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Remote working: Is Big Tech going off work from home?

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Re: Remote working: Is Big Tech going off work from home?

#71

Post by PragmaticPulp »

faeriechangling wrote: post #60
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice, I've found that most candidates don't really care about anything other than total compensation. I've worked at companies that offered private offices, work from home, great health insurance, flexible schedules, catered lunch every day, and all of the usual perks. We'd still lose out on hires to companies offering a couple thousand more than we did. Come decision time, few people are actually willing to t…

Netflix was pretty famous for pushing the idea that employees respond to cash more than anything else and did a lot to promote this idea among hot tech companies and I absolutely believe this is the mindset many managers have. I've got to say though even if people are obsessed with the bottom line when it comes to picking a job, I've got to think stuff like WFH also impacts retention in some way. For me I'm physicall…

> I absolutely believe this is the mindset many managers have

I went into this thinking Netflix was wrong and that most employees valued the big picture more than total comp.

For the most part, the hiring market proved me wrong and Netflix right. :)

Re: Remote working: Is Big Tech going off work from home?

#72

Post by dnndev »

mandelbrotwurst wrote: post #62
dnndev wrote: post #43

A larger role will be the team you work on. If the team wants to WFH then your set, if that’s what you want. If your team goes into the office they will expect you to do the same. Companies that have a heavy management layer will be more likely to say to get real work done you need to be in the office - just a hunch. Personally, my team would be half day a week encouraged (the same day for everyone), all else optiona…

Is “encouraged” here also optional or is this a euphemism for required?

It’s hard to say. I think it will depend on the group social pressure. Encouraged = at least give it a decent try. But if it sucks for you and damages your life then stay home. Nobody wants to be around a sour puss.

Re: Remote working: Is Big Tech going off work from home?

#74

Post by DeRock »

skwirl wrote: post #58
Guthur wrote: post #18

I can't personally say with confidence that these big companies are not being influenced by political motivations. I'm confident that if CBDs essentially die because of remote working it will be a financial apocalypse. There is so much wealth tied up in inflated inner city property that if it is suddenly not in demand anymore there will be a huge correction that is going to hurt a lot.

I can't say that the "health of CBDs" has come up in my company's discussions over the future of remote work. And I'm not sure why the company would care. We don't own any real estate. We lease our office space. I think this must be true of 95%+ of companies in Boston/Cambridge, where I'm located.

Sure, but Google, one of the highlighted companies in the featured article, owns an estimated 100B+ of commercial real estate.

Re: Remote working: Is Big Tech going off work from home?

#75

Post by tartoran »

dnndev wrote: post #56
tartoran wrote: post #7

I got the taste of remote work and nothing’s gonna convince me it’s better in the office. Im more productive remotely, I save money on transportation and food, I save time, I am close to my toddler son, I could save the company a lot by not wasting the office space on me and most of all Im an introvert and for a long time I haven’t felt so comfortable. Why change that? I will seek a remote position other place if my…

It gets old after a while. The first 8-10 years are fun then you just want a change.

Sure. But after 10-20 years of office I’ll take this change. Working from home doesn’t mean that i have to stay home either. Last week I worked from hotel room and from a swimming pool in Orlando. It was wonderful to change the settings and weather (I live in NY) and got to enjoy the the evenings as if I was on vacation. It was a part time vacation to me while not wasting my time off.

Re: Remote working: Is Big Tech going off work from home?

#76

Post by pseudalopex »

outside1234 wrote: post #2

This is management's opening negotiating position. In the fight for talent, however, it is not clear that they have the upper hand, because, I, for one, will be more that willing to offer your employee the ability to work from home. I will ask that the team work out an appropriate culture, which probably includes coming to the office at least once a week -- but certainly not on the other hand four days a week. And I…

I know people whose teams used to meet in person a few times a year. They loved it.

I know someone who had to drive 3 hours for a weekly customer meeting. They started to resent every person they saw those days.

Re: Remote working: Is Big Tech going off work from home?

#77

Post by sparker72678 »

sanderjd wrote: post #66
sparker72678 wrote: post #35

Management is terrified of remote work because it reveals how useless many middle managers actually are.

I honestly feel the opposite. It's more necessary for people managers to be greasing the skids of communication and inter-organizational awareness when I'm not bumping into people in the halls.

I'm not disagreeing. Great managers are needed, and can still be great managers in a remote team.

Re: Remote working: Is Big Tech going off work from home?

#79

Post by tartoran »

sanderjd wrote: post #45
golover721 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I find interesting is that individual contributors always seem to feel they are more productive when WFH. But at least anecdotally the upper management I have talked to in tech companies are saying that WFH has dropped productivity significantly. Now maybe this is just WFH w/ all the stresses of a pandemic vs. WFH in normal times, but it is interesting.

As a tech lead, I totally understand that. I'm way more productive at IC work from home, but I really want to be able to meet with my team in person, at least sometimes .

That’s reasonable. But warming up an office chiar for 40 hours a week is the other extreme I don’t want to go back to.

Re: Remote working: Is Big Tech going off work from home?

#80

Post by dnndev »

sanderjd wrote: post #66
sparker72678 wrote: post #35

Management is terrified of remote work because it reveals how useless many middle managers actually are.

I honestly feel the opposite. It's more necessary for people managers to be greasing the skids of communication and inter-organizational awareness when I'm not bumping into people in the halls.

If a manager needs to do this it’s a smell of other team issues. A solid team is self organizing and delivers. You can mask the smell with someone policing... I guess it kind of works but will always be meh.

A self organizing team is a managers nightmare. They end up transitioning to a QC role which is 1000% better use of their time

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