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The workers have spoken: They're staying home

computerworld.com

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Re: The workers have spoken: They're staying home

#71

Post by mistrial9 »

ghaff wrote: post #23
bunderbunder wrote: post #10

I think that companies might have more success getting people back to the office if they had not also spent the past decade or two systematically updating offices to be beautiful to look at in CAD renderings but awful to actually occupy and try to work in. This move toward not giving permanent desk assignments to people who are required to be in the office also makes it worse. Open plan offices are a bit of a product…

So much relates to commute. I'd probably meander in for a halfway decent office arrangement if it were less than a 30 minute walk and there were actually people I worked with there. But that hasn't been the case so I don't.

traditional urban planning in the USA includes extensive field research that shows .. just what you are saying.. there is a demographic curve about time to commute and who is willing to do it, and how often.. behavior on a large scale across industries, show curves like that

Re: The workers have spoken: They're staying home

#72

Post by mmaunder »

For all the talk about the environment, there are no incentives for companies to reduce commutes. We’re still at only 7% percent of EV cars in the US. Our freeways are packed with gas guzzling engines pumping out smog during rush hours. Reducing the number of commuters is an easy environmental win.

Re: The workers have spoken: They're staying home

#73

Post by wnc3141 »

ghaff wrote: post #23
bunderbunder wrote: post #10

I think that companies might have more success getting people back to the office if they had not also spent the past decade or two systematically updating offices to be beautiful to look at in CAD renderings but awful to actually occupy and try to work in. This move toward not giving permanent desk assignments to people who are required to be in the office also makes it worse. Open plan offices are a bit of a product…

So much relates to commute. I'd probably meander in for a halfway decent office arrangement if it were less than a 30 minute walk and there were actually people I worked with there. But that hasn't been the case so I don't.

I wonder what WFH arrangements in Copenhagen or Amsterdam look like.

Re: The workers have spoken: They're staying home

#74

Post by ryandrake »

jimt1234 wrote: post #14
RiverCrochet wrote: post #7

It shouldn't take me an hour and 30 minutes in congested, underbuilt roads to drive 20 miles into the office. Cities and their wealthy politically-connected commercial office building owners have had decades to fix this problem. No sympathy.

This! ^^^ The powers-that-be have watched commuter times and experiences go to shit and real estate costs skyrocket (forcing people to live further and further from offices) in the last 25 years. Best case, they've done nothing, completely ignoring people's concerns. Worst case, they've actively enabled this situation in order to support the local commercial and residential real estate markets.

Yep, when COVID hit, my commute was 2.5 hours each way, totaling an average of 5 hours in the car every day. Once I got a taste of WFH I decided I'm never going back to that hell. I'd love to be able to afford to live close to the office, but I'm not rich enough to have a similar home in that location, and am not willing to move my family into a shoebox-sized townhome just for a short commute.

Re: The workers have spoken: They're staying home

#75

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

ramesh31 wrote: post #55
buildbot wrote: post #5

Companies get so much more out of people working from home - Microsoft has realized this and still broadly supports remote work.

>Companies get so much more out of people working from home - Microsoft has realized this and still broadly supports remote work. This is what I find so funny. We accomplished more in the two years of full remote than any period before or since. Half the company now runs on software built during that time. But management refuses to acknowledge the fact, and mandated RTO. I am 100% convinced that a full remote team ca…

I got to meet some of my coworkers in person for the first time recently and it was obvious that the structures re: who respects whom that we had built online were ignorant of meaningless physical details like how commanding a presence one has when they enter a room.

This informed my new hypothesis: The people most in opposition to remote work are those who rely on charisma rather than other merits to remain relevant. They're losing the ground on which they have an advantage.

They tend to be tall and with a voice that carries well over a crowd.

Re: The workers have spoken: They're staying home

#76

Post by fencepost »

bunderbunder wrote: post #10

I think that companies might have more success getting people back to the office if they had not also spent the past decade or two systematically updating offices to be beautiful to look at in CAD renderings but awful to actually occupy and try to work in. This move toward not giving permanent desk assignments to people who are required to be in the office also makes it worse. Open plan offices are a bit of a product…

This move toward not giving permanent desk assignments to people who are required to be in the office also makes it worse

If you're required to hot desk you might as well do it someplace more pleasant.

Re: The workers have spoken: They're staying home

#77

Post by godshatter »

I work in an admnistrative office on a university campus. Work from home was great for IT folks, but not so much for a lot of regular staff. Some people had young children that didn't understand that "you can't bother mommy or daddy right now" and it was a constant fight. Some of them had to use their own computers to connect to their machine at work through a vpn, and had a lot of trouble getting that to work. Some had noisy roommates, some of them had problems "turning off" at the end of the day. Some of them had to call students back and didn't have a private place to have those conversations.

There were some that enjoyed it, of course. Also, most everyone in the office loved using Teams to stay connected and it's still used for everything even after we've been back in office for years at this point.

But not everyone lives in an environment where they can just set up a chair on the deck and sip wine while they work on their items for the sprint.

It was a pretty easy sell getting workers back in the office for us. It helped that most people lived less than a 10 minute drive away.

Re: The workers have spoken: They're staying home

#78

Post by BenFranklin100 »

ghaff wrote: post #68
BenFranklin100 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is incredibly short sighted not to provide a dedicated desk.

I suppose it depends on the utilization. Even before COVID I maybe used my desk once every two weeks or so and eventually just gave it up.

Sure, if someone doesn’t care or is infrequently there, then don’t bother. If someone is in the office a few days a week, give ‘em a desk.

Re: The workers have spoken: They're staying home

#79

Post by lifeisstillgood »

Suppafly wrote: post #43
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #20

My problem is that I quite like working with other people. It’s really hard to build relationships with other human beings when not in the same physical location- sharing jokes, lunches, walks and just shouting across the room about the weird code change . It’s vital. Most large companies think that as they are hiring “the best from around the world” that leaving them around the world is fine. Look leaving people on…

>My problem is that I quite like working with other people. Which is fine as long as you understand that the rest of us don't. Most of the push for back to the office is being pushed by extroverted people that miss being about to chat with people and not because of any results driven data.

Don’t think I am a hale and hearty sales lead. I crave quiet me time as much as the next. But the most productive times in a long and varied career have almost always involved a room with 3-5 other focused people. (That and being on my lonesome doing my own thing - which is great but less team work).

As for focusing on results - no thanks. Unless those in the hierarchy get to be judged on those same openly published metrics - no way.

Re: The workers have spoken: They're staying home

#80

Post by ghaff »

wnc3141 wrote: post #73
ghaff wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much relates to commute. I'd probably meander in for a halfway decent office arrangement if it were less than a 30 minute walk and there were actually people I worked with there. But that hasn't been the case so I don't.

I wonder what WFH arrangements in Copenhagen or Amsterdam look like.

Probably somewhat depends if you actually live in the city. When I worked in or went into Boston for customer meetings, I actually lived quite convenient to public transit (commuter rail/subway/walk), but it was still 90-120 minutes each way.
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