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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

#681

Post by whywhywhywhy »

bluedino wrote: post #85
drowning_sushi wrote: post #52

50-75% of the employees at MS HQ regularly work out of the office. (Source: I live close by). This mandate is not at all surprising given MS invested heavily in new, revamped offices, which they had started before the pandemic. How did folks who relocated to other areas not see this coming.

Our company recently started RTO. The first 10-15 minutes of every meeting for the first month were people complaining about it. The first 10-15 minutes of every meeting for the second month were supervisors reminding people everyone they need to do it. The third month, people started coming in, and now everyone complains about how there's no parking, no open hotel desks, no open meeting rooms, and teams are scattere…

Just find a corner for it why do you need a "room"

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#682

Post by whywhywhywhy »

Rohansi wrote: post #466
notepad0x90 wrote: post #427

Why don't they just pay people less if they think WFH causes less value to the company? Give them an option to RTO or take a pay cut. Why would you want people who don't want your company to succeed anymore working for you? I can't imagine anyone used to 3-4 years of WFH (and liking it) wanting the company to succeed after RTO. If they stay, it's probably because they don't have a choice and they'll probably be the l…

> Give them an option to RTO or take a pay cut. How much of a pay cut? They could (and probably do) claim that WFH employees are not doing anything so they are worthless.

Well if you're remote you're in competition with the rest of the world right as they're all remote too and will do they same job cheaper so probably a decent one.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#683

Post by simoncion »

nickff wrote: post #264
zero_shift wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead, it seems like CEOs see RTO as a way of getting rid of 'slackers' "Seems" is an interesting word, because if even you can't locate a rational motive, whilst attempting to apologise for RTO, and are just left making some guesses, then what am I supposed to infer except that this whole thing is based on suspicion, groupthink and anxiety? "The data is clear", trumpets Microsoft in their internal email. Then wh…

You seem to be demanding some proof of the RTO side, which is a reversion to the mean, while providing none for your own side. I see and hear people talking about all the non-work things they due while being paid, and am unsurprised that their managers suspect a negative impact on productivity.

> ...while providing none for your own side.

After an initial few-month adjustment period after the shelter-in-place orders my all-remote team at $DAYJOB performed no worse than they had pre-pandemic [0] through to the period where mandatory RTO started being an active fad. During that multi-year "few or no alternatives" WFH period, we all met or exceeded our goals and milestones. We each received raises and/or promotions each year, demonstrating that the business agreed that we were each individually meeting or exceeding our personal performance goals.

Due to my corporate confidentiality agreements I can't provide you with the documentation to back these claims, but they are a true account of the events.

[0] And often notably better, due in part to our ability to fairly-easily flex our schedule to meet with anyone around the world.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#684

Post by wiseowise »

greenchair wrote: post #246
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was a privilege, people abused it, and now it's over. And managers were the worst offenders. IME, managers do this in the office just as much as remote. Look at the typical manager's schedule. It's completely full of meetings - most of which are bullshit "busy" meetings, and they never respond to anything timely.

spoken like a true non manager

Tell us about insightful conversations that you had with shareholders that keep the whole company running.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#685

Post by varispeed »

missedthecue wrote: post #498
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…

I do not understand the real estate investor conspiracy theory. Why would it be better for vanguard if Microsoft paid rent to a real estate firm that managed office space, earned an X% profit margin, and then got taxed on the earnings before they were attributed to shareholders? It makes much more sense to take a bath on the office investments and have Microsoft pay the difference in dividends or buybacks. The net am…

Not a "conspiracy theory". I've been to board meeting at one of companies, where board member was a real estate investor. They insisted that to obtain more investment company has to lease an office from the investor and ensure the office is occupied as part of the lease. Then they used that company in advertising of their property portfolio as in look who leases from us. It's complex.

You are missing the point that Microsoft might be the loss leader, setting an example or simply ensuring that commercial estate gains in value and the gains are greater than the losses.

It's a fact, you can maintain empty offices only for so long and billions invested can potentially vanish.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#686

Post by sokoloff »

aurareturn wrote: post #635
dragonwriter wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RTO mandates are about many things, but actual business value of being in the office to the business doing the mandate is low on the list. Among the things it is about: (1) Executives with emotional attachment to certain leadership styles that are enabled by physical presence, (2) Interest in the investor class for the commercial real estate market. The business impacted may not be invested in it, but the businesses’…

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

All else being equal, this is almost certainly true.

All else is nowhere near equal, of course. That's the real rub.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#687

Post by arkh »

chii wrote: post #480
steveBK123 wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My friend is CTO of a smaller company say ~250 people, and RTO constantly comes up in the C-suite. He is only able to fend it off by pointing out that they do not pay as well as their larger competitors, so the remote flexibility is a recruiting advantage. He describes the push for RTO from the rest of the C-suite as basically a combination of unspecific vibes that it must be bad if employees like it, and of course..…

> 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…

> will do the minimum work that is required of them

So... doing their job?

When I read people wanting to have 100% uptime on their human resources I feel like I'm reading "The goal" again and how machines have to be 100% used in the mind of some managers.

And even when doing chore (or posting on HN), people tend to think about other things. Like their current task. Why do you think people find solutions to problems in the shower or just before sleeping? Because you can think about work (and so for most office jobs, working) even when not on your computer.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#688

Post by mrweasel »

bilekas wrote: post #663
dragonwriter wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RTO mandates are about many things, but actual business value of being in the office to the business doing the mandate is low on the list. Among the things it is about: (1) Executives with emotional attachment to certain leadership styles that are enabled by physical presence, (2) Interest in the investor class for the commercial real estate market. The business impacted may not be invested in it, but the businesses’…

Backdoor layoffs. It's always backdoor layoffs. If they really appreciated and needed you at the company, they would cater for your needs when you're delivering your work.

If it's layoffs aren't there a very real risk that the most talented people, who enjoy working from home will simply leave, while the less talented returns to the office because they'll have a harder time finding new jobs?

So you're doing backdoor layoffs, but you're laying off the people you'd most likely want to keep, leaving the company with the less experienced/talented people.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#689

Post by zurfer »

nlitened wrote: post #649
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.

With WFH the following things become very difficult and/or ineffective: 1. Onboarding and growing junior employees. 2. Managing/coordinating people 3. Doing/coming up with something innovative 4. Making sure an employee is not working another job in parallel With RTO, companies try go get back the ability to do these things, at the expense of employees’ commute time

Thanks for sticking the head out ;)

I'm really not sure where 1 to 3 come from? 1 and 2 are about spending time with people. 3 can't also be true, just look at all the innovations that OSS has created (at least 90 perc. remote collaboration).

Number 4 is a real problem and a symptom of the biggest problem imo, which is that it's hard to build trust online/remotely.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#690

Post by wiseowise »

Aurornis wrote: post #255
thr0waway001 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At our company some people outright admitted on a survey sent out to employees that they would go out and run errands during work hours. Like, how stupid do you have to be to kill your golden goose of life work balance?

That's nothing. One company near me had parents cancel their daycare when they were allowed to WFH. A lot of employees were trying to care for young kids and "work" at the same time.

Why do you care as long as you have the same amount of work as before?
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