To do a plot twist, what other things are there be that would make work more enjoyable, more efficient and cheaper while contributing to private life? No need to check all the boxes.
Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
361–370 of 838 posts
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
Precisely. He couldn't put it into words because the words wouldn't have looked good. But the obvious complaint was what are these slobs doing in my summer resort town, dining in the same establishment as me!! Rather than stuck in downtown Manhattan in the August heat. Or - the least they could do is go to Coney Island / Jones Beach / Jersey Shore or something eating some hotdogs.
I have not run into this attitude in tech from executives. Finance is much more of a heiracy culture I guess. I have run into this at a peer level though. I've negotiated WFH and extra vacation and have learned to keep it in the down low. They get mad at me, but I'm not the one that is their boss and I couldn't care less if they WFH.
Have seen similar. IMHO it falls under the umbrella HR created to keep us from discussing salary, too. A completely legal (US) thing employees can do.
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#363I don’t think people understand how cheap people in Ukraine, Poland and other countries are willing to work if companies go fully remote.
That argument always gets used as a threat which makes no sense. Outsourcing has been a thing for decades. If they were remotely serious they would have done so already and reaped the premiums. They don't so the only response is to put up or shut up, and they sure aren't putting up.
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#364People who like WFH will never want to return to the office unless perhaps the office is a 5 minute walk from home (they may be forced to, but they won't want to). For many people the time and cost savings of avoiding a daily commute cannot be offset by a nicer office. Those who are happy to return to the office in general are those who do not like WFH and prefer more contacts and a change of scenery. A nicer office…
> unless perhaps the office is a 5 minute walk from home WFH for 2012-2023 here. With our first home purchase in 2018 being on the smaller size, and the introduction of our first child to the family in 2021, I started keeping an eye on nearby options. In March of 2023, a perfect little spot opened up that could support me and another employee in the same town. Pitched it to our small company, and now I have a dedicat…
What kind of space did you find and how did you pitch it? The other employee lived in the same town already?
I'd like to do this as well.
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#365I think its fair to say that RTO is not about data, or studies, or about anything really. Leaders across all industries have decided people are coming back. Perhaps there is a secret cabal of commercial office space lenders who are putting pressure as share holders, or some other conspiracy theory. But it's happening - no one can do anything about it (except vote with your feet), and no one is going to get better acc…
My theory is that RTO is a way to reduce headcount without having proper layoffs and severance.
That's a large part of it. It's especially works well to get rid of people who are older and have families, and keep mostly fresh college graduates and singles. And those usually have a lower salaries, we're getting fresh employees who are lower cost, everything looks great on paper.
Except that the first people who would leave might also be the good experienced engineers, but that loss is a little hard to see on paper at first, to predict and so it doesn't get accounted for very well.
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#366After years of thinkpieces about RTO, my take now is "why is this up to employers at all?" Workers should get to pick their environments and their tradeoffs. If I super enjoy a collaborative open office space I should be able to find one. If I super enjoy a 100% remote/asynchronous configuration I should be able to find that too.
So much of this libertarian/right-wing/capitalist junk is ironically top-down and authoritarian. Maybe WFH is bad for innovation, or maybe RTO is bad for focus and thus innovation. Let's let the market sort it out, including the labor market.
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#367Does anyone else just have zero faith in this? If I came in to a gold plated office, our own barista, private rooms and a massage therapist, I'd love it. And I'd expect it all to disappear as soon as corporate got what they wanted...
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
It won't. The push for open-plan spaces was motivated by cost-cutting. Layouts with many closed offices would cost far more to build, and take up more square footage to host the same number of employees. At a time where savvy businesses have dropped their commercial leases / gone full remote, and the more conservative / less accepting of change ones are left holding the bag, I would not expect anyone to make big inve…
To be honest I think with hybrid, open offices make a lot of sense. Realistically you want to be able to hot desk because that's where the cost savings are made in a hybrid situation. You sort of fractional-reserve your office space. Of course it works only so long as nobody calls an in-person all hands. The in-office days are social collaboration days so it doesn't make sense to keep people in separate boxes for the…
No, thanks. If you want happy productive desk workers, give them their own desks, their own shelves, and possibly even their own blackboards.
Even ignoring increased happiness, this enables giving employees their own tools: keyboards, chairs, monitors, workstations, tea, oscilloscopes, papers, etc.
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
>My vaguely populist take is that the pandemic, WFH/remote and hybrid gave the mass white collar class a taste of what the C-suite has had for years.. flexibility. Exactly. I've been working 100% from home since 2017 (3 years before covid). I'd rather take a 50% paycut than go back to the office. Don't get me wrong. I did enjoy my life when I lived 15 min walk /5 min on a bike, from my job in a city. Before I got tha…
" I'd rather take a 50% paycut than go back to the office." People should stop saying this. Otherwise it will soon be the standard to take a serious paycut for WFH. .
Your employer should actually pay you more to WFH.
Aside from saving them rent on the office space, you should be able to expense several office-supply things that they would have provided previously. Office chair and desk, internet bill (pro-rated by usage), maybe printer ink.
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
This example is a stark reminder that the complaints are most often not about details but about class . The CEO was upset others were allowed to perform as if they were of the same class. It’s always class when one boils it down, imho.
Not everything is a class dynamic. “Analyst at GS hanging out in the Hamptons” doesn’t scream working class. The CEO and analyst are both upper class, just different levels of power and seniority. That CEO is just a power-tripping asshole.
Class is in no way related to salary.