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Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay

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Re: Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of larger companies already have distributed teams though, so even if you are in an office you often can't get everyone into the same room, and you have to do a video call no matter what.

Yes, we're distributed with 5 locations across town. I had to go to a one hour meeting across town once which chewed up 3 hours of my day after driving and parking and whatnot was factored in. Videoconferencing makes 100% sense for our organisation.

Yeah, that doesn't sound fun. But to some people, that 3-hour trip may be a relief from a home environment they don't enjoy or frankly just grateful to see colleagues in person. I imagine individuals respond to it differently and at different times of their lives and different job roles. If I'm coding, yeah, I'd probably rather work remote. If 90% of my time is having one-on-one meetings with people, I'd probably prefer to do most of those in person, maybe some walk-and-talks.

But again, this all depends on a lot of variables. I think in the past, few people knew what remote work was and now that many of us have tasted it, there are lots of pros/cons to any remote/hybrid/office choice.

Re: Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really want this to change, have kids. Note: this is bad advice.

Can you tell me more about how it changes? (either your perception or anecdote)

The kids become a lot more important than work, firstly. Secondly you need to collect them, feed them and generally care for them so that tends to put a hard stop and start on your workday. Just my experience, obviously.

Re: Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay

#213

Hybrid work is the worst of both worlds. Can't move out of a HCOL and now you have to co-ordinate with your co-workers to reap any "benefits" of being in-office. What would be really cool is reconceptualizing hybrid work as quarterly retreats, where the company provides housing and other amenities for 1 to 2 weeks every quarter. This gives everyone time to bond and work on harder problems. I get this wouldn't work as…

I agree about the issue with not being able to move, but i'd hardly call some of the many benefits "worst of both worlds". Avoiding the traffic, avoiding crowded offices, avoiding distractions, gaining life time back (no commute), etc - if you like it and have a proper space for it i'd still say it's a net benefit to hybrid WFM. I'm fully remote atm, but i've also done hybrid. WFM was always a benefit to me personall…

hybrid means, in random order:

- two desk, both underutilized, often equipped with laptops and eventual docking station to economize money, witch means also moving equipment and having less than optimal horsepower or less mobile friendly stuff;

- living in cities or nearby or accepting regular long commute to reach the office, a significant geographical limitation for what?

- works in the office as you work at home, because part of the team is remote, so to avoid cut them out you need to work as if you where at home, and no, wasting money and create infosec nightmares with Meeting Owls and alike does not help.

Long story short I fail to see any benefit in hybrid work for the workers and for the company, I see some "benefit" for some actors, who have many other business in cities/around the city model, but they are outside both a company on it's own and workers interests. Working in the office might offer advantages in certain scenarios, like introducing a new member in a team, where the new can observe the others and learn quicker from this, have an easy mentorship etc. But this is sub-par with hybrid work, and similarly hybrid works means you are still geographically bound much, so well define this model the worst of both world is true for me.

Beside that fully remote means, on company side:

- no offices, they only need to take care about work organization (not harder per se than in the office, but being for many a relatively new thing potentially a bit more challenging, especially for those not accustomed) and arrangement for the home office setup, witch might be a little challenging for NON-IT workers WFH, since operation can count on them nor count on a direct LAN access as needed;

- no offices ancillaries like cleaning services, fire safety, ...

- able to hire workers if not from the entire world (challenging for fiscal reasons) at least from a whole country instead of a small area of a whole country, also being protected by "future developments" of such small area;

on worker side:

- being not geographically bound, so being able to live in nice places, potentially in far better accommodations at a far lower costs;

- having more comfortable work environment and no commuting

- having more competitors, but also more offers, and an easier change for a company to another since the office, the commuting etc does not change.

On the social side:

- WFH means a spread population for those who work from home, witch are a significant slice of the total population, meaning a more spread economy, less big business for big players, more small and medium business for SME

For the negative I've seen so far:

- for companies having workers less keen to accept doing more than they are paid for, just because keeping the job is much more important than monthly payments alone, because hunting for another job means potential need to relocate, family issue since a partner can't relocate so easily and so on

- for workers, specularly, companies can fire easily since new workers need to be trained, but the market is at least a whole nation, and the chance to find skilled workers who do not need much training and are very effective it's high, there are as well less social links in the team who can obstacle firing someone

I fail to see disadvantages for the society except maybe if not enough people can be disciplined enough for WFH, having social issues of a significant slice of WFH population that do not works well simply because they are not interested nor disciplined enough for this model coupled with a slice of population who are still not accustomed to deal with remote workers, like people who feel the need to go to an office instead of call someone on one side, coupled with someone on the other side that do not answer because he/she like async work even if hes/shes works can't be done asynchronously (yes, remote work is not only for devs, it's also from various kind of office works who have no asynchronicity).

Re: Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which means you need office space for 100% of the people, but that's only used 40% of the time. You can get a little clever with GTM coming in on different days than Eng but it's tradeoffs all the way down. (In a value-neutral way)

Well yes, hybrid working isn't generally a way to save office space. It's a way to help workers be more productive and also to give them time to deal with their non-work responsibilities.

witch actually is untenable: the whole history of human social evolution is toward a more efficient use of resources, not "need more stuff to do things more comfy".

WHF means better home usage, since you both rest, eat, etc and work in the same building, while the company needs no buildings, meaning a far simplified real estate:

- homes

- factories

- special buildings (hospitals, army, politics etc)

- sheds

Instead of the various forms of multi-storey buildings, high-rise, towers and so on alongside their incapacity to evolve, very high construction and operational costs etc just to pack more humans in a tight space.

Similarly for workers being at home means better time usage, no need for commuting, ability to do something at home while working, like run the washing machine, pre-loaded, when the Sun start to allow p.v. self-consumption and so on.

WFH means far better usage of time, space, tools. Witch is a natural evolutionary move.

Re: Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay

#215

Hybrid work is the worst of both worlds. Can't move out of a HCOL and now you have to co-ordinate with your co-workers to reap any "benefits" of being in-office. What would be really cool is reconceptualizing hybrid work as quarterly retreats, where the company provides housing and other amenities for 1 to 2 weeks every quarter. This gives everyone time to bond and work on harder problems. I get this wouldn't work as…

Not for me. I love working 2 days in the office and 3 days at home. But mainly for the social aspects. I am more productive WFH.

Re: Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay

#217

Where I currently work we have only office work. I wouldnt mind it if it wasn’t for my manager who loves the sound of his own voice and who doesn’t give us peace to finish the damn work, always interrupting... In my current situation hybrid would literally enable me to work.

Vote with your feet. Find a job that is WFH flexible.

Re: Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay

#218
“Research has echoed that nearly half of companies with return-to-office mandates witnessed a higher level of employee attrition than they had anticipated, and 29% of companies enforcing office returns are struggling with recruitment.”

Excellent! Vote with your feet people. That’s the only thing CEO’s will respect. I will only send my CV to a non-WFH company if there is literally no other choice available to me.

Re: Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay

#219
I think that there's value in in-office work, if you can build up the proper work culture. Sadly, it seems like that culture has been lost, and it's going to be a long time before people rediscover it. (Hint: it's not about the boss looking over your shoulder every 5 minutes, it's about the conversations that happen only at the air hockey table over a pint of beer.)

Re: Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay

#220
post #64

I question the competency of any CEO that enforces people return to the office on a whim. We have crossed the rubicon on remote work. The shift has been well and truly paradigmed. To choose to restrict your candidate pool to a small geographical location, pay relocation, pay higher salaries, have a lower employee NPS, have higher company carbon emissions, whilst your competitors have a much larger non-geographically…

I'm rather amazed at the short-sightedness of the highly paid engineers here who don't see the dangers of full remote actually being adopted. If a company is no longer limited to just hiring people physically nearby, then you're competing for jobs against a whole lot of people who'd accept much lower salaries.

It's almost inconceivable to me that companies would go fully remote and not over time adjust salary downwards to something more like the median demands of the available labor force (i.e., those whose workday fits within a 8:00-6:00 window.

I live in the Bay Area, but if I moved back to the low cost of living area I'm from with low income taxes, I'd come out ahead even with 30% pay cut. I like living in a HCOL area, so I'm not happy about fully remote work.

The most I can hope for is that the wage drop doesn't too far outpace the concomitant drop in the cost of living in these expensive areas.

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