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I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office. Cost issues aside, I've always maintained that the absolute best

I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office. Cost issues aside, I've always maintained that the absolute best experience is a hybrid/flexible schedule and location policy. I'm currently full time remote (I'm on the East Coast working for a West Coast company). My previous company had its main office in my current city, but allowed a super flexible choose-where-you-work-from policy. It was the best. Didn't feel like dealing with the commute or had a ton of heads down work to do? Stay at home. Wanted to go in to be present for meetings? Easy. Start the day at the office and go home to finish off the day and avoid the commute? Sure. Of course they made it possible by actively managing it. No meetings before 11am ET (to accomodate those in different TZs). Every scheduled meeting required a Zoom/conference link. Dedicated offices were set up as "conference rooms" so remote people could call in. And of course, people all the way up the ladder worked from home at least some of the time. Being full remote doesn't work for everyone. Providing a space for those who want it is such a huge quality of life bonus imo. But the biggest factor is creating a culture of inclusion, despite your employees working preferences. This is the hardest thing to do, especially at scale.

cm2012 5y ago
The companies mandating 100% office time are doing so because their particular executive teams are nuts about it. See Netflix.
- r3trohack3r 5y ago
  Netflix is now hiring full time remote for engineering, reporting to the office post COVID is optional. Source: I’m a full time engineer happily working out of the PHX suburbs. Personally, I have no intention of returning to the Bay Area.
  - cm2012 5y ago
    That's cool, I guess Reed Hastings saw the writing on the wall since his September screed against remote work.
  - mech422 5y ago
    Hey Neighbor! I'm in Mesa :-) There's dozens of us...dozens :-D
- TuringNYC 5y ago
  To me it is a cost issue. Living within 5-day-a-week commuting distance to an office is expensive for the weighted majority of technology jobs. You are trading space/rent for facetime. That is fine, but the salaries for 5-day-a-week-from-office jobs need to compensate for this -- not just for execs, but also for normal workers. Living in a 1br was charming as a 25yo, and not so much for someone with a family. Driving for 1hr+ is also not so charming. As a former co-founder, i'd happily take this trade -- 1. Not compete on city salaries 2. Employees 100% WFH, work from wherever you want. NO salary grading based on metro area (that is so unfair) 3. Quarterly on-site, paid for by company 4. Invest in processes to enable good WFH productivity
  - ghaff 5y ago
    No salary grading, at least within a country, is easier when you don't try to compete at the high end. And it's effectively what a lot of companies do anyway even if they don't say so publicly. If someone can get a job with one of the big tech employers in the Bay Area and they want to work there, a lot of companies won't even try to salary match.
  - kritiko 5y ago
    Your trade assumes that none of your employees will want to live in a high cost of living area if given the opportunity to WFH. If their age / hobbies / etc. make city living attractive you will need to compensate them appropriately or be unable to attract them. I love living in the city. If work wants to keep me remote, I need an extra bedroom or dedicated office space.
    - TuringNYC 5y ago
      >> Your trade assumes that none of your employees will want to live in a high cost of living area if given the opportunity to WFH. If their age / hobbies / etc. make city living attractive you will need to compensate them appropriately or be unable to attract them. This is a fair point. Not sure if you're from the US, but I'll note that the weighted majority of all US technology job opportunities are in cities and major metro areas. If someone wants to live in a high-cost-of-living area, thats a great problem to have, because probably half the tech jobs are already there in the Bay Area especially. There is also no shortage of compensation in such high-cost-of-living areas.
trentnix 5y ago
I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office. I doubt it lasts, at least in software. Talented people are going to have lots of remote options making it harder to find good people willing to show up for daily cubicle warfare. I was someone who preferred to be in the office every day prior to the pandemic. But after adjusting, I really, really like working from home. Truth is, I can't imagine I'll ever take another job that expects me to show up to an actual office everyday. I'm sure I'm not the only one.
- blunte 5y ago
  No you're certainly not the only one. I've found a good way to filter recruiters is to tell them up front, "I will only do full remote with occasional, non-regular office visits." Once you've tasted freedom...
  - mech422 5y ago
    I've been doing this for 20 years now... Surprisingly, the recruiters are starting to answer "sure - no problem..." :-)
- munificent 5y ago
  > Talented people are going to have lots of remote options making it harder to find good people willing to show up for daily cubicle warfare. I worry a lot about how this cuts the bottom rungs off the ladder for junior developers. Senior developers can be very productive without frequent access to in-person help, and are valuable enough that they can get work-from-home if they want. But junior developers have more frequent questions, need to absorb software engineering culture, and need to have more work and task structure created for them. Remote work is really hard for them.
  - randmeerkat 5y ago
    When I was a junior engineer I preferred remote work. It was easier to screen share with a senior and talk about the problem over a computer screen where I could actually see the code, than it was to squint from over their shoulder. It also gave me the chance to drive and for the senior to correct my mistakes / give me feedback.
JackFr 5y ago
> I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office Informal communication, informal collaboration, a culture of apprenticeship. To the extent that the organization values these they are all served much better in person than remote. All companies and all people are different. There isn't a one size fits all. But it's not like there are no benefits to in person.
- splatcollision 5y ago
  > Informal communication, informal collaboration, a culture of apprenticeship You're right of course, those qualities don't naturally occur remotely. However, and I know I'm slightly taking your use of "culture" out of context, but "Culture" is often code for any number of implicit biases in a workplace. Known or unknown. If you don't fit in, for whatever reason, can you still not be a productive asset in the corporation?
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    > but "Culture" is often code for any number of implicit biases in a workplace I'm old. Tell me about it. I am not a "cultural fit" in companies, these days. So I am doing my own thing. I'm extremely fortunate, in being able to do this. I'm also never going into an office, or relocating, again.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    “A culture of apprenticeship” shares the word “culture” but isn’t at all the thing that you’re concerned about.
  - hallarempt 5y ago
    "You're right of course, those qualities don't naturally occur remotely." In my experience, they do... It's how a project like Krita has grown naturally for over twenty years, bringing in new people, teaching them, having them become productive. Of course, meeting in person, once or twice a year is important. But there's no need for offices for us.
- onion2k 5y ago
spurdoman77 5y ago
Trust issues. While 80% of employees could be more productive remote, 18% could have serious issues with productivity and 2% might actually turn nefarious while remote (steal company IPR or something like that). Or I would imagine thats what the fear is.
- nvilcins 5y ago
  People underestimate how unproductive (or nefarious) one can be in office.
  - metamet 5y ago
    I feel like it's much easier to not do anything when it looks like you're doing something at your desk all day. Mix in a few meetings and random chats, it's very easy to go incognito, productivity wise. I think we've all had days where we've gotten to the office and had a problem we're working on that doesn't get solved that day. It is actually really taxing and feels really bad to not accomplish anything, as if you've wasted the day. I've found that the ability to more strictly control distractions at home--not needing to deal with the pressure to chat with co-workers and eat lunch together, for example--has led to far, far fewer days of no-solution. At the same time, it becomes even hard to "give up" on that day's productivity and clock out, since there's no real leaving the office.
- heyitsguay 5y ago
  Isn't this a process failure? At least for that hypothetical 18%. If you have a product roadmap with well-defined milestones and good weekly accountability, it should be clear very quickly if someone is underperforming. There may be people who don't want to work remotely, but that's again why having a flexible+hybrid WFH approach seems like the best of all worlds.
- dv_dt 5y ago
  The numbers are probably close to the same in office too, only the 2% (or whatever percentage it is), ends up with more access to physical capital to steal in office. Personally, I hope the future for work becomes as remote as possible as near to a 4 day week as possible.
CapitalistCartr 5y ago
A few really need it; most don't. Their managers and executives put their own desires ahead of the best interests of the organization, and what they desire is to have their ego stroked.
fiftyfifty 5y ago
The company I work for actually suggested getting rid of our office and going 100% remote for our group. We actually voted on whether to keep leasing it after Covid or not. We voted to keep it as we generally like our office and it's nice to have a place to meet face to face sometimes. Since we voted to keep it corporate has told us we have to come in at least 3 days a week after Covid. So for us it's less an issue of trust and more an issue of we are paying for this place so you better use it.
- blunte 5y ago
  That's a good approach. I think a lot of companies are going to downsize their office space in the future. Having a company place to meet is a good idea. I predict there will be some variants of WeWork which will focus on this concept, basically providing rotating company spaces - possibly complete with branding and decorations which would be swapped out each morning for the "company of the day".
  - PicassoCTs 5y ago
    Branding can be done with screens. Logos can be done with screens. Fascinating idea, basically a pop-up company..
- mgkimsal 5y ago
  Your physical space may be nice, but if not... would they have allocated a budget to pay for dedicated space at a local coworking facility? I totally get wanting face time with people as needed (or wanted), or just needing a change of place from the house. That option may be less expensive than a 'full office', but still give you all what you need - space for shared meetings and work.
- pmontra 5y ago
  Wouldn't be wiser to get rid of the original office and rent some much smaller space, maybe only meeting rooms?
- cableshaft 5y ago
  My company was so ahead of the curve they decided to get rid of the office a full year and a half before the pandemic started! Of course that was just to save money, since it was an expensive lease, apparently, but it did have the benefit that I didn't have any worries they'd force me to come back into the office once the pandemic started, or I'd have to go back to pack up my desk like my wife eventually had to when she changed jobs. Other than a really rocky shift of our in-house data center into one of the main corporate data centers, it hasn't resulted in much difference as far as productivity, in fact we've been getting away with about half the staff maintaining the same systems (probably to our detriment if people end up leaving, we don't have much redundancy anymore). Just makes me a little hesitant to find a new job because after three years I'm really used to WFH and I'm worried most other companies are itching to get people back into physical offices (like my wife will probably need to by the end of the year at her new job), even though there's not really any more room for me to grow at this organization in the next year or two based on what I've heard lately.
mumblemumble 5y ago
> I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office. Hot take: There's a whole way of communicating and handling team organization that grew up around 20th century business management culture, and it just doesn't work well with remote teams. Methods that do work well with remote teams, though, don't work well with traditional deeply hierarchical management structures. At best, they tend to make all those management layers somewhat superfluous. This means getting people back into the office may be a matter of self-preservation for career managers, whether they realize it consciously or not.
- UnpossibleJim 5y ago
  LOL, this might be one of the biggest truths I've ever read on HN. An expanded, micromanagement style of leadership just isn't necessary in a remote style office. Trust in your employees and a flatter structure, with fewer executives and more people who produce is ideal for a remote office business style. This is a direct contrast to the mantra of the 80's, 90's and 2000's logic of grind it out for as short a time as possible producing and move to middle management. It's been a detriment to our school system and many businesses. Lifetime crafters/creators/producers are looked down upon in our society, more often than not.
  - blunte 5y ago
    This is a depressingly accurate assessment of the last 30 years. The only hope I hold is that people with shared creative interests will eventually prevail. The pessimist in me also considers that the allowed monopolies will then buy up those creative successes.
    - rabidrat 5y ago
      As long as they are paying decent prices for those creative successes (so the creators can have a comfortable retirement with healthcare in the US), this is not the worst outcome.
      - 5y ago
datavirtue 5y ago
The top level policy is often butts-in-seats but supervisors typically just let people do what they want to do. The VPN is there, we all have laptops...no one is running around complaining about Bob or Jill working from home when they feel like it. This is my observation of many knowledge workers' departments in various companies.
zamalek 5y ago
> I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office. Beliefs and dogma. Amazon's justification was "Amazon is an in-office culture." That ultimately boils down to circular reasoning; the key decision maker (whoever they are) has demonstrated an immense lack of critical reasoning. Continuing this practice is in the same realm as continuing other hostile workplace traditions, although it is one of the less serious ones. In my opinion, it is wasting a lot of money in the form of productivity. Every employee who commutes to the office has an overwhelmingly high likelihood of having some of their mental resources drained. You're wasting a good hour or two of superior employee performance in the morning, and possibly some near the end of the day when employees start dreading the journey home. > biggest factor is creating a culture of inclusion This is a very important point. One of the major ongoing reasons that women are passed over for promotions is that they are the traditional/dogmatic caregivers. Home-first equalizes this, much like paternal leave does. If a home is unable to afford child-care, then men have just as much responsibility and distraction during work hours. Some people may struggle to afford commute, for example, people escaping homelessness. Being able to work from home would reduce the burden on these people. In addition, those who cannot causally/physically complete their job offsite (doctors, construction workers, tellers, baristas) won't have roads and public transport congested with people who have no business traveling to work. > Dedicated offices were set up as "conference rooms" We need conference rooms as an API. I should be able to add (and be billed for) a physical room to a meeting request as easily as adding a Zoom/GMeet - for when in-person collaboration is really needed. WeWork was in the ideal position to do this, it's a pity they doubled down on big corporate clients instead of "gig economy rooms."
- throwaway3699 5y ago
  > We need conference rooms as an API. Is this not pretty much how things work on Google Calendar or Outlook?
  - zamalek 5y ago
    Only if you own those rooms.
comeonseriously 5y ago
>I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office. Because most managers have a reactionary style of management. They are like IRQ handlers. Their state doesn't change until they receive an email from their boss or a phone call from a customer. At that point they react to it by running down the hall to find someone. Now, because they do not understand cooperative multitasking they preemptively interrupt YOU and now your day is f*cked.
ekianjo 5y ago
> I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office. Will they though? If some companies don't, that will be a major reason to change jobs for the better employers (who value your flexibility).
bg24 5y ago
> I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office. Only reasons I can think of is as follows. - Someone in the CEO's direct reports is tasked with making a decision. - They start a survey on how satisfied the managers are on the work performance. - The survey does not go to individual employees. - Rightfully, the survey results wildly support return-to-office. - Decision is made. Some other company may decide to be data driven, and use metrics which may or may not fully reflect the tradeoffs between work-from-home vs. office. Or, the top leader makes the decision for the rest of the company. No questions allowed. > Cost issues aside, I've always maintained that the absolute best experience is a hybrid/flexible schedule and location policy. Agree. This should be the way.
d1zzy 5y ago
2 ways I can answer this: 1. Personally, working from home has been a mixed bag. When I'm allowed to focus on one single task, I can do pretty well. The comforts of having my own office room, high quality monitors, keyboard and speakers listening to music are very nice. The additional latency accessing my remote workstation not so great (and that is required, because of company rules not allowing source access outside of corp network). Also, anything that required a lot of human interaction has been pretty bad, video conferencing is a poor substitute, I've found (as someone who doesn't really enjoy socializing) and depending on where you are in the project (is the team already established, do they know each other IRL, the tasks are clear or are you just starting a new team for a new project, scoping up tasks and everything) it requires more or less interaction. At the beginning of a project there is a ton of little details that get missed in the initial plans which can be resolved very fast in person and which always seem to resolve slower remotely, no matter how good use we attempt to make of all the tools available (team chat, video conference, etc). As such, whenever my company asked in WFH surveys how I would rate my productivity, I always rated it lower than 100%, around 60%-70%. In terms of commute, it's a wash-off: yes, I don't spend time commuting now but the extra time I have I just spend it in longer videogame sessions at night (so not exactly the best/most healthy way to use that extra time) and when I was commuting to the office I'd often commute by bike (at about 100 miles biked per week) while now I barely bike a third of that because I force myself to get out on the bike every weekend to at least have some physical activity. 2. Company wide, based on the the surveys done, it seems most people have rated their productivity lower than when in office. As such, it is no surprise to me that the company is looking at an accelerated schedule to get people back in office.
autokad 5y ago
a lot of the big tech use their footprints as political power. who wants to bet California goes less after big tech if they keep their hq in San Francisco fully staffed?

cm2012 5y ago

The companies mandating 100% office time are doing so because their particular executive teams are nuts about it. See Netflix.

r3trohack3r 5y ago
Netflix is now hiring full time remote for engineering, reporting to the office post COVID is optional. Source: I’m a full time engineer happily working out of the PHX suburbs. Personally, I have no intention of returning to the Bay Area.
- cm2012 5y ago
  That's cool, I guess Reed Hastings saw the writing on the wall since his September screed against remote work.
- mech422 5y ago
  Hey Neighbor! I'm in Mesa :-) There's dozens of us...dozens :-D
TuringNYC 5y ago
To me it is a cost issue. Living within 5-day-a-week commuting distance to an office is expensive for the weighted majority of technology jobs. You are trading space/rent for facetime. That is fine, but the salaries for 5-day-a-week-from-office jobs need to compensate for this -- not just for execs, but also for normal workers. Living in a 1br was charming as a 25yo, and not so much for someone with a family. Driving for 1hr+ is also not so charming. As a former co-founder, i'd happily take this trade -- 1. Not compete on city salaries 2. Employees 100% WFH, work from wherever you want. NO salary grading based on metro area (that is so unfair) 3. Quarterly on-site, paid for by company 4. Invest in processes to enable good WFH productivity
- ghaff 5y ago
  No salary grading, at least within a country, is easier when you don't try to compete at the high end. And it's effectively what a lot of companies do anyway even if they don't say so publicly. If someone can get a job with one of the big tech employers in the Bay Area and they want to work there, a lot of companies won't even try to salary match.
- kritiko 5y ago
  Your trade assumes that none of your employees will want to live in a high cost of living area if given the opportunity to WFH. If their age / hobbies / etc. make city living attractive you will need to compensate them appropriately or be unable to attract them. I love living in the city. If work wants to keep me remote, I need an extra bedroom or dedicated office space.
  - TuringNYC 5y ago
    >> Your trade assumes that none of your employees will want to live in a high cost of living area if given the opportunity to WFH. If their age / hobbies / etc. make city living attractive you will need to compensate them appropriately or be unable to attract them. This is a fair point. Not sure if you're from the US, but I'll note that the weighted majority of all US technology job opportunities are in cities and major metro areas. If someone wants to live in a high-cost-of-living area, thats a great problem to have, because probably half the tech jobs are already there in the Bay Area especially. There is also no shortage of compensation in such high-cost-of-living areas.

trentnix 5y ago

I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office. I doubt it lasts, at least in software. Talented people are going to have lots of remote options making it harder to find good people willing to show up for daily cubicle warfare. I was someone who preferred to be in the office every day prior to the pandemic. But after adjusting, I really, really like working from home. Truth is, I can't imagine I'll ever take another job that expects me to show up to an actual office everyday. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

blunte 5y ago
No you're certainly not the only one. I've found a good way to filter recruiters is to tell them up front, "I will only do full remote with occasional, non-regular office visits." Once you've tasted freedom...
- mech422 5y ago
  I've been doing this for 20 years now... Surprisingly, the recruiters are starting to answer "sure - no problem..." :-)
munificent 5y ago
> Talented people are going to have lots of remote options making it harder to find good people willing to show up for daily cubicle warfare. I worry a lot about how this cuts the bottom rungs off the ladder for junior developers. Senior developers can be very productive without frequent access to in-person help, and are valuable enough that they can get work-from-home if they want. But junior developers have more frequent questions, need to absorb software engineering culture, and need to have more work and task structure created for them. Remote work is really hard for them.
- randmeerkat 5y ago
  When I was a junior engineer I preferred remote work. It was easier to screen share with a senior and talk about the problem over a computer screen where I could actually see the code, than it was to squint from over their shoulder. It also gave me the chance to drive and for the senior to correct my mistakes / give me feedback.

JackFr 5y ago

> I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office Informal communication, informal collaboration, a culture of apprenticeship. To the extent that the organization values these they are all served much better in person than remote. All companies and all people are different. There isn't a one size fits all. But it's not like there are no benefits to in person.

splatcollision 5y ago
> Informal communication, informal collaboration, a culture of apprenticeship You're right of course, those qualities don't naturally occur remotely. However, and I know I'm slightly taking your use of "culture" out of context, but "Culture" is often code for any number of implicit biases in a workplace. Known or unknown. If you don't fit in, for whatever reason, can you still not be a productive asset in the corporation?
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  > but "Culture" is often code for any number of implicit biases in a workplace I'm old. Tell me about it. I am not a "cultural fit" in companies, these days. So I am doing my own thing. I'm extremely fortunate, in being able to do this. I'm also never going into an office, or relocating, again.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  “A culture of apprenticeship” shares the word “culture” but isn’t at all the thing that you’re concerned about.
- hallarempt 5y ago
  "You're right of course, those qualities don't naturally occur remotely." In my experience, they do... It's how a project like Krita has grown naturally for over twenty years, bringing in new people, teaching them, having them become productive. Of course, meeting in person, once or twice a year is important. But there's no need for offices for us.
onion2k 5y ago

spurdoman77 5y ago

Trust issues. While 80% of employees could be more productive remote, 18% could have serious issues with productivity and 2% might actually turn nefarious while remote (steal company IPR or something like that). Or I would imagine thats what the fear is.

nvilcins 5y ago
People underestimate how unproductive (or nefarious) one can be in office.
- metamet 5y ago
  I feel like it's much easier to not do anything when it looks like you're doing something at your desk all day. Mix in a few meetings and random chats, it's very easy to go incognito, productivity wise. I think we've all had days where we've gotten to the office and had a problem we're working on that doesn't get solved that day. It is actually really taxing and feels really bad to not accomplish anything, as if you've wasted the day. I've found that the ability to more strictly control distractions at home--not needing to deal with the pressure to chat with co-workers and eat lunch together, for example--has led to far, far fewer days of no-solution. At the same time, it becomes even hard to "give up" on that day's productivity and clock out, since there's no real leaving the office.
heyitsguay 5y ago
Isn't this a process failure? At least for that hypothetical 18%. If you have a product roadmap with well-defined milestones and good weekly accountability, it should be clear very quickly if someone is underperforming. There may be people who don't want to work remotely, but that's again why having a flexible+hybrid WFH approach seems like the best of all worlds.
dv_dt 5y ago
The numbers are probably close to the same in office too, only the 2% (or whatever percentage it is), ends up with more access to physical capital to steal in office. Personally, I hope the future for work becomes as remote as possible as near to a 4 day week as possible.

CapitalistCartr 5y ago

A few really need it; most don't. Their managers and executives put their own desires ahead of the best interests of the organization, and what they desire is to have their ego stroked.

fiftyfifty 5y ago

The company I work for actually suggested getting rid of our office and going 100% remote for our group. We actually voted on whether to keep leasing it after Covid or not. We voted to keep it as we generally like our office and it's nice to have a place to meet face to face sometimes. Since we voted to keep it corporate has told us we have to come in at least 3 days a week after Covid. So for us it's less an issue of trust and more an issue of we are paying for this place so you better use it.

blunte 5y ago
That's a good approach. I think a lot of companies are going to downsize their office space in the future. Having a company place to meet is a good idea. I predict there will be some variants of WeWork which will focus on this concept, basically providing rotating company spaces - possibly complete with branding and decorations which would be swapped out each morning for the "company of the day".
- PicassoCTs 5y ago
  Branding can be done with screens. Logos can be done with screens. Fascinating idea, basically a pop-up company..
mgkimsal 5y ago
Your physical space may be nice, but if not... would they have allocated a budget to pay for dedicated space at a local coworking facility? I totally get wanting face time with people as needed (or wanted), or just needing a change of place from the house. That option may be less expensive than a 'full office', but still give you all what you need - space for shared meetings and work.
pmontra 5y ago
Wouldn't be wiser to get rid of the original office and rent some much smaller space, maybe only meeting rooms?
cableshaft 5y ago
My company was so ahead of the curve they decided to get rid of the office a full year and a half before the pandemic started! Of course that was just to save money, since it was an expensive lease, apparently, but it did have the benefit that I didn't have any worries they'd force me to come back into the office once the pandemic started, or I'd have to go back to pack up my desk like my wife eventually had to when she changed jobs. Other than a really rocky shift of our in-house data center into one of the main corporate data centers, it hasn't resulted in much difference as far as productivity, in fact we've been getting away with about half the staff maintaining the same systems (probably to our detriment if people end up leaving, we don't have much redundancy anymore). Just makes me a little hesitant to find a new job because after three years I'm really used to WFH and I'm worried most other companies are itching to get people back into physical offices (like my wife will probably need to by the end of the year at her new job), even though there's not really any more room for me to grow at this organization in the next year or two based on what I've heard lately.

mumblemumble 5y ago

> I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office. Hot take: There's a whole way of communicating and handling team organization that grew up around 20th century business management culture, and it just doesn't work well with remote teams. Methods that do work well with remote teams, though, don't work well with traditional deeply hierarchical management structures. At best, they tend to make all those management layers somewhat superfluous. This means getting people back into the office may be a matter of self-preservation for career managers, whether they realize it consciously or not.

UnpossibleJim 5y ago
LOL, this might be one of the biggest truths I've ever read on HN. An expanded, micromanagement style of leadership just isn't necessary in a remote style office. Trust in your employees and a flatter structure, with fewer executives and more people who produce is ideal for a remote office business style. This is a direct contrast to the mantra of the 80's, 90's and 2000's logic of grind it out for as short a time as possible producing and move to middle management. It's been a detriment to our school system and many businesses. Lifetime crafters/creators/producers are looked down upon in our society, more often than not.
- blunte 5y ago
  This is a depressingly accurate assessment of the last 30 years. The only hope I hold is that people with shared creative interests will eventually prevail. The pessimist in me also considers that the allowed monopolies will then buy up those creative successes.
  - rabidrat 5y ago
    As long as they are paying decent prices for those creative successes (so the creators can have a comfortable retirement with healthcare in the US), this is not the worst outcome.
    - 5y ago

datavirtue 5y ago

The top level policy is often butts-in-seats but supervisors typically just let people do what they want to do. The VPN is there, we all have laptops...no one is running around complaining about Bob or Jill working from home when they feel like it. This is my observation of many knowledge workers' departments in various companies.

zamalek 5y ago

> I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office. Beliefs and dogma. Amazon's justification was "Amazon is an in-office culture." That ultimately boils down to circular reasoning; the key decision maker (whoever they are) has demonstrated an immense lack of critical reasoning. Continuing this practice is in the same realm as continuing other hostile workplace traditions, although it is one of the less serious ones. In my opinion, it is wasting a lot of money in the form of productivity. Every employee who commutes to the office has an overwhelmingly high likelihood of having some of their mental resources drained. You're wasting a good hour or two of superior employee performance in the morning, and possibly some near the end of the day when employees start dreading the journey home. > biggest factor is creating a culture of inclusion This is a very important point. One of the major ongoing reasons that women are passed over for promotions is that they are the traditional/dogmatic caregivers. Home-first equalizes this, much like paternal leave does. If a home is unable to afford child-care, then men have just as much responsibility and distraction during work hours. Some people may struggle to afford commute, for example, people escaping homelessness. Being able to work from home would reduce the burden on these people. In addition, those who cannot causally/physically complete their job offsite (doctors, construction workers, tellers, baristas) won't have roads and public transport congested with people who have no business traveling to work. > Dedicated offices were set up as "conference rooms" We need conference rooms as an API. I should be able to add (and be billed for) a physical room to a meeting request as easily as adding a Zoom/GMeet - for when in-person collaboration is really needed. WeWork was in the ideal position to do this, it's a pity they doubled down on big corporate clients instead of "gig economy rooms."

throwaway3699 5y ago
> We need conference rooms as an API. Is this not pretty much how things work on Google Calendar or Outlook?
- zamalek 5y ago
  Only if you own those rooms.

comeonseriously 5y ago

>I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office. Because most managers have a reactionary style of management. They are like IRQ handlers. Their state doesn't change until they receive an email from their boss or a phone call from a customer. At that point they react to it by running down the hall to find someone. Now, because they do not understand cooperative multitasking they preemptively interrupt YOU and now your day is f*cked.

ekianjo 5y ago

> I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office. Will they though? If some companies don't, that will be a major reason to change jobs for the better employers (who value your flexibility).

bg24 5y ago

> I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office. Only reasons I can think of is as follows. - Someone in the CEO's direct reports is tasked with making a decision. - They start a survey on how satisfied the managers are on the work performance. - The survey does not go to individual employees. - Rightfully, the survey results wildly support return-to-office. - Decision is made. Some other company may decide to be data driven, and use metrics which may or may not fully reflect the tradeoffs between work-from-home vs. office. Or, the top leader makes the decision for the rest of the company. No questions allowed. > Cost issues aside, I've always maintained that the absolute best experience is a hybrid/flexible schedule and location policy. Agree. This should be the way.

d1zzy 5y ago

2 ways I can answer this: 1. Personally, working from home has been a mixed bag. When I'm allowed to focus on one single task, I can do pretty well. The comforts of having my own office room, high quality monitors, keyboard and speakers listening to music are very nice. The additional latency accessing my remote workstation not so great (and that is required, because of company rules not allowing source access outside of corp network). Also, anything that required a lot of human interaction has been pretty bad, video conferencing is a poor substitute, I've found (as someone who doesn't really enjoy socializing) and depending on where you are in the project (is the team already established, do they know each other IRL, the tasks are clear or are you just starting a new team for a new project, scoping up tasks and everything) it requires more or less interaction. At the beginning of a project there is a ton of little details that get missed in the initial plans which can be resolved very fast in person and which always seem to resolve slower remotely, no matter how good use we attempt to make of all the tools available (team chat, video conference, etc). As such, whenever my company asked in WFH surveys how I would rate my productivity, I always rated it lower than 100%, around 60%-70%. In terms of commute, it's a wash-off: yes, I don't spend time commuting now but the extra time I have I just spend it in longer videogame sessions at night (so not exactly the best/most healthy way to use that extra time) and when I was commuting to the office I'd often commute by bike (at about 100 miles biked per week) while now I barely bike a third of that because I force myself to get out on the bike every weekend to at least have some physical activity. 2. Company wide, based on the the surveys done, it seems most people have rated their productivity lower than when in office. As such, it is no surprise to me that the company is looking at an accelerated schedule to get people back in office.

autokad 5y ago

a lot of the big tech use their footprints as political power. who wants to bet California goes less after big tech if they keep their hq in San Francisco fully staffed?