5 ms·

> 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 tea

> 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 6y 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 6y 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 6y 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.
    - blunte 6y ago
      But my wish is that the really creative, motivated people don't lose their motivation. F*ck You money is a great idea, but after a couple of years of coasting, spend some energy and funds to make something really cool happen. Unfortunately, some people go through such a traumatic experience which happens to result in FU money that they burn out and stop creating. That's a great shame for us all.
      - mumblemumble 6y ago
        I guess? TBH, getting acquired by a big boring corporation in my early 30s, and having the startup into which I had poured countless late hours' worth of blood, sweat, and tears become a long and joyless coast into mediocrity, was possibly the greatest thing that ever happened to me both professionally and personally. There was a brief period of anxiety over all the corporate bullshit, and the loss of edge, and all that good stuff. But, after about 6 months of that, a magical thing happened: I started leaving work at work. My demeanor became more placid. My sleep improved. I found hobbies. I guess maybe, in some poetic sense, it's sad that I'm no longer driven to build exciting things. But, in a more mentally healthy (for me -- I'm certainly not going to begrudge someone else for continuing to be ambitious and driven) sense, that was benefitting a bunch of strangers more than it was benefitting me. I've done my time, and I'm now content to sit back and watch the young'uns take their turn to run themselves ragged chasing dreams around the office all week, and then watch my own young'uns run themselves ragged chasing each other around the yard all weekend.
        blunte 6y ago
        That's really for you, and I mean no disrespect or judgement. But at some point in the future you'll have a need to "do something" again. Maybe after you've built a family and put them all into motion, you'll find a place where you want to do something again. And for better or worse, your kids will be shaped by the environment you provide. If you have so much money that they need never worry, then it will actually be harder for them to find their own place and be motivated. Think back honestly... if nothing you did really mattered in terms of your financial success, would you have been motivated to do what you did? I probably would not. Already my children are a mix of complacent and unconcerned of the financial future and also driven to create. They know they will never be poor or hungry. Will that limit the raw expression and energy they have? It did me. I could not fail if I tried. I knew I was capable of anything, and I demonstrated some degree of that in various ways. But I had nothing to lose. Eventually everyone begins to ask what the point of anything is. And frankly, we are left with no answers and just some guesses or assumptions. We basically decide what life means. If it means nothing, then why bother with any of it? If it means something, then we should put energy into whatever that something is. Money makes most of it nicer, but it can be a distraction for those who have it and for those who seek it.
xapata 6y ago
The communication skills and preferences that are best for remote teams are different than those for in-office teams. Until you can retrain your staff or transition to different staff, a manager might be better off asking people to come back to the office.
- npsimons 6y ago
  > Until you can retrain your staff or transition to different staff, a manager might be better off asking people to come back to the office. Meanwhile, those who already have remote work skills won't stick around to have their time wasted by being forced to work in an office.
  - xapata 6y ago
    I suppose a manager might be able to handle that by forming different teams with varying policies.
novok 6y ago
If we didn't have managers, all the planning, negotiating, syncing, communication & meetings stuff overflows into the engineers themselves, who might get grumpy at doing something they really typically do not enjoy, which is management work. If you remove the managers, your staff engineers quickly start becoming defacto managers. PM work, management work and all of that is work, and someone has to do the work and if the managers / PMs don't do that work other people start taking up those jobs. That stuff doesn't go away with the magic wand of remote. Yes there is an argument that those jobs make a bunch of extra work that may not of been necessary, but that also applies to engineers themselves. Every job role creates extra subjectively unnecessary work. And I am saying this as someone who has been an engineer my entire career, I haven't been a manager.
- BlargMcLarg 6y ago
  If we remove and automate away as much red tape as possible, is the remainder really that bad we still need a dedicated manager over a hybrid? Will somebody of the team not feel the urge or the will to pick it up instead? Do we still need a manager who has power over the developers and partially decides which jobs exist, giving them not only an incentive to create extra work, but have a trump card on anyone who would call out their BS? Do we truly need all this manual syncing and negotiating? Or has part of the corporate machine become addicted to all this red tape so much, they believe it is not only a necessity, but an insult to the individuals participating if the red tape is removed in its entirety? Frankly, as much as I despise management work, I have a hard time buying the argument it really would be as terrible as it is now once you get rid of that red tape. Hybrid roles don't have an incentive to inflate the amount of red tape: they can go back to doing the other side of their role instead, and have an incentive to remove any existing red tape if it becomes suffocating.
  - edoceo 6y ago
    Manager as facilitator works awesome. Manager as controller sucks. One path gives the team power, the other gives the boss power.
    - 6y ago
twobitshifter 6y ago
My company promotes themselves as a “flat connected organization” yet our CEO has adamantly stated that work from home will not be possible as long as he is CEO. This is despite the company doing better than ever. He leans on a belief that some ephemeral energy and cultural value is being sapped away from working remotely and that we are “running on fumes” through COVID. I don’t believe any of it, and the company has continued making management changes and major acquisitions throughout the pandemic, fundamentally altering any concept of a pre-existing work Nirvana. Our regional president also is anti WFH. He claims that WFH would eliminate quality mentorship that he experienced and the ad hoc conservations over lunch that lead to friendships and new business opportunities. This is a better angle, but it’s also not something that happens for everyone, everyday, or can be used to justify 5 days in the office.
- robalfonso 6y ago
  This is key. These aren’t bad ideas. Face time is important, non work proximity is important (ie lunch). None of this requires 5 day a week presence.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  I’m so tired of this “ad hoc water cooler chat” suddenly being elevated as the most important part of office work. It’s never in the past been valued by these execs, and on the contrary sometimes punished (hey, quit socializing and get back to work!). But, now, all of a sudden when these execs are scrambling to find some reason to return to the office, they trot out “serendipitous hallway conversations” as the great holy reason for the office’s existence. Sorry, but I call bullshit.
  - gffrd 6y ago
    When you can't point to something quantifiable, I guess you point to something like "water cooler chat!" My feeling is the same: while random interactions are important, they aren't exclusive to an office setting. Weird logic. It's been surprising to me how much ink has been spilled about this, and how few solutions have been offered.
SkyPuncher 6y ago
Typical management structures seem to be focused on minimizing down-side risks rather than expanding upside returns. If you have 10 employees, 5 are much happier and productive at home, 4 are the same, and 1 is completely taking advantage of it, old school companies seem to focus on that 1 person, rather than the 5 that are happier and more productive. They'd rather have nobody able to take advantage of the system than to terminate the 1 employee that's taking advantage of things.

UnpossibleJim 6y 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 6y 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 6y 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.
  - blunte 6y ago
    But my wish is that the really creative, motivated people don't lose their motivation. F*ck You money is a great idea, but after a couple of years of coasting, spend some energy and funds to make something really cool happen. Unfortunately, some people go through such a traumatic experience which happens to result in FU money that they burn out and stop creating. That's a great shame for us all.
    - mumblemumble 6y ago
      I guess? TBH, getting acquired by a big boring corporation in my early 30s, and having the startup into which I had poured countless late hours' worth of blood, sweat, and tears become a long and joyless coast into mediocrity, was possibly the greatest thing that ever happened to me both professionally and personally. There was a brief period of anxiety over all the corporate bullshit, and the loss of edge, and all that good stuff. But, after about 6 months of that, a magical thing happened: I started leaving work at work. My demeanor became more placid. My sleep improved. I found hobbies. I guess maybe, in some poetic sense, it's sad that I'm no longer driven to build exciting things. But, in a more mentally healthy (for me -- I'm certainly not going to begrudge someone else for continuing to be ambitious and driven) sense, that was benefitting a bunch of strangers more than it was benefitting me. I've done my time, and I'm now content to sit back and watch the young'uns take their turn to run themselves ragged chasing dreams around the office all week, and then watch my own young'uns run themselves ragged chasing each other around the yard all weekend.
      - blunte 6y ago
        That's really for you, and I mean no disrespect or judgement. But at some point in the future you'll have a need to "do something" again. Maybe after you've built a family and put them all into motion, you'll find a place where you want to do something again. And for better or worse, your kids will be shaped by the environment you provide. If you have so much money that they need never worry, then it will actually be harder for them to find their own place and be motivated. Think back honestly... if nothing you did really mattered in terms of your financial success, would you have been motivated to do what you did? I probably would not. Already my children are a mix of complacent and unconcerned of the financial future and also driven to create. They know they will never be poor or hungry. Will that limit the raw expression and energy they have? It did me. I could not fail if I tried. I knew I was capable of anything, and I demonstrated some degree of that in various ways. But I had nothing to lose. Eventually everyone begins to ask what the point of anything is. And frankly, we are left with no answers and just some guesses or assumptions. We basically decide what life means. If it means nothing, then why bother with any of it? If it means something, then we should put energy into whatever that something is. Money makes most of it nicer, but it can be a distraction for those who have it and for those who seek it.

xapata 6y ago

The communication skills and preferences that are best for remote teams are different than those for in-office teams. Until you can retrain your staff or transition to different staff, a manager might be better off asking people to come back to the office.

npsimons 6y ago
> Until you can retrain your staff or transition to different staff, a manager might be better off asking people to come back to the office. Meanwhile, those who already have remote work skills won't stick around to have their time wasted by being forced to work in an office.
- xapata 6y ago
  I suppose a manager might be able to handle that by forming different teams with varying policies.

novok 6y ago

If we didn't have managers, all the planning, negotiating, syncing, communication & meetings stuff overflows into the engineers themselves, who might get grumpy at doing something they really typically do not enjoy, which is management work. If you remove the managers, your staff engineers quickly start becoming defacto managers. PM work, management work and all of that is work, and someone has to do the work and if the managers / PMs don't do that work other people start taking up those jobs. That stuff doesn't go away with the magic wand of remote. Yes there is an argument that those jobs make a bunch of extra work that may not of been necessary, but that also applies to engineers themselves. Every job role creates extra subjectively unnecessary work. And I am saying this as someone who has been an engineer my entire career, I haven't been a manager.

BlargMcLarg 6y ago
If we remove and automate away as much red tape as possible, is the remainder really that bad we still need a dedicated manager over a hybrid? Will somebody of the team not feel the urge or the will to pick it up instead? Do we still need a manager who has power over the developers and partially decides which jobs exist, giving them not only an incentive to create extra work, but have a trump card on anyone who would call out their BS? Do we truly need all this manual syncing and negotiating? Or has part of the corporate machine become addicted to all this red tape so much, they believe it is not only a necessity, but an insult to the individuals participating if the red tape is removed in its entirety? Frankly, as much as I despise management work, I have a hard time buying the argument it really would be as terrible as it is now once you get rid of that red tape. Hybrid roles don't have an incentive to inflate the amount of red tape: they can go back to doing the other side of their role instead, and have an incentive to remove any existing red tape if it becomes suffocating.
- edoceo 6y ago
  Manager as facilitator works awesome. Manager as controller sucks. One path gives the team power, the other gives the boss power.
  - 6y ago

twobitshifter 6y ago

My company promotes themselves as a “flat connected organization” yet our CEO has adamantly stated that work from home will not be possible as long as he is CEO. This is despite the company doing better than ever. He leans on a belief that some ephemeral energy and cultural value is being sapped away from working remotely and that we are “running on fumes” through COVID. I don’t believe any of it, and the company has continued making management changes and major acquisitions throughout the pandemic, fundamentally altering any concept of a pre-existing work Nirvana. Our regional president also is anti WFH. He claims that WFH would eliminate quality mentorship that he experienced and the ad hoc conservations over lunch that lead to friendships and new business opportunities. This is a better angle, but it’s also not something that happens for everyone, everyday, or can be used to justify 5 days in the office.

robalfonso 6y ago
This is key. These aren’t bad ideas. Face time is important, non work proximity is important (ie lunch). None of this requires 5 day a week presence.
ryandrake 6y ago
I’m so tired of this “ad hoc water cooler chat” suddenly being elevated as the most important part of office work. It’s never in the past been valued by these execs, and on the contrary sometimes punished (hey, quit socializing and get back to work!). But, now, all of a sudden when these execs are scrambling to find some reason to return to the office, they trot out “serendipitous hallway conversations” as the great holy reason for the office’s existence. Sorry, but I call bullshit.
- gffrd 6y ago
  When you can't point to something quantifiable, I guess you point to something like "water cooler chat!" My feeling is the same: while random interactions are important, they aren't exclusive to an office setting. Weird logic. It's been surprising to me how much ink has been spilled about this, and how few solutions have been offered.

SkyPuncher 6y ago

Typical management structures seem to be focused on minimizing down-side risks rather than expanding upside returns. If you have 10 employees, 5 are much happier and productive at home, 4 are the same, and 1 is completely taking advantage of it, old school companies seem to focus on that 1 person, rather than the 5 that are happier and more productive. They'd rather have nobody able to take advantage of the system than to terminate the 1 employee that's taking advantage of things.