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Why do so many people want us back in the office?

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Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#451

Post by visarga »

01100011 wrote: post #231
maneesh wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> if your job can be done from home, it can be done from anywhere in the world > I will call anyone's bluff who says this. Do it. Good luck. If you haven't successfully done this already, there is a reason and you know it. Welp, I'm the CEO of a smart wearable device company ( https://pavlok.com ). We were based in Boston because everyone told me, and I believed you HAD to be in one place to build a startup, and DEF…

Sorry I was unclear. What I was trying to say is that if you haven't offshored your team already(i.e. moved part of your engineering operations to E. Europe, Asia, etc.), then you have a good reason for doing so. Offshoring engineering has been going on for decades at this point. Anyone threatening that working from home means your job is a target for offshoring(to someone else, not you in that location) is full of b…

> I have no doubt that I could personally move to another country and do my job

Yes, but your compensation will be reduced. You can't take you SF salary into Eastern Europe.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#452

Post by jacobwilliamroy »

watwut wrote: post #139
roenxi wrote: post #50

There is a certain mindset - turns up all the time in economic discussions too - where if a change is made and doesn't lead to a metric-observable consequence in 6 months then that is the end of the discussion. Working from home is crippling for forming new social connections. Promotions are done based, primarily, on social connections. Hiring too. There is very strong pressure for ambitious people who know how the w…

I think that you are exactly right. But it is also something that people dont want to admit out loud. Many people need to believe that promotions and hirings are fair. Admitting it is often not, or that it is actually semi fair only had other implications and hurts motivation.

The belief keeps the system going. If people accepted reality, they'd be more likely to move on to something more likely to help meet their goals.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#453

Post by nocman »

SergeAx wrote: post #221

1. WFH is not for everyone. There are people with kids and no dedicated workplace at home. There are people with low motivation and self-control, and office routine just helps them to keep up. 2. You can't mix WFH with work in office. It's either one or the other. If you have a single employee working remotely - you should transform all the processes to WFH-style. 3. WFH shifts most of the burden onto management. Man…

> 2. You can't mix WFH with work in office. It's either one or the other. If you have a single employee working remotely - you should transform all the processes to WFH-style.

^ This is not true.

Where I work we have a mix of people who work exclusively from home, some who work some days at home and some in-office, and some who work exclusively from the office. This is including managers (some of whom like working from home, btw). Some people's jobs work better with one arrangement, some with another.

It was like that before March, and now way more people work exclusively from home.

Now I'm sure there are some jobs where having a mix complicates things too much, but it is definitely not universally true that having a mix never works.

My workplace is no special case either, I know of others that work the same way.

[ edited to remove unintentional indentation ]

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#454

Post by bryanrasmussen »

mancerayder wrote: post #392

This is a complicated problem with different perspectives that no doubt will get muddled at some point. I'm confident at least the following is true: Some people have long commutes and wfh is great Others have small, expensive apartments they paid for shorter commutes and it's suffocating 40-50 hours a week Some people live in palaces and offices are a step down in comfort Some people are happy with the online intera…

some bosses have an instinctive feeling that people working in the office are more productive

some bosses themselves work best in the office with people around.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#455

Post by KingOfCoders »

danjac wrote: post #29
KingOfCoders wrote: post #11

Beside what others have mentioned. CEOs do most of their time: meetings & talking to people. This is their job, they don't do Powerpoint, coding or anything else beside talking and meetings. Both is more draining if you do this 10h a day remotely. To my coachees there is a big push amongst CEOs to get people back in the office, they haven't defined their remote role yet.

I detect a hint of worry: if the company does just fine with minimal input from the CEO, how do they justify their outsized salary and benefits?

I would agree. I think the CEO role will change the most from the move to remote.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#456

Post by andrejserafim »

InertBrake wrote: post #431
iancmceachern wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And further complicated by the fact the the same person may want different things at different stages in their life. Ive evolved, like many in my workplace, to be on site in the office as needed, occasionally (we work in hardware). We've learned to do most everything from home, with a few on site activities as needed.

Many of the comments on discussions such as these give me the impression that people are not considering this when they write, or at the very least omitting it. I'm a college student graduating next year, and I just finished my first substantial internship ever in a remote arrangement. The past twelve weeks were my first real experience in my professional environment of interest, but I'm not even sure if I can call i…

InertBrake - well done on your internship :)

As someone who's been through internships and many years of in office work this is worrying me too.

Our junior colleagues coming in without the little things they would get from sitting in a room with everyone else.

Without team lunches and social events. Because it's not direct impact this is hard to reason about and create artificially.

I chose to work remotely full time 4 years ago and I have to rely on my past years of experience quite a lot.

What I do see is that excellent mentors and senior colleagues still find a way to mentor less experienced colleagues. It just takes conscious effort from both sides and we need to support both sides more in this.

I'm very keen to study this in my teams and use the learnt experience to raise the base level.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#457

Post by ec109685 »

nocman wrote: post #453
SergeAx wrote: post #221

1. WFH is not for everyone. There are people with kids and no dedicated workplace at home. There are people with low motivation and self-control, and office routine just helps them to keep up. 2. You can't mix WFH with work in office. It's either one or the other. If you have a single employee working remotely - you should transform all the processes to WFH-style. 3. WFH shifts most of the burden onto management. Man…

> 2. You can't mix WFH with work in office. It's either one or the other. If you have a single employee working remotely - you should transform all the processes to WFH-style. ^ This is not true. Where I work we have a mix of people who work exclusively from home, some who work some days at home and some in-office, and some who work exclusively from the office. This is including managers (some of whom like working fr…

Is it better now that everyone is working from home now?
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