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> If they did a survey and collected opinions from their employees the decision would be pretty trivial. I'm not so sure about that. My company recently announ

> If they did a survey and collected opinions from their employees the decision would be pretty trivial. I'm not so sure about that. My company recently announced that our offices wouldn't be reopening until at least November, and there was a lot of quite angry pushback from people who are desperate to get back.

jimsimmons 5y ago
I’d be more comfortable with a mandate in such cases, either way. It’s at least evidence based. And like I said, I’d feel part of the conversation. Right now I’m like “I/We need to be back because <blanks out> … “
caskstrength 5y ago
The survey should include "team decides how to work" option, which would probably get majority of votes.
- smorgusofborg 5y ago
  I'm not sure I would want to manage that. I mean imagine your 2 year search finds the Typescript and Rust DevOps engineer with six sigma black belt who uses Vue is familiar OracleDB and Azure and disagrees with your team's consensus on where one should work? Do they accept the job and get to cause a revote? Are key members of the team now paying more attention to how they might vote than anything else?
  - caskstrength 5y ago
    It has always been the case that if employee "disagrees" with management decision that their ass should be in the office 5 days a week, then they will have to find a new job. Now this could become up to consensus inside the team, which in my opinion is much better and fairer approach. BTW team doesn't have to chose between two strict options (WFH or office 5 days a week). Another options could be hybrid office work or allowing _individual_ team members to chose how they work and mandate all meetings to accommodate online participants.
    - smorgusofborg 5y ago
      > It has always been the case that if employee "disagrees" with management decision that their ass should be in the office 5 days a week, then they will have to find a new job. Not really. You negotiate with a boss who has to consider how your deal will affect other's deals. The deal environment changed so the deals they need to make are going to change. Everyone voting on the same deal that is compatible with all roles in a group and strikes everyone as fair to them is just a less ideal negotiation that will make arbitrary decisions when the group changes. (I.e. the manager wants everyone in office so they hire a lot of interns and juniors who vote that way for the local help they need.)
      - caskstrength 5y ago
        > Not really. You negotiate with a boss who has to consider how your deal will affect other's deals. The deal environment changed so the deals they need to make are going to change. I'm in a team that has multiple "remote" people since before pandemic. We all can't suddenly show up to single office because we are on three different continents, so, obviously, there is not much risk of our deal changing to something more strict. > Everyone voting on the same deal that is compatible with all roles in a group and strikes everyone as fair to them is just a less ideal negotiation that will make arbitrary decisions when the group changes. (I.e. the manager wants everyone in office so they hire a lot of interns and juniors who vote that way for the local help they need.) I assume that company with such malicious management wouldn't conduct the vote in the first place.
        smorgusofborg 5y ago
        > I'm in a team that has multiple "remote" people since before pandemic. When I was in a similar position, I regularly worked in groups who gave me every indication the majority would vote to relocate all positions to in-office in California. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to be hopping groups after each vote while the team was telling me how wonderful the west coast is. It was better that my role was negotiated and a group could deal with it or suffer consequences of looking for an all California team. It seems to me like you are trying to fix a problem that doesn't affect either you or me, and I am saying I don't like the consequences to me of your fix.
spdionis 5y ago
All managers I'm sure! /s

jimsimmons 5y ago

I’d be more comfortable with a mandate in such cases, either way. It’s at least evidence based. And like I said, I’d feel part of the conversation. Right now I’m like “I/We need to be back because <blanks out> … “

caskstrength 5y ago

The survey should include "team decides how to work" option, which would probably get majority of votes.

smorgusofborg 5y ago
I'm not sure I would want to manage that. I mean imagine your 2 year search finds the Typescript and Rust DevOps engineer with six sigma black belt who uses Vue is familiar OracleDB and Azure and disagrees with your team's consensus on where one should work? Do they accept the job and get to cause a revote? Are key members of the team now paying more attention to how they might vote than anything else?
- caskstrength 5y ago
  It has always been the case that if employee "disagrees" with management decision that their ass should be in the office 5 days a week, then they will have to find a new job. Now this could become up to consensus inside the team, which in my opinion is much better and fairer approach. BTW team doesn't have to chose between two strict options (WFH or office 5 days a week). Another options could be hybrid office work or allowing _individual_ team members to chose how they work and mandate all meetings to accommodate online participants.
  - smorgusofborg 5y ago
    > It has always been the case that if employee "disagrees" with management decision that their ass should be in the office 5 days a week, then they will have to find a new job. Not really. You negotiate with a boss who has to consider how your deal will affect other's deals. The deal environment changed so the deals they need to make are going to change. Everyone voting on the same deal that is compatible with all roles in a group and strikes everyone as fair to them is just a less ideal negotiation that will make arbitrary decisions when the group changes. (I.e. the manager wants everyone in office so they hire a lot of interns and juniors who vote that way for the local help they need.)
    - caskstrength 5y ago
      > Not really. You negotiate with a boss who has to consider how your deal will affect other's deals. The deal environment changed so the deals they need to make are going to change. I'm in a team that has multiple "remote" people since before pandemic. We all can't suddenly show up to single office because we are on three different continents, so, obviously, there is not much risk of our deal changing to something more strict. > Everyone voting on the same deal that is compatible with all roles in a group and strikes everyone as fair to them is just a less ideal negotiation that will make arbitrary decisions when the group changes. (I.e. the manager wants everyone in office so they hire a lot of interns and juniors who vote that way for the local help they need.) I assume that company with such malicious management wouldn't conduct the vote in the first place.
      - smorgusofborg 5y ago
        > I'm in a team that has multiple "remote" people since before pandemic. When I was in a similar position, I regularly worked in groups who gave me every indication the majority would vote to relocate all positions to in-office in California. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to be hopping groups after each vote while the team was telling me how wonderful the west coast is. It was better that my role was negotiated and a group could deal with it or suffer consequences of looking for an all California team. It seems to me like you are trying to fix a problem that doesn't affect either you or me, and I am saying I don't like the consequences to me of your fix.

spdionis 5y ago

All managers I'm sure! /s