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This suggests a potentially disturbing trend -- companies or managers that will start implicitly punishing employees for working remotely. My guess is that eve

This suggests a potentially disturbing trend -- companies or managers that will start implicitly punishing employees for working remotely. My guess is that even at companies that officially support partial remote time employees will start to feel some pressure for taking advantage of it. Adam Neumann once asked his executive assistant if she 'enjoyed her vacation' after coming back from maternity leave. Now they have a different CEO, obviously, but I can see the parallel -- any kind of situation that deviates from butts in seats at the office will be frowned upon.

sco1 5y ago
> This suggests a potentially disturbing trend -- companies or managers that will start implicitly punishing employees for working remotely. > My guess is that even at companies that officially support partial remote time employees will start to feel some pressure for taking advantage of it. I'm sure it's not the same in all sectors, but in the govt realm I was feeling this before the pandemic, with the pandemic flipping it completely (for now, at least). We have a long approval chain to get authorization to work remotely, with an explicit time code to go with it. I felt almost guilty requesting up to 2 days a week remotely and almost never took more than 1. Then the pandemic hit and management discovered that a lot of people didn't need to sit in a cubicle 5 days a week to get their jobs done. There's even rumblings from higher up the chain to emphasize getting work done where it's most efficient; hopefully that translates to a better attitude towards working remotely.
necovek 5y ago
> This suggests a potentially disturbing trend -- companies or managers that will start implicitly punishing employees for working remotely. Unfortunately, a company where any significant proportion of staff actually works from an office will implicitely have remote workers at a disadvantage — pass-by discussions with actual decisions might never reach them, so they'd be missing a lot of context (at best, they'd get decisions without the reasoning). Basically, remote work requires full team to switch to remote-friendly practices, like relying on written forms of discussion. Basically, the office should only be a place for chit-chat and building the team spirit. Some people need more of that, and others need less.

sco1 5y ago

> This suggests a potentially disturbing trend -- companies or managers that will start implicitly punishing employees for working remotely. > My guess is that even at companies that officially support partial remote time employees will start to feel some pressure for taking advantage of it. I'm sure it's not the same in all sectors, but in the govt realm I was feeling this before the pandemic, with the pandemic flipping it completely (for now, at least). We have a long approval chain to get authorization to work remotely, with an explicit time code to go with it. I felt almost guilty requesting up to 2 days a week remotely and almost never took more than 1. Then the pandemic hit and management discovered that a lot of people didn't need to sit in a cubicle 5 days a week to get their jobs done. There's even rumblings from higher up the chain to emphasize getting work done where it's most efficient; hopefully that translates to a better attitude towards working remotely.

necovek 5y ago

> This suggests a potentially disturbing trend -- companies or managers that will start implicitly punishing employees for working remotely. Unfortunately, a company where any significant proportion of staff actually works from an office will implicitely have remote workers at a disadvantage — pass-by discussions with actual decisions might never reach them, so they'd be missing a lot of context (at best, they'd get decisions without the reasoning). Basically, remote work requires full team to switch to remote-friendly practices, like relying on written forms of discussion. Basically, the office should only be a place for chit-chat and building the team spirit. Some people need more of that, and others need less.