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Return to Office Enters the Desperation Phase

nytimes.com

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Re: Return to Office Enters the Desperation Phase

#91

Post by twobitshifter »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #43

Seems like these companies are banking on a recession to impact the job market and reduce labour bargaining power, thereby freeing them to change the WFH situation without significant attrition. It'll be interesting to see who ends up being right.

I saw a video that indicated that the attrition from RTO is desirable for some CEOs. If revenues are falling, its better to have staff leave than it is to announce layoffs. RTO gives them a shield and they can paint the WFH crowd as lazy and not a culture fit.

Re: Return to Office Enters the Desperation Phase

#92

Post by castillar76 »

joezydeco wrote: post #8
Kon-Peki wrote: post #3

> “You can interrupt each other without being rude when you’re in person,” With a large pay increase and a promotion to “guy who remembers stuff so nobody else has to”, I would gladly come into the office and not feel like it was rude to be constantly interrupted. But as it is, my job is “finish the work you asked me to do”, and constant interruption is quite rude, in-person or otherwise.

I took a significant pay increase on a new job with the understanding that the role would be hybrid, two days a week. That was agreed upon above everything else. Our whole team agreed to do the two days so we could have our project meetings in the lab and do our scrums in person. We also acknowledged that the days are shorter because of commuting time and productivity will not be as strong because of the office envir…

It’s awesome that that was agreed to up-front! As COVID eased, a friend who works for a local software shop was worried about the fights they’d have over remote vs. in-office, as they’d had a super-strong in-office culture before. The company threaded the needle on it, though: because all the teams work in pods, the decision was that each pod (6-10 people) would decide by consensus whether to be remote, hybrid, or in-office. They then ran an exchange program to help re-home people on teams that wanted something different. It wasn’t perfect, but the willingness to let each team determine for itself what was best and trust them to make the right decision fairly really worked.

Re: Return to Office Enters the Desperation Phase

#93

Post by bwat49 »

Zetice wrote: post #45
esarbe wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really wondering what kind of downsides you see to WFH; to me, there are only upsides: - no commute - being at home with the people you love and miss - not getting distracted by office drama - simplified work/life integration As a company we're using WFH as a selling point for engineers - they love it.

- Encourages less communication on team - Harder to join team for new members - Harder to learn field for novices - Lack of unit cohesion through informal interactions - Lack of access to equipment and tools necessary to complete job effectively - Lower social interaction - Risk of underworking - Risk of overworking - Unending distractions The list goes on... The interactions that take place when humans are next to o…

> - Unending distractions

I think this bullet point belongs under cons of working in the office. I have FAR less distractions working from home.

Re: Return to Office Enters the Desperation Phase

#94

Post by rektide »

dv_dt wrote: post #83
rektide wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latency is only one of the problems. Most of these services seem to handle audio in a way where they are picking one person as the speaker, and muting or ducking everyone else's audio. Practices like cooperative overlap are technologically inhibited.

Seems like a reasonable feature to more productive meetings in general? In-person meetings can degenerate to unproductive noise if people can't speak in turn. If you don't want the "talking stick" pattern there are other remote spaces where one can all meet online and have multiple conversations simultaneously.

Like what?

Re: Return to Office Enters the Desperation Phase

#95

Post by BaseballPhysics »

twobitshifter wrote: post #91
BaseballPhysics wrote: post #43

Seems like these companies are banking on a recession to impact the job market and reduce labour bargaining power, thereby freeing them to change the WFH situation without significant attrition. It'll be interesting to see who ends up being right.

I saw a video that indicated that the attrition from RTO is desirable for some CEOs. If revenues are falling, its better to have staff leave than it is to announce layoffs. RTO gives them a shield and they can paint the WFH crowd as lazy and not a culture fit.

"If revenues are falling" is a big if. I've seen no real evidence that'd happening, and rather the reverse seems to be occurring: record corporate profits.

Now, granted, tech is an outlier in that a lot of companies ballooned up during the pandemic and are now undoing that mistake, and so your explanation makes sense in that industry, but the push for RTO is happening outside tech as well.

Re: Return to Office Enters the Desperation Phase

#96

Post by 000ooo000 »

Zetice wrote: post #45
esarbe wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really wondering what kind of downsides you see to WFH; to me, there are only upsides: - no commute - being at home with the people you love and miss - not getting distracted by office drama - simplified work/life integration As a company we're using WFH as a selling point for engineers - they love it.

- Encourages less communication on team - Harder to join team for new members - Harder to learn field for novices - Lack of unit cohesion through informal interactions - Lack of access to equipment and tools necessary to complete job effectively - Lower social interaction - Risk of underworking - Risk of overworking - Unending distractions The list goes on... The interactions that take place when humans are next to o…

You keep saying that "the WFH experiment failed" which is disingenuous; you are attempting to lend the credibility of science to your own speculation. You also claim that it failed as a 'universal' approach to work, which is an obvious strawman.

WFH was thrust on a good portion of the world by necessity. It was cobbled together at the last minute so that business could continue, with the typical amount of investment and diligence of a profit-driven entity fully expecting a return to the status quo. To frame WFH over the last 3 years as some deliberate experiment where learnings were sought (and found) is just plain ridiculous.

At best, you can argue that particular roles are best performed, or can only be performed, in an office environment, and that some people prefer the more social environment of an office. Any remark on WFH otherwise is just an anecdote that you're attempting and failing to pass off as a universal truth about WFH.

Re: Return to Office Enters the Desperation Phase

#97

Post by dv_dt »

rektide wrote: post #94
dv_dt wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a reasonable feature to more productive meetings in general? In-person meetings can degenerate to unproductive noise if people can't speak in turn. If you don't want the "talking stick" pattern there are other remote spaces where one can all meet online and have multiple conversations simultaneously.

Like what?

https://www.gather.town/ I feel like is one of the more mature, but there are multiple demos where locational audio meeting can happen.

https://www.meetup.com/blog/virtual-gathering-tools-for-your...

Re: Return to Office Enters the Desperation Phase

#98

Post by minerva23 »

> "In a Zoom conversation, you have to let somebody finish their thought.”

Tell me your company doesn't use headsets without telling me.

Seriously, if their major complaint is half-duplex audio, just make sure everyone is using headsets so everyone can speak and listen at the same time.

Re: Return to Office Enters the Desperation Phase

#99

Post by kcplate »

nness wrote: post #32
bluefishinit wrote: post #15

> “You can interrupt each other without being rude when you’re in person,” said Mr. Medina, whose company, Outreach, is now in the office on a hybrid basis. “In a Zoom conversation, you have to let somebody finish their thought.” How is this not admitting that WFH is superior? If it puts a damper on people like this who feel it's their right to interrupt your thoughts, it's only a good thing. This article title may s…

I can't recall a WFH article that didn't just boil down to a CEO or adjacent just "vibing" things weren't working.

Yes, but can you actually prove them wrong with real data? Everybody I know advocating WFH (including myself FWIW) tend to use words that amount to their own “vibes” that they are more personally productive but I rarely hear people moving beyond feelings and anecdotes about their personal productivity and into real data that shows benefits to the organization far beyond the individual.

Until WFH advocates can do that, a CEO’s vibe is going to trump their vibes all day long.

Re: Return to Office Enters the Desperation Phase

#100

Post by joezydeco »

castillar76 wrote: post #92
joezydeco wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took a significant pay increase on a new job with the understanding that the role would be hybrid, two days a week. That was agreed upon above everything else. Our whole team agreed to do the two days so we could have our project meetings in the lab and do our scrums in person. We also acknowledged that the days are shorter because of commuting time and productivity will not be as strong because of the office envir…

It’s awesome that that was agreed to up-front! As COVID eased, a friend who works for a local software shop was worried about the fights they’d have over remote vs. in-office, as they’d had a super-strong in-office culture before. The company threaded the needle on it, though: because all the teams work in pods, the decision was that each pod (6-10 people) would decide by consensus whether to be remote, hybrid, or in…

That is really nice to hear. I'm glad it worked out.
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