How many SpaceX employees really want to live in downtown LA?
Why would they have to live in downtown LA?
Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away
21–30 of 56 posts
Re: Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away
#22All the more reason to have a union.
These employers are certainly coordinating on wages, RTO policy, etc. They do it via third party compensation research firms. It's suspicious that people downvote your suggestion that workers also coordinate.
Re: Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away
#23I think the outcome of all of this is going to be much more aggressive cost-of-living adjustments. It provides real, non-negligible value to sit in the same room as your coworkers. If companies want to reap that value though, they are going to have to pay for it. I think the days of setting up shop in downtown SF and just expecting talent to show up are over.
> It provides real, non-negligible value to sit in the same room as your coworkers
Please cite a reputable source for this unsubstantiated and unsubstantiatable claim. eg: to me it provides a negative value (commute, noise, lack of my cat). To my employer it also provides negative value: my lower productivity, my much higher chance to GTFO to a more sane workplace.
I can and do communicate with my coworkers over slack and zoom just fine. As my job does not require touching them, no problems are created by this arrangement.
Re: Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away
#24I think the outcome of all of this is going to be much more aggressive cost-of-living adjustments. It provides real, non-negligible value to sit in the same room as your coworkers. If companies want to reap that value though, they are going to have to pay for it. I think the days of setting up shop in downtown SF and just expecting talent to show up are over.
> It provides real, non-negligible value to sit in the same room as your coworkers Please cite a reputable source for this unsubstantiated and unsubstantiatable claim. eg: to me it provides a negative value (commute, noise, lack of my cat). To my employer it also provides negative value: my lower productivity, my much higher chance to GTFO to a more sane workplace. I can and do communicate with my coworkers over slac…
When I interned at MS in 2021, I was forced to be remote. I sat in calls with heavily-accented people with crying babies in the background. It was unbelievably bad. I was catching every third word from my “mentor”.
That’s why I’m not there today. (I turned down a full time offer)
Re: Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It provides real, non-negligible value to sit in the same room as your coworkers Please cite a reputable source for this unsubstantiated and unsubstantiatable claim. eg: to me it provides a negative value (commute, noise, lack of my cat). To my employer it also provides negative value: my lower productivity, my much higher chance to GTFO to a more sane workplace. I can and do communicate with my coworkers over slac…
When I interned at MS in 2021, I was forced to be remote. I sat in calls with heavily-accented people with crying babies in the background. It was unbelievably bad. I was catching every third word from my “mentor”. That’s why I’m not there today. (I turned down a full time offer)
And now, people go back to the office and I hear other people in the background instead of babies because companies have mandatory office days when they have all employees there at the same time. I can tell you, it's easier to phase out baby than other people in the background :)
Re: Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away
#26All the more reason to have a union.
These employers are certainly coordinating on wages, RTO policy, etc. They do it via third party compensation research firms. It's suspicious that people downvote your suggestion that workers also coordinate.
It is suspicious only if you ignore the fact that YC exists to support the interests of capital, not labor.
Re: Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away
#27I think the outcome of all of this is going to be much more aggressive cost-of-living adjustments. It provides real, non-negligible value to sit in the same room as your coworkers. If companies want to reap that value though, they are going to have to pay for it. I think the days of setting up shop in downtown SF and just expecting talent to show up are over.
If you want to have people go to the office you need to pay them for the time to commute to that office. There is negative value to requiring people be in the office, especially given all these companies have opted for open plan BS - every study ever performed has found open and “shared” office plans reduce productivity, reduce collaboration, reduce morale, and increase disease.
The value businesses get from putting employees in the same room is making it harder to go elsewhere (creating a fake “family”), and managers get to feel like they have control and ownership of their plebs.
There are also people who use office life as surrogate social lives, and they seem to be the employees they were most in favour of mandatory RTO - “I can’t deal with not having a forcefully created social environment, so I’m going to demand that everyone come back”
Re: Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It provides real, non-negligible value to sit in the same room as your coworkers Please cite a reputable source for this unsubstantiated and unsubstantiatable claim. eg: to me it provides a negative value (commute, noise, lack of my cat). To my employer it also provides negative value: my lower productivity, my much higher chance to GTFO to a more sane workplace. I can and do communicate with my coworkers over slac…
When I interned at MS in 2021, I was forced to be remote. I sat in calls with heavily-accented people with crying babies in the background. It was unbelievably bad. I was catching every third word from my “mentor”. That’s why I’m not there today. (I turned down a full time offer)
Sounds like you would prefer a in person job.
The question is not “do some people prefer offices”, the problem is “some people prefer offices and then require everyone else to be there to support them as well”
Re: Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away
#29All the more reason to have a union.
These employers are certainly coordinating on wages, RTO policy, etc. They do it via third party compensation research firms. It's suspicious that people downvote your suggestion that workers also coordinate.
I don’t think the anti-union is suspicious: HN has a super libertarian bent and libertarians hate unions because .. reasons?
Re: Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away
#30I'm not aware that Microsoft has a "return-to-office" mandate. Maybe that's only for some employees? I know quite a few people on product teams who are 100% remote.
If we read the article instead of just the headline, we see that it makes clear that Microsoft has a hybrid arrangement, and that said hybrid arrangement has still resulted in a loss of employees. >Microsoft, which also enacted a hybrid RTO approach, saw a decline of 5 percentage points.
“Hybrid RTO” is still RTO.
Requiring people to come to the office 3 days a week for no reason other than executives and managers getting off on control is moronic.
“Hybrid” RTO has literally no benefit over RTO except for being able to say “hybrid”.
It forces all of the same problems as RTO - cost and location of living, planning for not being home, massive commute times, etc