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Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

businessinsider.com

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Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#671

Post by 113 »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #573
dragonwriter wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was very clear, I thought, when I said “RTO mandates are about...”, that I was not saying “All of these factors are relevant to Microsoft”. With Microsoft its probably mostly (3), with maybe some degree of (2), with (1) maybe, especially in the political salience, being a plus in the eyes of some decision-makers but not really driving the decision. There are firms (and public agencies) where the relationship betwee…

No CEO cares about commercial real estate profits. It isn't a factor in any major company decision. Why not extend the baseless paranoia and say it is because they want to see auto company profits go up? And also support petroleum companies? Or is it just real estate that is boogeyman secretly running the country behind the scenes?

> No CEO cares about commercial real estate profits. It isn't a factor in any major company decision.

No spherical CEO in a vacuum, maybe.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#672

Post by simoncion »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #639
chii wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unspecific vibes that it must be bad if employees like it I read it as the feeling that they know somehow that the employees are not putting in 100% of their attention at home on the work assigned. And i do believe it to be true - lots of people claim that WFH means they can "do the laundry" and/or go to the post office. The fact is that there's very few self-starters and intrinsically motivated employees. Most are…

> lots of people claim that WFH means they can "do the laundry" and/or go to the post office I mostly work from the office. Since the end of COVID-19, my teams are always mixed where some people WFH. One issue that I frequently encounter: People do their chores at random times in the middle of day, so frequently you cannot corral a group of people to quickly discuss something. In the office, this is trivial: Turn aro…

> People do their chores at random times in the middle of day...

When I was in-office, people I needed to speak to would be away from their desk (god only knows where) several times a day. Perhaps they were off taking a shit, or getting food, or having a long think in a quiet corner, or crying in the nap closet, or who knows what, but they weren't at their desk and I had no idea how to contact them.

If your coworkers are regularly inaccessible for extended periods, then you're gonna have to do what has been done since way before widespread WFH: talk to your manager to establish core working hours during which everyone is expected to be easily accessible to other folks in the company.

If your manager doesn't see the need to establish and enforce core working hours and neither does their manager, then either stop thinking of it as a problem, or go work for a place that is a better fit for your theory of work.

If you've already established core working hours and these remote employees are ignoring them, then complain to your manager. If their behavior is seriously getting in the way of you getting your work done, it's your manager's job to fix that.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#673

Post by aurareturn »

mulmen wrote: post #667
aurareturn wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(4) In person teams outperform remote/hybrid teams. I'm surprised this was not mentioned as a possibility.

It’s not mentioned as a possibility because nobody has ever been able to substantiate that claim.

Shouldn't we trust that the execs have this data and can see productivity metrics that aren't available to the public?

Unless you think all RTO is a conspiracy.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#674

Post by gempir »

whinvik wrote: post #586

Threads like these are always one sided with people against RTO. What I would really like to see is arguments from the other side. Can someone steelman RTO. Preferably with evidence, anecdotal or otherwise.

I personally feel home office makes jobs feel much more like jobs. You have no social relation to your coworkers and it's very hard to build one remotely. Most people barely communicate in zoom meetings beyond the minimum what is required of them.

Good office jobs can feel fun, building something with like minded people and building a social relationship at the same time with them.

Many people are not looking for that, many people just want a job that makes money and let's them log off at a set time. I personally don't enjoy that type of job and feel it's not sustainable over decades. I need some fun in my job.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#675

Post by simoncion »

throwaw12 wrote: post #626
zero_shift wrote: post #190

At $org, we too are undertaking a mandatory RTO order, enforced with door access logs. People are up in arms, particularly those in our smaller locales, where the offices we have are perfunctory at best. The rationale is the usual one: collaboration, watercooler chat, unspecific evidence / "research" about productivity (that we are told definitely exists, but is yet to be shared). I remain baffled by executives' obse…

Things which might be contributing to the RTO in my opinion: 1. Showing up. Practically speaking, when you're at home, you can do whatever you want (sleep, watch TV, work sometimes), while delivering stellar result for the company, but when you're in the office there is a chance you will deliver your stellar results and additionally contribute more, because you literally can't watch TV and take a nap. 2. Some leaders…

> ...when you're in the office there is a chance you will deliver your stellar results and additionally contribute more, because you literally can't watch TV and take a nap.

I see you've never seen many Silicon Valley software companies. Couches and comfortable chairs are a not-infrequent sight in the trendy open-plan offices, as are folks sleeping, reading, or otherwise slacking off atop them.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#676

Post by simoncion »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #651
al_borland wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several years before the pandemic I was forced to move several states away after my local office was shutdown and the company was looking to force everyone to a few larger offices. It didn’t make any sense. Within my little 10 person team, we had people in 5 states and at least 2 counties, spanning multiple time zones. I was on the phone, tethered to my desk, all-day every-day. I saw very little point to being in the…

> I was on the phone, tethered to my desk, all-day every-day. I am curious: What was your job? Sales? Support?

If by "on the phone" we mean "in a voice and/or video call", I was in a similar situation to the OP. I'm a programmer.

RTO made no sense for our very geographically distributed team, but the mandate came down anyway. Most of us were staring down the barrel of a multi-hour commute to hot-desk in a notably overcrowded office with underprovisioned Internet service to execute the task of being on the phone all day, every day with a very geographically diverse set of colleagues.

Such collaboration, such synergy, much wow.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#677

Post by whywhywhywhy »

zero_shift wrote: post #190

At $org, we too are undertaking a mandatory RTO order, enforced with door access logs. People are up in arms, particularly those in our smaller locales, where the offices we have are perfunctory at best. The rationale is the usual one: collaboration, watercooler chat, unspecific evidence / "research" about productivity (that we are told definitely exists, but is yet to be shared). I remain baffled by executives' obse…

> I still have no idea where it comes from

A not so small group of people being over-employed or never available or just not pulling their weight tainted the whole thing.

Also honestly once a % of us were back in the office having to talk to remote people over a video call and waiting for the lag and having them speak over you because of the lag or get confused because they can't hear the chat we can all hear in the room builds animosity towards them.

Can probably list 2 people I'm happy to work with remote but the number I worked with who took the piss with it is in the double digits.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#678

Post by varispeed »

ponector wrote: post #650
losteric wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Big corpo is a modern feodal state, where CEO is an emperor, c-suites are kings, managers are barons Why do people forget about board members and shareholders? There's a lot of overlap among the rich. I doubt Satya "wants" to RTO. I would suspect board members / shareholders with real estate interests are forcing the policy. (eg Vanguard holds 10%, with Blackrock close behind). Big corpo is a feudal state, in the s…

>> Why do people forget about board members and shareholders Board members do not have powers over daily business of the company. I would add the board to the feodal model as a Church. The head of the board is the Pope.

That's theory. In practice they have power. I've been to many board meetings where they pressured C-suite to do this and that or else.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#679

Post by misiek08 »

Seeing how many Slackers were hired during and after pandemic (they were hired before, but were forced to work from office) I can totally understand the moves. It’s sad, but there are way too many unskilled people, currently carried by AI to hide themselves in corporate worlds that the companies are already affected in a real, calculable way. Also this is great proxy for layoffs, but only for those that have options - as already mentioned. So it is a lose-lose for the companies that will make it the most stupid, direct way.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#680

Post by wiseowise »

sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #53
ariwilson wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a more nuanced take here. For low performing or junior employees, remote work was generally a terrible thing that led to less productivity (and more managerial overhead). For strongly performing employees with obligations at home, there were many who preferred working at home. I fall more into the latter camp (at least I hope so) and, given I've only worked in nice offices with catered lunches, gyms, video gam…

Remote work used to be an earned privilege. Then COVID hit and everyone got a taste of it. Including the folks who discovered they could get paid to stay home and play video games and jackin' off during work hours. In a way you could say this group ruined it for everyone. But that's usually how these things go. The hammer comes down on everyone because otherwise it leads to uncomfortable questions like "why does HE g…

> and people getting doctor's notes claiming they're autistic and can't be around people and that's why they can't ever see the inside of an office.

Continue, I’m all ears.

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