I’ve never seen so many companies so aligned on one thing like they are aligned on “people must return to the office”. It’s like they are all reading the same thing in the same HBR article and colluding together to write the exact same things in those all-hands emails. You normally can’t get companies to agree on anything, but when it comes to work-from-office, suddenly they all say the exact same words. So eerie!
Me? I’m never going back! WFH has been such a lifestyle improvement, productivity improvement, mental health improvement, family life improvement, cost improvement, and social/freetime improvement, nothing will convince me to return to my crushing commute.
> You normally can’t get companies to agree on anything, but when it comes to work-from-office, suddenly they all say the exact same words. So eerie!
there's a lot of vested interest in commercial real-estate. Offices is the biggest part of commercial real estate, and drops in their use over the long term is unexpected when the people who invested in these properties paid their capital - therefore, it makes sense that there's a lot of think-tanks that are pushing for the idea that return-to-office is required. The business rags that the management-level people often read and get their ideas from are fraught with such think-tank biases.
Unfortunately, it does work.
WFH will be a privilege that one would have to reduce their salary for in the medium to long term.
Our CTO starts every meeting with a “reminder that working remotely is a privilege and can change at a minute” but everything I find in the HR trade press seems to indicate we are well past privilege. The rhetorical question is why are we still paying for a sixty story sky rise that is occupied by a dozen people on any day. I do know the answer to that question but still - I have no intention of going back. If remote work was revoked tomorrow I might go in for a couple weeks while I interview but that’s going to be it.
> If remote work was revoked tomorrow I might go in for a couple weeks while I interview but that’s going to be it.
but what if there just aren't many companies offering the same remote that is being offered today? And companies that _do_ offer remote could then lower their salary because they know there's a glut of applicants wanting remote.
As long as there is a shortage of talent, companies will do what it takes to attract them. If company A can't get people, because everyone is going to company B for WFH benefits, company A will offer it too.
And there is still a shortage of people... The recent layoffs will result in resources moving around, not a severe shortage of positions.
The dynamic is not that simple. Remote companies do offer a lower salary than they would in person - as you don't have to pay for commute, and you can live in Wyoming.
But not all remote companies are interested in a race to the bottom. If they were, they'd only hire from LatAm, Africa, and South Asia.
IBM was playing that game since the 90s - you can keep your job, but you have to relocate to a third world country, at your own expense, and be paid the local rate, in the local currency. It was designed to be a raw deal that nobody would accept - we didn’t lay people off, they resigned rather then take relocation offer.
Of course IBM stopped being relevant and fizzled out years ago, I can’t remember the last time I ran into anyone using their products or services, so I guess all their shady HR maneuvering was a loss in the end.
I suspect the story will be that a few companies will try to reduce the salaries of their remote workers, it will backfire when they jump ship to better offers, and in the end companies will just be happy they don’t have to pay for real estate, office perks, parking, travel, and all the other stuff.
The people who do go into the office will have to bring their own toilet paper - twitter style.
IBM seems to be mainly doing consultancy stuff now. From what I can see they don't really know what they want to be, they seem to be scavenging for scraps in the market, lacking a clear strategy. They dabble a bit in everything from processors, servers, services to software but don't really shine anywhere.
We used them as a data center provider for a while but they were really bad, doing stuff like scheduling backups during peak times. We have some consultancy suits on the floor like the ones from Deloitte too, mainly for "old boys network" reasons I think because they're not particularly knowledgeable.
I think they'll be around mainly to support all their legacy but I don't really see them driving any technology anymore.
> it will backfire when they jump ship to better offers
which means they're offering too low if people would jump ship and yet get the same privileges. What i'm specifically talking about is the WFH premium, all else being equal.
I may have some gripes with my company, but I’m thankful they’re not trying to float a return to the office—and will not any time soon.
We’ve drastically downsized our real estate. Dozens of leases terminated, including our previous skyscraper headquarters. My old office doesn’t exist anymore.
Now I just hope they don’t get catch the “6%” fever that’s been going around.
I have a feeling the HBR articles in question are submarine outputs from owners of commercial properties that are frantically trying to get back to the days of fat rent checks from companies, office 'planners' that make a living finding ever-diabolical arrangements to improve 'collaboration', and 'masters' of various ilk whose sole purpose in life is to grind down any sign of happiness and creativity under the bloody thumb of 'process'.
The other side of that is in the US office workers long distance commuting costs probably half to one trillion a year. Oh sure the employees pay for that. But the companies pay the employees. So it's really coming out of the companies pocket.
I've been in the workforce for about 9 years. The first three years were as a technician that required me working on site. The last 6 of which, I've worked from home in DevOps and other engineering roles. I can't even fathom what it means to work in an office. I didn't even realize people in tech worked in offices because I never did. It's weird to me that this is even controversial.
On one hand they do read the same articles, on the other, the set of investors and owners is much smaller, and generally older/more resistant to change than the people who run the companies companies, and these investors are likely the ones that put this pressure on everyone. Hence why it all sounds the exact same.
Most managers are extroverts and thrive on micro-managing. It's doing their head in that staff can be given tasks and stuff gets done without their constant interference.
WFH of course doesn't apply to the majority of tangible work, but then again it doesn't get done in offices either.
Both onboarding and mentoring are tasks which do not need shared office presence to accomplish effectively, they just require a bit of work and an update to the generic process everyone has been using for decades. If your company's onboarding or mentoring process fails with remote employees then it is probably worth spending a bit of time working on the process instead of trying to cling to old habits.
In my experience its only the shit tier new hires that struggle - they are more likely to start getting ignored when they keep asking lazy/stupid questions.
I think there is something there about the micro-managing. A company is "buying" a certain amount of time from you, and wants to make sure it is squeezing the absolute maximum they can(and even more). Working from home means they cannot keep track of your every minute, and you may be ... gasp ... stealing time from them
WFH is honestly like a pay rise. Money and time saved on transport, on takeaway food. Quality of food and life goes up, quality of my work goes up with it.
Our company negotiated with staff on a case by case. Depending on the role, some negotiated partial WFH, others full time WFH.
Microsoft Teams has been a key aspect. In our company at least, Teams has been a transformative success.
It's not possible to take the day off and pretend you're still there... By all means, Managers can still micro-manage or check in just as effectively over Teams as they can in the office. You either get shit done, or you don't.
A lot of workers want to go back to the office, too.
The social, career, and daily experiences of in-person office work have a wide number of tangible benefits that can’t be replicated sitting at home on the computer.
Just spending 1 or 2 more hours with your family (rather than commuting) completely eclipses whatever subtle advantages an office can provide. And I feel sorry for anyone who would disagree with that.
Well that's all well and good for those of you who live with your families, or who even have family at all. For a lot of people, WFH means all the more isolation and loneliness, those fleeting moments of human contact becoming fewer and fewer.
Think about it, spending most of your week all on your own in the same room, with no one and nothing to keep you company except your own thoughts and some bits of text on a glaring LCD screen. Humans weren't meant to live like this.
I feel sorry for anyone that has to live > 10 minutes away from the office.
Before working from home full time I lived 10 minutes away from the office. If you do the math you have to compute the difference in rent/mortgage between a house 1+ hours away from work vs. 10 minutes then factor in driving that car, potential risk of auto accident, health issues due to added stress of leaving for work on time and driving with others...
> And I feel sorry for anyone who would disagree with that.
each person to their own. Office, for those who love it, is fine - there's nothing wrong with wanting a social setting for work.
The only problem is when such desire could prevent the WFH folks from getting what they want. Both _should_ be allowed to exist, and the workers choose for themselves without coercion or pressure.
Also worth noting that for a lot of men in particular, basically their entire social network consists almost entirely of current (and a few past) work colleagues.
Here are 15 about working from home from my perspective:
- It eliminates the need for spending time commuting, which becomes free time.
- It eliminates most of the need for spending money on a car that sits still most of the time. To the degree that I don't even own a car right now and just Uber/taxi/bus everywhere and rent when I actually need one.
- I get to spend more time with my partner and pets.
- I get to live wherever the hell I want so long as I have decent Internet available.
- I will always be able to use a beefy desktop computer instead of a slow laptop and a lesser set-up.
- I am able to tend to home duties that require people at home (such as receiving packages or maintenance workers).
- I can exert vastly more control over distractions and end up more productive.
- Lunch time is far less of a concern (not restricted to tupperware-compatible foods) and cheaper (since there's more home-cooked options available, I order less food overall).
- I get to have specialty coffee whenever I want, however I want, real proper espresso included.
- If I'm not feeling it after lunch, I can be available on Slack on-demand during the day in order not to block anyone and then do focus-demanding tasks late at night.
- I like listening to somewhat loud music and I don't like wearing headphones all day.
- I don't have to worry about being "office presentable" every day for a long streak of hours. Meaning less effort, more time, and for some people, more money.
- I don't feel as much pressure to attend after-office events when I'm not feeling up to it.
- Even when an office is equipped for powernapping, it can't compare to my own bed in the privacy of my home.
- And speaking of: If you don't have the luxury of living in a neighborhood where opportunist burglars aren't a thing, your presence will dissuade most of them from going into your home.
I am not part of the crew that absolutely rules out going back to an office ever in their lives. But there is a big number attached to it during negotiation that matches the huge life improvement that WFH is for me.
Not the OP. I understand my situation might be a bit specific, but I'm a single guy living in a small apartment in his very early 30s with not a lot of friends and family (important point that my commute to the office is a 15 minute walk). We basically have an unlimited WFH policy, but I still like to spend at least 2-3 days in the office as I've noticed it has some strong benefits. There might not be exactly 10 of them, but for me it's definitely enough.
- It's something that makes me leave the house
- I've found that being around people has a positive effect on my mental health and general wellbeing
- As I live in a small apartment, I don't have the desk space for a multi monitor setup I would prefer
- The coffee is just way better than the one I am able to make at home
- It's an occasion when I have to look presentable, so I'm taking better care of myself
So going forward, we need to realize people are in different situations, situations can change and if the employers care about their employees the WFH option needs to stay.
It eliminates the need for spending time commuting, which becomes free time.
Expanding on this:
Not commuting means one is also not contributing to traffic congestion, not emitting CO2, reducing fuel consumption, extending the life of the vehicle, not being at risk of traffic collision.
That last bit seems to be a big one that insurance companies should favor. Reduction of time on the road is a reduction of risk of injury. In my opinion WFH should also be a reason to reduce automotive insurance costs.
Many benefits. But one downside he mentioned was that he doesn’t generate research ideas through planned 30-minute one-on-one interactions but through more unstructured conversations. Those are eliminated with virtual seminars and virtual conferences. Early-career folks might struggle too but I am not sure if that was articulated by his research.
I've been working in IT for 30 odd years, 24 entirely office based, 6 some combination of hybrid and home, and in my view the argument that innovation and creativity are uniquely fostered by interactions in the office is seriously over-stated.
This is obviously just annecdata, but in my working life I can think of literally zero ideas which emerged from just happening to run into someone in the canteen or one of the corridors. Most work conversations are vacuous, time-wasting bullshit. Fun if you've nothing better to do, and nice for greasing the social wheels, but rarely a source of brilliant transformation.
In a depressingly large number of work spaces, creativity and innovation are rarely relevant to your job description anyway. You're not there to transform the business. You're there to churn through whatever piece of nonsense has been handed down from on high, and since in quite a significant number of cases the work you've been given will make zero practical difference to the overall well-being of the company it doesn't really matter if you do it well or badly.
Even if that weren't the case, what is it that is supposed to make serendipitous encounters inherently better than structured idea development? Are we really supposed to believe that just happening to encounter the person who holds the missing puzzle piece of what you're working on are exactly the moment you need it is the best way of generating transformative ideas? I'm not saying that such random encounters don't happen and can't be significant. But one reason these things turn into corporate legends is because they are rare and outlandish. "I said something in a taxi or a bar and someone else said something that turned into $$$" is a story, whereas, "I was stuck so I laid out the problem in a Slack channel or took it to on online brainstorming session and a couple of my co-workers helped me fix it" isn't. But that's because the first case is a weird freaky miracle, and the second is just an ordinary, effective way of running a business.
I seem to recall Xerox Parc was designed to foster serendipitous meetings between departments.
Some individuals probably feel much more productive because they're able to work without interruption. My guess is that because serendipity is reduced, variation between employees is growing, and useful techniques aren't being shared.
> I seem to recall Xerox Parc was designed to foster serendipitous meetings between departments.
This has been a common argument about returning to office, especially for R&D jobs. But in my experience in corp R&D, people are so busy in meetings/running between conference rooms, there isn't even enough time to get their actual work done, let alone do free-form discussion. ICs end up using the after-work hours to do most of their work.
WFH actually solves that -- people can stay longer for meetings near the end of the day because they are already home, and don't need to beat the traffic.
You responded to your mental image of my comment about his work rather than to his actual work. His work is not N=1. If you just open the link, you see. Keep an open mind.
I haven’t heard one person say they want to go back to office everyday of the week. Let alone majority of the week. When asked in a group at work everyone feels pressured to say they miss in office work but I really doubt anyone would say that if they knew it wouldn’t make them look bad.
I would be okay with once a week, or perhaps once a fortnight.
Sprint planning sessions can be hard to get everyone engaged, but it isn't impossible.
Retro can be remote, the biggest issue has been, is, and always will be teams that have no control and are dependent on other teams to do anything, don't write their own tickets and don't have an easily viewable plan that they can work towards.
Me? I’m never going back! WFH has been such a lifestyle improvement, productivity improvement, mental health improvement, family life improvement, cost improvement, and social/freetime improvement, nothing will convince me to return to my crushing commute.