Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter

engadget.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 632 posts

Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter

#271

Post by nerpderp82 »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #78
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your hybrid is mandatory then you can expect to be back to full time 5 days in a years time approx.

As a manager, these types of comments and sentiments are so incredibly frustrating for me. This is pure supposition based on no evidence. It's entirely a byproduct of a lack of trust in management intentions. Taking my company as an example, while the executive team has been ambiguous, I know that a full return to 5 days of asses in seats is not being contemplated at all , not the least of which because we don't want…

> we're never going to mandate a full return to office, but some folks will simply never believe it.

Unless you are in the c-suite and are also the board, you can't make those promises. Your job is to say these things and gain employee trust, only to have a different set of orders come from on high.

Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter

#272

Post by jasonlotito »

lolsal wrote: post #261
0x500x79 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that a lot of those things can be replaced with new techniques as time goes on. Just because this is how we did things yesterday doesn't mean there aren't better ways to do this it just requires some thinking and investment, IMO. The tooling that has been developed during the pandemic has taken this space forward by leaps and bounds and I expect this to continue. Instead of focusing on the how, I would focus…

> I think that a lot of those things can be replaced with new techniques as time goes on. Just because this is how we did things yesterday doesn't mean there aren't better ways to do this ... This is a totally fair point, but multi-cursor online whiteboards are not the same as standing in front of a whiteboard and brainstorming with a colleague. "Zoom happy hour" or whatever cannot replace spontaneous lunches, after-…

> "Zoom happy hour" or whatever cannot replace spontaneous lunches, after-work drinks, pre-work coffees, etc.

You keep listing the benefits as if they are problems.

Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter

#273

Post by [deleted] »

krschultz wrote: post #159
Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's entirely a byproduct of a lack of trust in management intentions. Absolutely true. Employees do not trust management for good reasons, because they have experience with management not being open and honest with them (speaking generally here, of course there are exceptions). Management's goals are often counter to those of the employees. Whereas workers want good pay, flexibility, work/life balance, and so on.…

Spoken like someone that's never been a manager.

[deleted]

Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter

#274

Post by karaterobot »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #215
karaterobot wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a full return to 5 days of asses in seats is not being contemplated at all, not the least of which because we don't want to lose ~30% of our staff. Then it sounds like they probably do want to a full return to in-office work, but don't think they can get away with it. If the argument from your leadership doesn't begin with "according to these very clear numbers, our profitability as a business has suffered due to r…

> Then it sounds like they probably do want to a full return to in-office work, but don't think they can get away with it. I said " not the least of which because ". I didn't say that was the only reason. This is precisely the kind of cynical reading-between-the-lines that I'm talking about.

> I didn't say that was the only reason.

But, it was the only reason you gave.

Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter

#275

Post by no_wizard »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #78
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your hybrid is mandatory then you can expect to be back to full time 5 days in a years time approx.

As a manager, these types of comments and sentiments are so incredibly frustrating for me. This is pure supposition based on no evidence. It's entirely a byproduct of a lack of trust in management intentions. Taking my company as an example, while the executive team has been ambiguous, I know that a full return to 5 days of asses in seats is not being contemplated at all , not the least of which because we don't want…

Its the kind of thing that needs to be codified in the handbook and come from the top. I know middle managers that make these kind of decisions right now at their companies and feel the same way, but the calculus that gets missed is that until its codified in the manual, the HR processes, and is said from the executive c-suite level, it will always appear suspicious, because the course would be easy to reverse on everyone if we take it as a pinkie promise or handshake agreement.

Same reason I don't like "well let teams decide". It doesn't force the business processes to update themselves to the divergent realities, it pushes all of the burden onto teams and individuals instead, which is not good in aggregate for these sorts of things.

Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter

#276

Post by vmception »

jdlshore wrote: post #126
vmception wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Rather than sneering over your superiority, perhaps you could say something about a more sophisticated model.

no. another 100 years of the people having no effect on anything, their behaviors swayed by the macroeconomic predilections of a few people educated in this niche for fun and profit. Fun series arc.

Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter

#278

Post by jedberg »

lolsal wrote: post #213

Can anyone honestly and sincerely tell me that online whiteboards are exactly equivalent to in-person whiteboard sessions? There is no value in having lunches together with your colleagues? There is no value in body-language when communicating? I'm all for fully WFH policies, but I think it's a bit naive or dishonest to say that it's exactly the same work experience. I've been working remote for over a decade and wil…

Have you ever done a white boarding session where more than one person was writing on the board at a time?

The online whiteboard works great when one person is adding to it and it's easier to read (you don't have to deal with people's terrible handwriting) and you can save it.

In most cases I've found that only one person is usually writing on the whiteboard, everyone else is just pointing at it and making suggestions. So the one person with an iPad that is sharing it's screen is usually more than sufficient for online white boarding.

The rest of it you're right, seeing body language is helpful, getting a chance to hang out socially is helpful. But not helpful enough to outweigh working from home given that I already have a social circle.

If work were my social circle, like it was when I was younger, it would be a whole different story.

Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter

#279

Post by BaseballPhysics »

nerpderp82 wrote: post #271
BaseballPhysics wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a manager, these types of comments and sentiments are so incredibly frustrating for me. This is pure supposition based on no evidence. It's entirely a byproduct of a lack of trust in management intentions. Taking my company as an example, while the executive team has been ambiguous, I know that a full return to 5 days of asses in seats is not being contemplated at all , not the least of which because we don't want…

> we're never going to mandate a full return to office, but some folks will simply never believe it. Unless you are in the c-suite and are also the board, you can't make those promises. Your job is to say these things and gain employee trust, only to have a different set of orders come from on high.

In which case I quit along with the rest of my staff and find another job.

If my management expects me to renege on a commitment that they've told me I can make, then I can't trust management any more than my staff can, and I will no longer be willing to work for that company.

Honestly, it's like folks around here don't grok that a) employees are actually empowered, and b) management knows that.

Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter

#280

Post by onesafari »

lolsal wrote: post #213

Can anyone honestly and sincerely tell me that online whiteboards are exactly equivalent to in-person whiteboard sessions? There is no value in having lunches together with your colleagues? There is no value in body-language when communicating? I'm all for fully WFH policies, but I think it's a bit naive or dishonest to say that it's exactly the same work experience. I've been working remote for over a decade and wil…

This is a rift between digital only natives and digital hybrids. The hybrids know the tradeoffs of both. Digital only don't have the lived experience to know what they're missing.
Post reply on HN