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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?

#81

Post by rurp »

sanderjd wrote: post #63
justaguy88 wrote: post #8

> Employees were also expected to "live within commuting distance" of offices. I can't see how the must-be-in-office companies think they win this in the long term. All the companies that want to poach from FAANG will offer remote work

Something a lot of comments here seem to be missing: lots of people (anecdotally I would say it's most people) prefer an office to working remotely. So companies that don't offer remote work will limit their hiring pool a bit, but remote-only companies will also limit their hiring pool by turning off people who want to go into an office.

Sure but before the pandemic probably 99% of office jobs were onsite. If 15% of workers prefer remote while only 1% of companies operate that way, being remote will be a competitive advantage for companies that do it for the foreseeable future.

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

#82

Post by midrus »

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…

Same here. I'm already full remote, but if for any reason I weren't, I'd be looking for a new job immediately. Nothing is going to convince me to go back to open office plans. No amount of money will convince me of that. I'm happy to earn less if that's the necessary sacrifice.

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

#83

Post by sanderjd »

dnndev wrote: post #80
sanderjd wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No, it is inefficient for all team members to be tied into the priorities of and in communication with all other relevant parts of the organization. Specialization is good.

I often feel like people started swinging the pendulum away from manager-as-micromanaging-supervisor, and just letting it keep swinging to managers-are-pointless, and failed to notice when it swung past the useful managers-as-support-staff equilibrium point between those extremes.

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

#84

Post by sanderjd »

rurp wrote: post #81
sanderjd wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something a lot of comments here seem to be missing: lots of people (anecdotally I would say it's most people) prefer an office to working remotely. So companies that don't offer remote work will limit their hiring pool a bit, but remote-only companies will also limit their hiring pool by turning off people who want to go into an office.

Sure but before the pandemic probably 99% of office jobs were onsite. If 15% of workers prefer remote while only 1% of companies operate that way, being remote will be a competitive advantage for companies that do it for the foreseeable future.

Agreed, I do think there will be a lot of rebalancing going on. Though I think your numbers are a bit off; this was already a phenomenon pre-pandemic, though I do agree that it will accelerate.

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

#85

Post by loco5niner »

outside1234 wrote: post #9
k__ wrote: post #5

Any sufficiently big company is working remote already, because not all employees fit in one room or even one building. Working from home is just a small step after that.

I think there is an advantage to having folks in the office one day a week. The pandemic has shown us that we definitely can work from home - but on the other hand it also sucks to only see your teammates exclusively on zoom. I think there is room to find a more rational engineering culture that balances the time and carbon from your commute with the fact that we are all human and need some face to face.

> but on the other hand it also sucks to only see your teammates exclusively on zoom

Doesn't bother me

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

#86

Post by abdabab »

DeRock wrote: post #74
skwirl wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

According to Forbes it’s 50B+: https://news.yahoo.com/google-doubles-down-commercial-real-1...

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

#87

Post by marcind »

darkwizard42 wrote: post #50
outside1234 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is an advantage to having folks in the office one day a week. The pandemic has shown us that we definitely can work from home - but on the other hand it also sucks to only see your teammates exclusively on zoom. I think there is room to find a more rational engineering culture that balances the time and carbon from your commute with the fact that we are all human and need some face to face.

Agreed on both points. I mean my biggest pet peeve is just drawing a simple diagram. No drawing tools seem to be as good as a good old fashioned white board. This is especially true when trying to make a system diagram on the fly or come back to a previous discussion...

Couldn't agree more! That's the exact reason why we're working on our app (sharetheboard.com). If you're willing, I'd love some feedback on the app (or roadmap, for that matter).
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