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A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

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Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#71

Post by geoelectric »

bluedino wrote: post #62
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…

>> you could just hire from the flyover states, find all the good techies that didn't make the pilgrimage to one of the traditional hotspots How many are there, though, really? And what happens when you now have to compete with _every_other_company_ that also wants to hire them? They'll make more money, good for them. But the majority of companies will just have to settle for hiring C-level talent.

Why not hire C level talent from the flyover states?

Speaking specifically of my own lane, tech, I think you might underestimate how many people--particularly people of color--never make it into the "industry pipeline" because of lack of local opportunities. Those of us who came into the tech industry from the side in the 90s know the school doesn't make much difference at all in most jobs, it's just a predictor of whether you've otherwise prepared. The initial preparation tends to be self-driven, in the best employees, and they exist everywhere. The biggest differentiator comes down to whether someone gives you a shot, and that’s almost entirely about contacts and location for name-brand-company SWE positions.

However much competition there will be then, there's more now with everything chunked up. We're talking about an existing situation. Widening the applicant pool to cheaper applicants can't do anything but help an employer.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#72

Post by pjettter »

irrational wrote: post #47
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…

My company has already said that we will never be a remote working company after the pandemic is over (we have all been working remote since last March and they are saying that it probably wont be until August or September that we move back to campus). I think most of that is because the company just finished building 2 million square feet of additional office space on campus just before the pandemic.

But what if their workers are more productive those days when they are working remotely? That should pay down on the investment sooner! I never understand shortsightedness...

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#73

Post by sharkweek »

My partner works in operations for [fairly large company]. Her job is to min/max space use, organize for hiring pushes, keep the office space humming, revamp existing space as needed, plan out new space... etc. etc. etc. It's an interesting job, she's probably the person you're pissed at when your desk gets seemingly randomly moved to another floor.

Right before COVID, she was managing a HUGE densification project to get more desks in their company's current footprint. That obviously got entirely axed March 2020 (over a year of work down the drain), and it's been her job the last year to figure out WFH and what post-COVID-19 workspace looks like.

The executives are wanting people back in the office. They've seen enough they don't like about full WFH that they do want people back in the building at some point when it's safe. But they also don't want everyone in the building at the same time anymore. Basically, they want to operate the building at pre-pandemic capacity of 50% or so, rotating who is in and who isn't.

With that comes some unique space challenges, including but not limited to how does having a desk work if only 50% of people are in the office on a given day. They haven't chosen a final solution yet as there are A LOT of moving pieces, but it has been interesting to watch.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#74

Post by djrogers »

throw8932894 wrote: post #44

My country has new rule about minimal square space per employee. Capacity of our office is now reduced to 20%. 80% employees have to work from home, they do not fit into our office. If this rule is permanent, companies may not be able to afford office space. WFH may become "new normal" bcos it is only thing company can afford. In old days, flu spread in office like wild fire. Companies outsourced negative externaliti…

> Now we have way more transmissible viruses and probably new regulations.

That’s incorrect and largely irrelevant. We have one virus that’s more dangerous, but not necessarily more transmissible than the flu, measles, or the common cold (and demonstrably less transmissible than many viruses).

Unless you are of the irrational belief that we have somehow reached a point in history when serial deadly pandemics are the norm instead of the exception, then there’s no reason that we can’t go back to a world where we can work in person again...

Wether we want to or not is the relevant question.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#75

Post by rockinghigh »

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…

The main reason people who have kids cannot easily work from home is because schools are closed and they have to take care of their kids during the day.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#76

Post by standardUser »

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…

I have a group of coworkers who've taken the initiate to slyly relocate during the pandemic, in some cases signing leases and buying houses. I think their idea is to either stay fully remote indefinitely or find a different remote job if the company won't abide.

The remote revolution may be overblown in general, but for programmers, the appeal is particularly strong. They've seen the promised land and it turns out it's in a nice home office in Bend OR, not a Bay Area traffic jam.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#77

Post by chrisco255 »

kube-system wrote: post #55
kodah wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think so. My company was remote-first before the pandemic, but we still had about 25% of our staff or so go into an office regularly. The key is to have that remote-first attitude in spite of there being an office. One of the rules we had was "if one person is remote that's supposed to be on a meeting, then everyone has to treat that as a remote meeting and Zoom in". In other words, no one was on unequal footing for important team decisions, and if you had 5 people in an office that were supposed to have a meeting with 2 other remote peeps, those 5 people would jump on their laptops for the meeting, not huddle into a conference room. Subtle changes like this make a big difference.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#78

Post by pjettter »

For some, WFH is more attractive and more productive than for others. But why does it have to be an either or? There are advantages with sitting next to colleagues. There are advantages with being able to skip the commute and being able to concentrate at home. Ideally, someone would choose what's most productive, which is probably a mix of WFH and working on site.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#79

Post by IMTDb »

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.

Too take the exact opposite view :

Simply put, if my employer told me I needed to setup zoom calls every time I need to talk to someone more than 5 days per month, I would find a new employer. I'm less productive than ever. I'm more depressed than ever. I'm eating poorly and drinking more. I almost don't sleep anymore. I just want to spend few hours by myself instead of being constantly around my family members. My finances are unchanged.

I won't give this up. Give me a schedule, a break from home to work, let me see and meet people.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#80

Post by dstick »

kube-system wrote: post #55
kodah wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You mean, you can't have some that are always remote and some that are in the office? Like a split?
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