer »

dudul wrote: post #7
amateurdev wrote: post #2

I have a feeling a lot of companies will follow suit. It saves up huge costs in real-estate by not having to provide seats to people. It also might just open up more companies to hire from any time zone.

These advantages have always existed, and yet most of the FANG have resisted WFH policies until now. Personally, I find it pretty funny how this "work that can only be done well in person, in an office" can suddenly be done remotely no problem when the government mandates that everybody stays home.

Personally, I find it pretty funny how this "work that can only be done well in person, in an office" can suddenly be done remotely no problem when the government mandates that everybody stays home.

This was exactly what happened with my company. When I was hired, three people in the interview process stated explicitly that remote work was not an option, and don't even ask.

Then when the state shut down, suddenly it was perfectly fine for hundreds of people to take their work computers home.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#23

Post by thelean12 »

danso wrote: post #5
znpy wrote: post #3

cool news, but "forever" is a big word, nonetheless

I wonder if it’ll come to have the same meaning as “unlimited vacation”, a vague policy that in practice, is used unofficially in job evaluations to implicitly punish employees who take advantage of the policy.

This has about as much truth to it as people who say "perks are just to make you stay at the office longer!".

i.e. it's typically not a problem and can be very beneficial to the worker.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#24

Post by rattray »

blhack wrote: post #11
bfrog wrote: post #4

And so begins the bay area salary bubble pop

Don't forget about the commercial real estate bubble pop, and potentially a massive pump in prices of family homes as a result. I think that investors are going to be moving their money out of commercial real estate, and into residential. Edit: to be clear: I don't live in the Bay Area, and I think the housing prices there could go either way: 1) People spend more time in their homes and spend an even larger portion…

Interesting - do you predict that bay area residential housing prices will go up?

I would have guessed folks would just start leaving...

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#26

Post by caseyw »

I’ve worked from home for a number of years. It’s all about having a normal schedule. My family knows when I’m in the office, I am at work. There isn’t anyone popping over my shoulder, and general interruptions are almost nil in my case.

I think a lot of people are going to be super surprised what a quiet room and your playlist of choice can do to increase productivity. Just my 2 cents.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#27

Post by dudul »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #12
amateurdev wrote: post #2

I have a feeling a lot of companies will follow suit. It saves up huge costs in real-estate by not having to provide seats to people. It also might just open up more companies to hire from any time zone.

The interesting question is, why now? I mean on the surface sure - because we have a pandemic and state ordered quarantine. But the more interesting question is - why is this finally provoking companies and why do we think they will continue the trend in the future post-quarantine? I've been a remote worker since 2006. It's been obvious to me for a long time that companies could go all remote or some version of remot…

I have the same speculations re: why, so far, they have been so reluctant to do so.

As for why now? I believe it's simply because now that peons have had a taste of WFH and all its benefits (and realized everything you enumerated), it will become one of the most desired "benefit" in a job. It was a massive leap forward from WFH being a "nice to have" to a "must have" to even be considered by a lot of candidates.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#28

Post by BryantD »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #12
amateurdev wrote: post #2

I have a feeling a lot of companies will follow suit. It saves up huge costs in real-estate by not having to provide seats to people. It also might just open up more companies to hire from any time zone.

The interesting question is, why now? I mean on the surface sure - because we have a pandemic and state ordered quarantine. But the more interesting question is - why is this finally provoking companies and why do we think they will continue the trend in the future post-quarantine? I've been a remote worker since 2006. It's been obvious to me for a long time that companies could go all remote or some version of remot…

I don't think all of them will -- it's probably significant that Twitter was already thinking about this. However, I know my CEO never would have run this experiment without the pandemic. Now, he has data he didn't have before, and he's publicly said that this changed his mind.

The trigger event was the forced experiment. Studies convinced me, but I don't have to take responsibility for the health of a whole company so it's easier for me to advocate for risks. Seeing how your company actually behaves in a 100% WFH world is better evidence than a study.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#30

Post by Ididntdothis »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #19
Ididntdothis wrote: post #9

It would be good if more tech companies embraced this. I bet if they need tools for themselves we’ll see a lot of progress in remote collaboration tools. To make this work I wonder how executives will adapt. In my company the higher you go up the chain, the more they want face to face communication. I guess most top executives are people persons so not seeing things like body language or using body language takes awa…

Collaboration tools are already pretty solid. What else do you really need other than a remote desktop + video conferencing? I think the biggest use case will be helping recreate the virtual water cooler.

I think there is still a lack of things like white boarding tools. I haven’t seen anything that could replace a big whiteboard.

Also webcam images generally look horrible. I am sure something could be done about that.

Better microphones and speakers in laptops would help. Better suppression of background noises like kids would help.

I think there are a lot of little things that could improve tools a lot.

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