Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

741–750 of 969 posts

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#741

Post by bayarearefugee »

randomfool wrote: post #571
intended wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 is real, this is what was behind Amazon’s RTO mandates. Its designed to ensure that people decide to quit.

From a source closely involved with this- Amazon tracks many productivity metrics of employees and was seeing very significant differences between in-person and remote people, which drove the decision. Source left since so I don’t know how much productivity has improved. Advice to new grads: get into the office 5 days a week for at least a few years.

> From a source closely involved with this

Bueller?

He's sick. My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from a guy who knows a kid who's going with the girl who saw him pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I think it's serious.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#742

Post by wing-_-nuts »

vhcr wrote: post #554
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Someone closer to retirement with a lot of savings and low expenses will have a completely different answer than a younger person with low savings and a family. Maybe this is the way companies rid themselves of older workers who push back on things. The FIRE movement is huge in tech, and I imagine a not insignificant number of people have RTO as the last straw where they pull the ripcord. Personally, for me? There's…

This study found the opposite. https://www.library.hbs.edu/working-knowledge/charting-remot...

Could you outline the opposite findings for me?

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#743

Post by lloeki »

mrweasel wrote: post #688
bilekas wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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?

a.k.a Dead Sea effect

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#744

Post by realusername »

blacklion wrote: post #732
tigeroil wrote: post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the simple and boring answer is it really depends. As you say, your commute is short, but also I think there's just a personality element to it. Some people absolutely thrive and are way more productive remotely (and I think HN skews towards that type of person), and other people are the opposite, losing their minds if they don't have colleagues beside them to talk and collaborate with.

> I think the simple and boring answer is it really depends Yep, people are different. > are way more productive remotely Is this measured, or they are feel more productive? (I think, answer is the same: there is full spectrum here and somebody is less productive but feels more productive and somebody is really more productive and, maybe, feels the same :-)) But my previous team (where I worked at the peak of COVID)…

Depends of your company, I personally meet my team roughly every 3 months and I push back any task on the calendar because I know the days in the office aren't even half the productivity of the usual remote days. I even avoid big deployments during these days.

Remote is usually all focused work and the office time is mostly coffee chats and random interruptions of unrelated subjects because on how much easier it is to ping people.

So on my case it's the opposite, I'm a bit skeptical you can achieve the level of focus you have in a remote team in a standard open space, that would require some discipline that not everybody has.

Not to mention the abomination of the open space with no reserved desk so you aren't even guaranteed to sit close to your team, removing the only potential useful advantage of being on-site.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#745

Post by dijit »

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.

Sure, I'm on both sides depending on the situation so I can help here.

"Collaboration" and "communication" are definitely issues, as employers state openly, but not for the reasons you think.

I worked in a fully remote company for the last three years, I selected people who I knew would be independently motivated and who knew how to communicate effectively in an async manner.

Yet, there were issues still in communication that would have been solved with being able to hear someones tone and body language. Little issues spiralled out of control- and lack of trust crept in when people were quietly doing work that had very small visibility (but was important).

I'm not saying remote work was the reason, but remote work exacerbated certain particular issues in this dimension- eventually the founders (who had lost trust) started laying off people they perceived as not important, despite them being fundamental to any future in which the project would be successful.

You'll also notice that the companies that care the most about RTO do not invest in communication in other ways, they'll probably use awful communication software like Teams, WebEx - or in marginally better cases: Zoom.. and since people don't like to interface with these tools (and they're poor even when you do): there can be a feeling of being out of the loop from upper management as they don't know what's going on.. they just see radio silence.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#746

Post by magic_hamster »

xtracto wrote: post #278

Just out of curiosity, how much compensation would people be willing to leave on the table in lieu of "Remote" work? (this is different to, how much would you ASK to go from remote to a new in-office job). 10%, 25%, 50%? I've worked remotely for 5 years now, and there is NO way I would return to an office based job. I even have moved to a small town where there are practically 0 tech jobs; and at this point there's N…

> Maybe it is my age (44), or maybe I am even in a privileged position financially

You think? I was so sure that anyone who can get by without working would immediately rush to upend their life and suffer the many annoyances of working in an office! /s

If it wasn't obvious, a lot people don't have a choice. They can always leave, but this RTO thing is everywhere and it's not so easy working remotely nowadays.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#747

Post by cmiles74 »

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?

It’s likely members of their company’s board cares.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#749

Post by devnullbrain »

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.

>Preferably with evidence

Sorry, can't do that. But my take is:

There is a part of the population that are opportunistic freeloaders. People who don't have intrinsic motivation to do their work but do it to avoid the consequences.

I think it's a pretty big part of the population! And I also think that, while managers are likely to have encountered them, reaching a software development role (and then choosing to spend your spare time commenting on HN) filters out a lot of them. So there is a mismatch where managers want to defend against the freeloaders while the employees commenting here can't accept the lack of trust inherent in the mandate and won't countenance the micro-management needed to prove that trust would be earned.

I think it also partly explains why we've failed to see remote companies gain a competitive advantage in hiring. They have adverse selection for active freeloaders.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#750

Post by bluGill »

scarface_74 wrote: post #471
bluGill wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is really two hours by a reasonable route then you likely have a case that the commute is unreasonable and you would not have taken the job without them paying moving expenses if it offered that way. Therefore they need to offer moving expenses. I'd ask the boss first as they may have contacts in hr that can handle this. If they won't offer moving expenses odds are you can convince an unemployment judge this is…

$1019 a week - the maximum in Washington - is not nothing. But it’s not life changing.

It is enough to survive if you cut back, hopefully long enough to find a new job.

If it is worth that risk is up to you. I won't call you stupid for not taking it. You can also accept it for the moment and start sending out resumes while working. It will take a little longer but there are other jobs.

Post reply on HN