A recent poll of employees who are working remotely • Hacker News Board

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#51

Post by j0ba » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

kodah wrote: post #46

ska wrote: post #7

I suspect a lot of the "we're all going to be remote from now on" sentiment is overblown. It seems to me more likely that there will be a few more remote friendly companies, and a very few more remote-only companies after the dust settles, but the real shift will be for most "office based" workers will be the expectation of partially working from home. There is a big difference between "never going to an office again…

There are some people who cannot work from home. These people have been especially vocal. Sometimes they include people who have kids, other times they include people who get their social interaction in at work. I think the office should accommodate them as well as remote workers. The biggest challenge I've faced being on a remote team (read: not necessarily WFH) is that people who are at the primary physical locatio…

That's fine. They can just take a salary cut if they need their employer to provide them an officespace.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#52

Post by lovegoblin » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

ska wrote: post #7

I suspect a lot of the "we're all going to be remote from now on" sentiment is overblown. It seems to me more likely that there will be a few more remote friendly companies, and a very few more remote-only companies after the dust settles, but the real shift will be for most "office based" workers will be the expectation of partially working from home. There is a big difference between "never going to an office again…

> There is a big difference between "never going to an office again" and "not going in 5 days a week".

Yes, but I'd argue there's an even bigger difference between "not going in 5 days a week" and "going in 5 days a week."

As soon as you're remote even just part time, that means all your internal tooling and everything must be remote-compatible. Way more of your communication becomes async-by-default. And if some people are 1-2 days wfh, what's to stop some people from choosing 100% remote? And if that's happening, why limit your hiring to local?

Even part time remote employees is a culture shift.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#53

Post by Dumblydorr » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

superbcarrot wrote: post #35

mabbo wrote: post #26

Simply put, if my employer told me I needed to be in the office more than 5 days per month, I would find a new employer. I'm more productive than ever. I'm happier than ever. I'm eating healthier. I sleep better. My marriage is stronger. My finances are kicking ass. I won't give this up.

On the opposite side, if there was no covid and my employer gave me the option to either WFH or go to the office, I would go to the office every single day. Hopefully people will have more options in the near future instead of being forced into a model they don't like whether it's the office or WFH.

I left a job in February 2020 because they had instituted a policy that no more employees would get remote work...a year earlier, they promised me WFH after a year. It was a big reason I left. Then, covid hit, and suddenly WFH was and still is mandatory.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#54

Post by ska » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:02 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #30

ska wrote: post #7

I suspect a lot of the "we're all going to be remote from now on" sentiment is overblown. It seems to me more likely that there will be a few more remote friendly companies, and a very few more remote-only companies after the dust settles, but the real shift will be for most "office based" workers will be the expectation of partially working from home. There is a big difference between "never going to an office again…

The whole landscape probably shifts a bit. More people fully remote. More WFH more days per week than they did before. And so forth. But, yes, I don't expect many companies who currently have an office(s) to close them down. Maybe reconfigure, shut down expansion plans, hotel as needed, etc. Won't really affect me as I was fully remote before this (in spite of being commuting distance from a company office). But I de…

I agree the whole landscape shifts, I just think it won't be even distributed and most of the change will be relatively small, not radical reorganization.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#55

Post by kube-system » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:02 PM UTC

kodah wrote: post #46

ska wrote: post #7

I suspect a lot of the "we're all going to be remote from now on" sentiment is overblown. It seems to me more likely that there will be a few more remote friendly companies, and a very few more remote-only companies after the dust settles, but the real shift will be for most "office based" workers will be the expectation of partially working from home. There is a big difference between "never going to an office again…

There are some people who cannot work from home. These people have been especially vocal. Sometimes they include people who have kids, other times they include people who get their social interaction in at work. I think the office should accommodate them as well as remote workers. The biggest challenge I've faced being on a remote team (read: not necessarily WFH) is that people who are at the primary physical locatio…

In my experience, there are two ways for a company to be successful at having remote employees:

1. everyone is 100% remote

2. everyone comes into the office occasionally

Anything else leads to a two-tiered system.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#56

Post by sokoloff » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

lovegoblin wrote: post #52

ska wrote: post #7

I suspect a lot of the "we're all going to be remote from now on" sentiment is overblown. It seems to me more likely that there will be a few more remote friendly companies, and a very few more remote-only companies after the dust settles, but the real shift will be for most "office based" workers will be the expectation of partially working from home. There is a big difference between "never going to an office again…

> There is a big difference between "never going to an office again" and "not going in 5 days a week". Yes, but I'd argue there's an even bigger difference between "not going in 5 days a week" and "going in 5 days a week." As soon as you're remote even just part time, that means all your internal tooling and everything must be remote-compatible. Way more of your communication becomes async-by-default. And if some peo…

I think a lot of company leaders will nod along with the picture you paint above, but any company that's 40% or less remote will probably recenter on sync-by-default, in-person, and where being-at-headquarters matters.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#57

Post by ghaff » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:04 PM UTC

geoelectric wrote: post #45

ghaff wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of outsourcing was basically done with the difficulty set on hardest to get at perceived lowest labor costs. So you ended up with big time zone differences, cultural and language issues, etc.

Yeah, exactly. Back in the 90s-2000s, though, it was easier to deal with an office-based outsource hub that had its own line manager, etc, mostly because things were so damned slow to send back and forth that you wanted to chunk project coordination. Those were comparatively rarer in the US, since anywhere you could put one together had enough tech industry to make the costs there prohibitive. Nowadays, you could jus…

Logically, to the degree that a company really is indifferent to where in the US people live, I'd expect a new equilibrium to develop that's somewhere between the Bay Area and Arkansas. But, as you say, there's a lot of inertia and Google isn't likely to one morning announce an across-the-board pay cut in the Bay Area so they can redistribute it to workers in other locations. But you could certainly imagine things like premiums for new grads shrinking.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#58

Post by ska » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:05 PM UTC

lovegoblin wrote: post #52

ska wrote: post #7

I suspect a lot of the "we're all going to be remote from now on" sentiment is overblown. It seems to me more likely that there will be a few more remote friendly companies, and a very few more remote-only companies after the dust settles, but the real shift will be for most "office based" workers will be the expectation of partially working from home. There is a big difference between "never going to an office again…

> There is a big difference between "never going to an office again" and "not going in 5 days a week". Yes, but I'd argue there's an even bigger difference between "not going in 5 days a week" and "going in 5 days a week." As soon as you're remote even just part time, that means all your internal tooling and everything must be remote-compatible. Way more of your communication becomes async-by-default. And if some peo…

Pandemic has force many/most placed to come up with something remote-capable, at least temporarily. It's a big shift, I absolutely agree. I think it's mostly all that happens though - the "slippery slope to remote" you describe mostly wont happen. Of course we are both speculating.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#59

Post by kube-system » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:08 PM UTC

ange1a wrote: post #34

just wait until corporations realize that if your job can be done from kansas city... it can also be done from manila... and a whole new class of gigs just vanish.

They realized that 25 years ago. Then, 10 years ago they realized that time zones and soft skills are also a thing.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#60

Post by geoelectric » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:09 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #57

geoelectric wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, exactly. Back in the 90s-2000s, though, it was easier to deal with an office-based outsource hub that had its own line manager, etc, mostly because things were so damned slow to send back and forth that you wanted to chunk project coordination. Those were comparatively rarer in the US, since anywhere you could put one together had enough tech industry to make the costs there prohibitive. Nowadays, you could jus…

Logically, to the degree that a company really is indifferent to where in the US people live, I'd expect a new equilibrium to develop that's somewhere between the Bay Area and Arkansas. But, as you say, there's a lot of inertia and Google isn't likely to one morning announce an across-the-board pay cut in the Bay Area so they can redistribute it to workers in other locations. But you could certainly imagine things li…

Equilibrium is what I expect. That may have a more sharp effect than the math would suggest, though. Bay Area SWE salaries inflated via competition in a way I suspect completely deflates with area pressure off. The cross-effects of a limited pool tend to be multiplicative, not additive.

The fact that the people doing the hiring probably enjoy those salaries too is maybe the biggest counterargument I'd have to my own prediction and the reason I think it'll take a bit to change. I'm firmly convinced that's one of the phenomena that have kept college degrees inflating--cognitive dissonance around admitting you shouldn't perpetuate your own experience.

FWIW, I think a lot of techies would probably love to have the freedom to live wherever they want and make a decent living. The comp gold rush has been fun, but the industry will arguably be better when it's gone. But the transition period--especially for those of us already at FAANGs or similar--that gets spicy.

Personally I'm hoping it means in a decade or so I can pseudo-retire to an easy remote job somewhere cheap enough to be happy on what an easy remote job pays. Given how hard actual early retirement can be to swing nowadays, that'd be a great holdover strategy to have available.