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Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away

arstechnica.com

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Re: Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away

#41

Post by wahnfrieden »

dgellow wrote: post #38
wahnfrieden wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just in case people don’t take that claim seriously: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-tech-jo...

This stuff is in plain daylight. It's not hard to see it from inside the companies that people here work at. I think most people just don't connect the dots or something, since execs and HR certainly don't do that for them in how they talk about it and why.

I'm talking about the legal ways it happens, too. It's not only some "isolated cases of bad actors" as some put it.

Re: Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away

#42

Post by wahnfrieden »

olliej wrote: post #29
wahnfrieden wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

libertarians are highly sus

on the face of it, it sounds like a flavor of anarchism, along that spectrum and with some similar appealing points. but then there comes all this state and state police stuff, and endless domination and role based subjugation in a variety of legalized ways that rely on state violence to preserve. I can't understand the coherency so the results are suspicious

(also, unions are not the only way for labor to organize. there are lots of ways to do this.)

Re: Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away

#43

Post by TeaBrain »

olliej wrote: post #40
TeaBrain wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the purpose of a company is to function as a whole, and not to accommodate individual employees, the actual question and issue at hand is whether companies and company teams function better working remotely or working in office. This is also a matter not simply of the state of being in office, but of office work. Coming to the office to only talk to remote employees is not office work, but remote work with more…

Which means you are making the assumption that working in an office is better, so you need to be able to back that up. I could just as easily ask why everyone is having to go to an office to accommodate people who can only work in office environments. Especially given the overwhelming evidence that office environments reduce productivity, morale, and employee health? You're just repeating the "I can't do my job unles…

What I am saying is that going to the office is not up to you nor myself. If a company decides that it is better for the company, then that company may reason that they should mandate in office work, as I mentioned in the first sentence of the previous comment. I've known people, as has almost everyone, that has had this happen at their companies. If a company crosses a threshold of workers doing office work, but still has remote workers, then the company may decide that they want to facilitate full office work for everyone, and may implement measures to incentivize office work, or else punish those who remain remote. This will be simply a business decision, as despite all the talk of it, businesses are not family, and do not care about anyone's feelings.

Many people would counter the suggestion of back to office mandates with the idea that it will work if the people who want to come in can come in and the people who do not want to can stay remote. My previous comment was a response to this idea from a business's perspective, that in office work may not be possible for individuals, unless the rest of their team is also in the building. As I mentioned, it is up to the companies to decide what is best for the business. If they decide return to office is best for business then it will be return to office mandates, otherwise they may allow remote work indefinitely.

This other argument of the only point of people pushing office work due to being a proxy for "social life" as you put it is one of the most common things I hear get thrown around. Again, I'm not sure why you decided to attribute this to me, as I'm not in charge of the mandates and never implied I'm in office. I was just offering up the reasoning on the other side. However, from my perspective, I don't think that upper leadership in any company which is considering a return to office mandate, is going to find this criticism convincing in the least.

Re: Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away

#44

Post by paleotrope »

zem wrote: post #15
legitster wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case it's really hard to pin it on RTO.

going from remote to hybrid is still RTO, just not full RTO

Yeah I mean it doesn't capture the people that moved after wfh was implemented. Hybrid is appealing if your office is 500 miles away.

Claiming it's hybrid is disingenuous imo.

Re: Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away

#45

Post by itake »

benterix wrote: post #11
itake wrote: post #8

But where did they go? Did they start startups? Join another big tech (if so, who competes with Apple for pay)? There aren’t that many opportunities for people these days, especially at the senior level where titles and compensation is still inflated due to 2020-2022 grants.

> There aren’t that many opportunities for people these days, especially at the senior level where titles and compensation is still inflated due to 2020-2022 grants. You are joking, right? Apple, SpaceX and Microsoft are not the only game in town.

What big companies that have equal or better branding are have fully remote jobs for seniors contributors?

I am sure you can name a couple, but I am skeptical that there are that many comparable roles available within those companies at this time.

Re: Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away

#46

Post by hi-v-rocknroll »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #10
itake wrote: post #8

But where did they go? Did they start startups? Join another big tech (if so, who competes with Apple for pay)? There aren’t that many opportunities for people these days, especially at the senior level where titles and compensation is still inflated due to 2020-2022 grants.

They may have retired. Past a certain point you are in it because you love it, and if you no longer love it, there are better things in life than gilding the lily of a nest egg.

A lot of people in my demographic have amassed roughly "fuck most people" money rather than "fuck everyone" money. Beyond a certain point, it's easier to coast on your nest egg and do other things like family, volunteering, or living a slower life rather than relent to reactive, rudderless corporate bullshit like RTO.

Re: Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away

#47

Post by hi-v-rocknroll »

legitster wrote: post #18

I 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.

Not yet. Meta is currently offering hardly any COLA while demanding RTO. Fuck 'em and the horse they rode in on.

Re: Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away

#48

Post by Towaway69 »

hi-v-rocknroll wrote: post #47
legitster wrote: post #18

I 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.

Not yet. Meta is currently offering hardly any COLA while demanding RTO. Fuck 'em and the horse they rode in on.

What’s the horse gotta do with it? /s

Re: Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away

#49

Post by hi-v-rocknroll »

stuff4ben wrote: post #9

All the more reason to have a union.

Qualified yes. Unions are one leg to ensure fair treatment of workers in the long-term, but are ultimately a half-measure to address the perpetual conflict with unreasonable adversaries, e.g., corporate owners. What is needed for knowledge workers like SWEs, SREs, etc. is to band together as worker-owned co-ops to ensure the stability of morale and products/services, vigilant ethics and excellence in products/services, and fairness in profit sharing based on a thoughtful characterization of and measurement of total performance.

It should look something like: hiring should be slow, retention should be longer-than-average, morale should be excellent (inc. devoid of toxic negativity and toxic positivity), and the burden of leadership undertaken by preselection coupled with sortition and a governance body comprised of representative workers.

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