80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans • Hacker News Board

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#491

Post by karmelapple » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 6:01 PM UTC

frostiness wrote: post #460

josephd79 wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't "manage" people who work remotely the same way you manage people in the office. That's the issue. Also, you shouldn't have to watch newer employees like a hawk if you've given them clear tasks / projects and expectations. No need to micromanage people.

It's not about managing. It's about the friction to reaching out for help and lost productivity from having to schedule meetings combined with inexperience making it hard to decide which problems are worth the friction of reaching out and which ones aren't. There's also the sense of isolation that being remote gives, because asking for help over a private message makes it look like you're the only one that needs help…

There can be friction scheduling and holding meetings, absolutely. Starting a meeting friction can be overcome through tools like Slack huddles which basically require one click to join if people are around fairly predictably, but scheduling friction can be reduced with some techniques.

Our remote-first company has a daily standup everyday which shifts everyone’s brain into talking/collaboration mode for that bit. If someone - especially newer or junior engineers - have a question, that is a great opportunity to either have an impromptu discussion, or to have scheduled a discussion about it the previous afternoon jf it wasn’t particularly urgent.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#492

Post by lacrimacida » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 6:13 PM UTC

hamburglar wrote: post #456

ghaff wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one of the few non-productivity/collaboration/etc. rationales that may actually make some sense. States (e.g. NH and MA) have had tiffs because workers living out of state are no longer commuting into an office and are no longer paying income tax to the state they used to commute to as a result. I'm sure there are many local cases where there was some agreement about creating jobs in some town which have been…

I’ve heard this “tax impact / tax break” idea floated as a theory about what’s going on, but if municipalities are putting that type of pressure on companies, shouldn’t we see some concrete evidence of it? What is the actual mechanism by which such force is being applied? I have a little bit of a hard time believing that such large company policies are frequently being set based on deals that we have no actual eviden…

That and wouldn’t the saved rent expenses offset those taxes anyway? Second companies would have the freedom to move the main location freely to cities/states with lower taxes.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#493

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 6:15 PM UTC

generic92034 wrote: post #364

dragonwriter wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you sure announcing layoffs hurts share prices? I'm relatively sure losing people without severance and without WARN Act and similar notice issues, is easier on the financials for the same number of positions cut than the alternative.

So why did SV companies fire a lot of employees recently, if the severance and WARN act outweigh the positive impact on the share prices?

> So why did SV companies fire a lot of employees recently, if the severance and WARN act outweigh the positive impact on the share prices?

I didn’t say they did.

I said that if you can get people to leave voluntarily, that’s better for the financials.

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t conditions where the best available option (from a serving the shareholders perspective) is layoffs. Just that, ceteris paribus, its better to shed the headcount without the added costs imposed by layoffs; the benefit (when there is a benefit) of layoffs is reducing the headcount, not bearing the severance, WARN Act compliance, and other costs particular to layoffs.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#494

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 6:30 PM UTC

floucky wrote: post #320

throwaway892238 wrote: post #60

I decided I will never again work in an office, for the rest of my life. It's a lifestyle choice. I refuse to put up with the B.S. anymore. I'm lucky that I've had a long career and my skills are very much in demand, so I will always be able to find a remote job somewhere. People doing jobs with more qualified candidates in the pool will probably have a harder time, and that sucks. For them, I hope they can band toge…

Don't you think full remote is kind of selfish? I mean, I also love it, but what about new hires and junior? How are they going to learn and improve if each time they have a question, they need to post it on slack and just wait...

[deleted]

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#495

Post by Ms-J » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 6:46 PM UTC

I've noticed that CEO's who forced people back to the office really regretted it after the senior engineer's and related all quit. They offered to make it remote again but by that time all of their talent left so at least two companies I know of.

There is no amount of money that would get the best and most talented to go work in an office. Productivity suffers immensely in an office as opposed to working from home.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#496

Post by closeparen » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 6:59 PM UTC

evantbyrne wrote: post #234

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Hence the economic alarms about salaries being “too high”: remote work enables geo-arbitrage, which removes a significant portion of employer leverage. If employees could buy their way out of the system, then, by definition, capital is leaving power and money on the table. And it absolutely loathes that.

They get what they pay for. Companies that offer remote jobs will be able to pick from and retain a wider gamut of talent. I suspect a lot of this RTO is related to the tech market just generally being down. Once things heat back up, recruiters will be knocking down doors to get people to interview for remote gigs just like before. It may take some time to get to that point though, because there are a number of facto…

My contention is they won’t be able to sustain it, because either the wages will be uncompetitive or remote workers will pay off their houses and no longer need to work (as much).

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#497

Post by kmbfjr » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 7:03 PM UTC

I had to do a day in office for the first time in over a year.

The only positive was a feeling of engagement, which would quickly go away because my commute was turned into an hour ordeal each way.

Seems the city made a lot of changes to encourage bicycling, which is great for residents but it really f’ed up traffic.

So while the day in the office did recharge a bit of team enthusiasm, doing that daily with the new traffic patterns on my own time and dime, would wear thin quickly. I would find a different job if forced.

If I can be paged and forced to crack open the laptop and work whenever needed, (and I am), it really does not matter where I do my work, engagement be damned.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#498

Post by iteria » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 7:16 PM UTC

ngetchell wrote: post #335

zamalek wrote: post #332

> In response, EY announced a fund in February 2022 to reimburse up to $800 per year for commuting, pet care and dependent care costs I can understand dependant care being considered an "employee problem" in the strictest causal sense, so it's amazing that this is considered. That being said, childcare can cost up to $3000/mo - so $800/yr is woefully inadequate. Commute costs are another story entirely. If I were to…

I don't see why my employer needs to cover 100% of my expenses for the benefit to be useful. They are paying me extra money to try to convince me to come into the office. Especially when they can just change their policy to force me to come in without the added benefit. Tuition reimbursement doesn't cover the total cost of college classes but I'm still glad they provide it!

It's even cover a month of daycare and it pays out over a year, so it's beyond useless. This would cover 3 months of aftercare for me, which I'd only need to have because I was going into the office. Why would I opt into that extra expense, especially when it's significant.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#499

Post by atleastoptimal » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 7:18 PM UTC

GMoromisato wrote: post #202

atleastoptimal wrote: post #15

I understand the merits of WFH and in-person work. One thing that is however funny is the guilt tripping used by employers who have this straw-man version of a lazy WFH employee, and more so, employers who have a delusion that their workplace is important enough that people need to sacrifice a large portion of their lives just for the opportunity to be there in person. 90% of jobs aren't people's "passions" and have…

Complete tangent: I wonder if it's uniquely American to believe that people can/should only be passionate about jobs that are world-changing. Or maybe it's just very common in the tech-world and HN. I'm absolutely guilty of this. I'm a software engineer, and I feel proud of having worked on products that millions of people use. Steve Jobs's challenge to "put a dent in the universe" is axiomatic for many of us. Yet I…

>if you're holding out for changing the world before you can be happy, you're (statistically) going to die miserable

You bring up Japan yet they're known for being excessively and pointlessly overworked to the point of depression and suicide. It is a culture that rewards obedience and prostration to your job above everything else. So many were peer pressured into finding meaning in their work to such an excessive extent, and of course didn't become happy because its a system that optimizes for cohesion and stability, not happiness and meaning.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#500

Post by renegade-otter » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 7:21 PM UTC

lamontcg wrote: post #94

troupe wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it funny that when people were required to be home, employers talked about what great productivity they were getting with people at home. Then when it isn't required anymore, they want everyone back in the office for...productivity. My guess is that most employers really have no way to measure if an employee is being productive or not so managers are just reporting what makes them look good...and now we are ba…

> I find it funny that when people were required to be home, employers talked about what great productivity they were getting with people at home. Then when it isn't required anymore, they want everyone back in the office for...productivity. The decades of evidence that open office plans are utter shit for productivity already proved that the emperor wears no clothes and they have no idea what makes for better produc…

Oh, l@@k:

"Meta ditches open plan office structure to bring back cubicles"

https://www.chargedretail.co.uk/2023/02/21/meta-office-space...