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CEOs are at their wits’ end – they don’t know how to get their employees back in

48 points by randycupertino 5y ago

ihsw 5y ago
They know perfectly well that there are many options available but they're not interested in putting them on the table.
jankotek 5y ago
For start they could provide private offices. Open-plan office is hygienically unsuitable for regular use.
- WhisperingShiba 5y ago
  I think most people just don't want to be under someone's control. At least, that is the case for me. Simple as. People not returning to their wage cages is a non problem. Spend less on childcare, spend less on food, commute less, improve health, spend exactly the needed time to achieve assigned tasks. WFH options are good for everyone except for megalomaniacs.
  - MrWiffles 5y ago
    THIS. 100%
  - dleslie 5y ago
    Precisely. It turns out many of us were working to cover the expenses of working! Without commuting, day care, eating out, and so forth we're saving an enormous chunk of money. Asking us to return to the office is asking us to effectively take a pay cut and reduce the hours we enjoy with our families.
    - jcadam 5y ago
      Any money I've saved has been more than cancelled out by inflation (particularly food prices). So now, going back to the office would be unaffordable.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - _Understated_ 5y ago
    > I think most people just don't want to be under someone's control I'm not sure it's as black and white as that! I've worked from home for a number of years and I used to think people were insane to want to go into an office but I've changed my tune in the last year or so for one simple reason: hardly anyone is set up to work from home! At my last company (small, only 21 employees - they got rid of their office earlier this year), I was one of only three people in the video calls with an actual home office. Everyone else was working from a living room, bedroom, or in two cases, the couch with a laptop on their knees. One of the couch-workers left at around the same time as me recently for a company that worked from an office for the very reason that she could work from an office. It's horses for courses: some people like it and have an actual space to work properly and others don't. In my case I have a desktop computer, two monitors, a comfy chair, a motorised stand-up desk etc. I'd never get this level of comfort in an actual office. As well as the physical space issues, there is the psychological aspect too. I spend 5 days a week in the house all day by myself. I'm a contractor so making office friendships isn't something that motivates me (doesn't mean I hate everyone, just some people :D). I'm fine with that. I have a couple of friends I've known for many decades and that's enough for me. I can also get work done no problem and still put the washing on, nip out for groceries etc. I know of colleagues that crave the human interaction... which is fine. I don't. I get enough from my family and the daily (and mostly pointless) video calls. However, if I had to work from a laptop at my dining room table, It'd suck hard!
  - Zababa 5y ago
    I don't know about most, but I know that I personally don't mind going to work if I have a nice office. Open spaces are not nice. Having people behind my back bothers me for some reason, it makes me feel on the defensive and I'm not able to focus as much as I want. Open spaces also means that wearing a mask is mandatory, and 8 hours of mask-wearing gives me headaches at the end of the day. I do however like being able to take a day or two a week to WFH, as it's nice to be able to take care of the laundry or tasks like this during a work day. My view may be biased by being young, not having a family and living alone. Though I'm glad that my older collegues are able to spend more time with their family. My parents didn't have WFH when I was young, and I can easily see how a day or two for each parent could have made everything better. As a final point, as I don't have a very active social life, going to the office fills that "interacting with humans face to face" need for me. That's not a reason to force others to come, of course, but if society switch to more WFH, I hope alternatives will emerge for people like me that have a more "passive" style of socializing. Vocal chat just isn't the same, and webcams don't help.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      Depending upon your location and interests, there are probably various activity clubs (like hiking to pick a random example) around where you live. Certainly I don't depend on the office (aside from travel/events) at all for socializing--though I did at one point much earlier in my career.
      - Zababa 5y ago
        There are activity clubs, bars, lots of thigns like that, but that's why I talked specifically about "passive" socializing. I would call these things "active" socializing. I personally have a hard time with these kind of things, so in a way WFH could make my life a bit harder. Again, it's not a reason to stop people from doing it, or anything like that, but it's still a consequence of the shift, and I don't know how to solve this.
codegeek 5y ago
EDIT: US centric rant. Nobody is talking about the challenges WFH brings for small employers since we are all so fascinated with the positives so far. As a small business owner, you want to hire an employee out of state ? Just 1 employee on W2 ? Great. Go setup and register your company in that state and deal with crazy paperwork even for 1 employee. Oh you want to offer them health insurance ? Hmm, your insurance company doesn't operate well in that state. Now what ? Ok you try to come up with separate reimbursement/comp for that employee. Oh, your state offers Sick leave by law but then what do you do for employee not in that state ? Lot of hurdles. Yes, there are services like remote.com etc these days but they don't really help you build your own organic team in house. You cannot 1099 everyone especially if they are only working for you as a full time employee (IRS won't like that). You can get away hiring foreign contractors but until there is real legislation to hire people anywhere easily, this is a pain in the neck especially for smaller companies. Large companies should have no excuse. I am all for remote (have some of our best employees remote) but as a business owner, it is a lot of hurdles legally to go through. Yes Gitlab does it and all but they have cash to spend and circumvent lot of BS regulations with employment and taxes. I want a federal law in the United States that allows you to hire anyone in any state without doing the "Register in my state" bullshit and all that nexus crap. We can then talk a big game.
- ghaff 5y ago
  I worked for a very small company that had people in different states and even a different country. That said, it's reasonable for a small business to decide that you don't want to hire out of state. Unless you have specific needs and are located somewhere unusual, hiring a few people in-state shouldn't be that big a limitation. In general, the overall trend seems to be people moving away from urban areas but staying in cities--with a few obvious exceptions where a greater metro area spans into neighboring states as in New England.
  - codegeek 5y ago
    I run one of those companies and hence speaking from experience. I want to hire employees (not contractors) all over the United States but it is such a pain. I did that in 2 states already (in addition to primary state) and drowning with shitty paperwork.
ghaff 5y ago
Note that this article is not really about in-office vs. remote/WFH preferences in general. It's primarily focused on that the COVID situation is still such that a lot of companies don't feel they can force people back in the office, are not necessarily comfortable with doing so, and that many people are not willing to. (Now, perhaps COVID safety is in part an excuse but still.)
- cratermoon 5y ago
  > COVID situation is still such that a lot of companies don't feel they can force people back in the office If only someone had done something about 18 months ago and stopped the virus from blowing up into a economy-wrecking disaster.
  - warent 5y ago
    I don't disagree but turning this thread into a snide echo chamber isn't great. Please don't do this here.
    - cratermoon 5y ago
      OK let's ask the question differently. The reason people aren't returning to the office is because of the COVID-19 situation. We have ways to fix that. Mitigation: isolation, quarantine, social distancing of those suspected, their families, and the elderly Suppression: All of the mitigation measures, but applied to the entire population, plus closure of all non-essential activity We also have one we didn't have 18 months ago: a vaccine, and vaccine mandates. CEOs could be going to their elected representatives and pushing hard for these to happen. Why aren't they doing that? Why is the US content with ineffective half-measures that are prolonging the economic disruption that CEOs are so concerned about? Instead of say 6-9 weeks of disruption followed by a safe return to pre-pandemic activities, the US re-opened too early because of pressure from business. They weren't thinking long term, and now instead of short-term pain we have entire industries and supply chains disrupted. And yes I know this a global thing but the failures of the US to behave as a world citizen are, arguably, driving the continued global disruption.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
cratermoon 5y ago
Why do they insist on having their employees in the office? Are they so hidebound they can't innovate ways to disrupt office culture and build the future of work?
- pixelgeek 5y ago
  Yes
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Jensson 5y ago
  In theory they would adapt but in practice many lack the skills to do so. CEO's who are hired in simple times when market stays the same aren't tested on how well they adapt to change, so when change happens many CEO's wont know what to do. Easiest way to handle it is to ignore the change and just continue with the old ways (which often kills even the largest of companies).
- ghaff 5y ago
  In fairness, this isn't just about CEOs. All supporters of remote work (including myself) aside, there is no shortage of people who really would like to get back to pre-pandemic office work which isn't going to happen if most of their co-workers meander into the office one day a week, if that.
  - cratermoon 5y ago
    > if most of their co-workers meander into the office one day a week, if that. An innovative mix office/remote work ought to be able to address such challenges. I prefer remote work myself, but I am fully empathic with people who prefer office work. I know people with families who don't have the space or quiet to work from people. People living in tiny apartments that just want to be elsewhere. People with roommates. Stating the choice as "either go back to the office or work from home" is a false dichotomy.
    - 5y ago
pixelgeek 5y ago
Jim Cramer is a shit-artist and so I assume that anyone on his show talking about any issue is also a shit-artist with an agenda. As such, I have to assume that this is just a bunch of hot air and that businesses are going to try to use this to change labour laws to their benefit to address this "real issue"
hprotagonist 5y ago
> CEOs are at their wits' end to figure out how to get their employees back to the office as high levels of Covid infections persist 18 months into the pandemic. Gee, i wonder why! My employer asked in a survey what would make you feel OK to return to the office and my reply was "3 months of <5/100k cases in the metro area, 80%+ vaccination rate in the metro area, and vaccinations approved for children", all of which are both true answers and externalities they cannot control at all.
AviationAtom 5y ago
Instead of trying to get people back in the office, why not try harder to figure out how to better manage a remote workforce?
blueline 5y ago
pretty interesting that nowhere in the article does it mention that any of these CEOs have tried, say, offering higher compensation/better benefits compared to similar remote-friendly jobs. when i see "at their wits' end" i take that to mean "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas"
- SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
  The CEOs are trying to convince their existing workers to return to the office, not attract new ones. Maybe I'm not typical here, but I'd be pretty uncomfortable if my company announced a raise that only office attendees are eligible for with the explicit goal of pressuring people to go in.
- solarmist 5y ago
  Nowhere in the article does it make a case that returning to the office is desirable outside of the CEO’s need to feel important.
  - pixelgeek 5y ago
    I recall reading a few articles after the first year of the pandemic talking about this very thing and how once employees realised how much unpaid time they pissed away each day getting to work that it would be impossible to get them back. The only case for people going back to the office are people who want to be in an office environment. And I think those people are disappearing rapidly. My partner was one of those people who wanted to get back to the office and has had a pretty significant change of mind in the last year. What I want to know is who are these CEOs that they are only just dealing with this issue two years into this pandemic when lots of people were already discussing this? If these folks are so behind the curve on this issue then why are they even CEOs in the first place?
- pixelgeek 5y ago
  I was talking about this with my partner and that was her first response. Clearly enhanced wage packages are something that only work for C suite 'employees' > "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas" I always love this
lemoncookiechip 5y ago
Putting aside the topic of remote work. The main problem here, is that the USA, like most of the rest of the world, is applying a band-aid over a gaping wound in hopes of stopping the bleeding. Every single time we had a lockdown, or increase in restrictions, we then had the opposite happen shortly after. Restrictions were lifted arbitrarily or too soon, as well as push-back from a small minority who is either tired of how the government is/was handling the situation, in a dire living situation or being bombarded with misinformation and spreading it. Why is it that in a country as developed and with the education level of the USA, we have to incentivize people to take a drug that could save them, either from death, a horrible experience or from chronic ailments after said experience in some cases. We quite literally had states offering prize money, beer, food and other things so that people would get vaccinated. The fact that these programs had to exist in the first place is ludicrous. The fact that so many people who identify as anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers are so open about it and proudly and loudly scream it at others is in itself insane. For the first wave of COVID, the world handled it as best as it could, for how prepared it was (not very). But after so many waves of COVID spread, we're still handling it poorly, with so many wrong or unclear voices that it is staggering. I'm sorry for rambling on, but this topic is exhausting and a never ending cycle of doing without committing to it, which keeps us in the cycle.
- notyourwork 5y ago
  > I'm sorry for rambling on, If you have to qualify your text with this, you should reconsider posting it and perhaps revise the wording or message.
  - chrsig 5y ago
    Or not. This often applies to sayings like "no offense but, <offense>". I can easily find room for "I'm sorry for rambling on, ..." to account for people not feeling like there's room for their input. Social anxiety is a thing.
  - happytoexplain 5y ago
    It's OK to politely acknowledge the potential negative sides of any given choice you make. Nothing is absolute or binary. Everything has pros and cons.
pcurve 5y ago
No single CEO will be able to pull off the feat. Just like it took a large exogenous shock to get companies to let people work from home, it's going to take another shock to get people back into office. That shock will come in the next economic downturn, and employment market tilts in favor of employer. Outside the U.S., people have long returned to office, and the trend is continuing. Longer term, it will become more clear which industry and what companies WFH is a competitive edge vs liability. Highly productive, self-motivated, competent workers are in certain sectors are over-represented on HN, but that's not the norm. Having worked in sectors with distributed and WFH workforce, tighter supervision and protocols are required to keep competitive edge.
- swman 5y ago
  My experience has been that people just move slow af ever since the lockdowns and remote only. Like I get it we all have differing amounts of equity and “ceos are evil” is common amongst some of the boot camp devs. However, that’s not an excuse to just cruise control through the week. It’s pretty frustrating to see some that some people are barely doing any work, people are offline on slack or have blocked off whole afternoons as busy. You’d think it would have become more efficient with lockdowns..
- kyriakos 5y ago
  Not in US and in my knowledge software engineers haven't returned to office. WFH became so normal people are seeking jobs outside the country to the extend local companies can't find people to hire.
notyourwork 5y ago
The longer this WFH pandemic continues the more reinforcement my personal decision to not return to full time in office receives. I see absolutely no benefit to going to an office everyday. My team (and company) has functioned as well as we did the 5 years I worked there prior.
- ghaff 5y ago
  New defaults emerge. I was unofficially remote pre-pandemic (in that I didn't have an assigned desk and rarely went in to the nearest office). But I already see people who thought they'd come back in 2-3 days a week who find that number slipping downwards to a day or maybe not at all on a given week.
mprovost 5y ago
My father started his programming career in the 1970s when you were expected to wear a shirt and tie to the office every day. Then there was an energy crisis, and they turned up the temperature on the air conditioners. They also let everyone wear short sleeve shirts for the first time (still ties though). My father wore short sleeves for the rest of his career, even after the energy crisis was over and the temperature returned to normal. Once you give workers a benefit it's extremely hard to go back.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
lifeisstillgood 5y ago
If all you do is talk to your immediate co-workers you lose contact with rest of the business. The larger the business the worse this gets. I have been endlessly productive in lockdown, and for the first six months it did not matter that I was not picking up on gossip etc. Lately I am realising all the changesI missed (and others missed). It makes everything harder. So IMO if CEOs want to keep the value of those sort of interactions, (ie have everyone in the office) do waaaaay more communication, more cross-org meet-ups and mixers, have people come into office on same day for lunches and social activities The thing that "being in an offi e" facilitates is cross-pollination of ideas, just like a city does. And what facilitates that is not working but interacting
- al2o3cr 5y ago
  I was not picking up on gossip ... It makes everything harder. To me, this suggests a company that isn't communicating effectively - side-channels like gossip were filling in the gaps when folks were in-office, but now they aren't. Fixing _that_ problem may or may not be a matter of putting butts-in-seats again.
  - kthejoker2 5y ago
    Eh? I don't see that as a.problem at all - not all communication is top-down, ideas also start from the bottom, not all ideas or dialogue is scripted .. to expect there not to be a gossip / side-channel as an effective marketplace of ideas, that's a problem.
anotherevan 5y ago
"...as high levels of Covid infections persist 18 months into the pandemic," seems to be a pretty key point that no one seems to be noting.
pixelgeek 5y ago
What companies need to do is pay people for their time to and from work. Job done. If you want workers to spend 1 - 2 hours a day getting to the office then pay them.

ihsw 5y ago

They know perfectly well that there are many options available but they're not interested in putting them on the table.

jankotek 5y ago

For start they could provide private offices. Open-plan office is hygienically unsuitable for regular use.

WhisperingShiba 5y ago
I think most people just don't want to be under someone's control. At least, that is the case for me. Simple as. People not returning to their wage cages is a non problem. Spend less on childcare, spend less on food, commute less, improve health, spend exactly the needed time to achieve assigned tasks. WFH options are good for everyone except for megalomaniacs.
- MrWiffles 5y ago
  THIS. 100%
- dleslie 5y ago
  Precisely. It turns out many of us were working to cover the expenses of working! Without commuting, day care, eating out, and so forth we're saving an enormous chunk of money. Asking us to return to the office is asking us to effectively take a pay cut and reduce the hours we enjoy with our families.
  - jcadam 5y ago
    Any money I've saved has been more than cancelled out by inflation (particularly food prices). So now, going back to the office would be unaffordable.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- _Understated_ 5y ago
  > I think most people just don't want to be under someone's control I'm not sure it's as black and white as that! I've worked from home for a number of years and I used to think people were insane to want to go into an office but I've changed my tune in the last year or so for one simple reason: hardly anyone is set up to work from home! At my last company (small, only 21 employees - they got rid of their office earlier this year), I was one of only three people in the video calls with an actual home office. Everyone else was working from a living room, bedroom, or in two cases, the couch with a laptop on their knees. One of the couch-workers left at around the same time as me recently for a company that worked from an office for the very reason that she could work from an office. It's horses for courses: some people like it and have an actual space to work properly and others don't. In my case I have a desktop computer, two monitors, a comfy chair, a motorised stand-up desk etc. I'd never get this level of comfort in an actual office. As well as the physical space issues, there is the psychological aspect too. I spend 5 days a week in the house all day by myself. I'm a contractor so making office friendships isn't something that motivates me (doesn't mean I hate everyone, just some people :D). I'm fine with that. I have a couple of friends I've known for many decades and that's enough for me. I can also get work done no problem and still put the washing on, nip out for groceries etc. I know of colleagues that crave the human interaction... which is fine. I don't. I get enough from my family and the daily (and mostly pointless) video calls. However, if I had to work from a laptop at my dining room table, It'd suck hard!
- Zababa 5y ago
  I don't know about most, but I know that I personally don't mind going to work if I have a nice office. Open spaces are not nice. Having people behind my back bothers me for some reason, it makes me feel on the defensive and I'm not able to focus as much as I want. Open spaces also means that wearing a mask is mandatory, and 8 hours of mask-wearing gives me headaches at the end of the day. I do however like being able to take a day or two a week to WFH, as it's nice to be able to take care of the laundry or tasks like this during a work day. My view may be biased by being young, not having a family and living alone. Though I'm glad that my older collegues are able to spend more time with their family. My parents didn't have WFH when I was young, and I can easily see how a day or two for each parent could have made everything better. As a final point, as I don't have a very active social life, going to the office fills that "interacting with humans face to face" need for me. That's not a reason to force others to come, of course, but if society switch to more WFH, I hope alternatives will emerge for people like me that have a more "passive" style of socializing. Vocal chat just isn't the same, and webcams don't help.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Depending upon your location and interests, there are probably various activity clubs (like hiking to pick a random example) around where you live. Certainly I don't depend on the office (aside from travel/events) at all for socializing--though I did at one point much earlier in my career.
    - Zababa 5y ago
      There are activity clubs, bars, lots of thigns like that, but that's why I talked specifically about "passive" socializing. I would call these things "active" socializing. I personally have a hard time with these kind of things, so in a way WFH could make my life a bit harder. Again, it's not a reason to stop people from doing it, or anything like that, but it's still a consequence of the shift, and I don't know how to solve this.

codegeek 5y ago

EDIT: US centric rant. Nobody is talking about the challenges WFH brings for small employers since we are all so fascinated with the positives so far. As a small business owner, you want to hire an employee out of state ? Just 1 employee on W2 ? Great. Go setup and register your company in that state and deal with crazy paperwork even for 1 employee. Oh you want to offer them health insurance ? Hmm, your insurance company doesn't operate well in that state. Now what ? Ok you try to come up with separate reimbursement/comp for that employee. Oh, your state offers Sick leave by law but then what do you do for employee not in that state ? Lot of hurdles. Yes, there are services like remote.com etc these days but they don't really help you build your own organic team in house. You cannot 1099 everyone especially if they are only working for you as a full time employee (IRS won't like that). You can get away hiring foreign contractors but until there is real legislation to hire people anywhere easily, this is a pain in the neck especially for smaller companies. Large companies should have no excuse. I am all for remote (have some of our best employees remote) but as a business owner, it is a lot of hurdles legally to go through. Yes Gitlab does it and all but they have cash to spend and circumvent lot of BS regulations with employment and taxes. I want a federal law in the United States that allows you to hire anyone in any state without doing the "Register in my state" bullshit and all that nexus crap. We can then talk a big game.

ghaff 5y ago
I worked for a very small company that had people in different states and even a different country. That said, it's reasonable for a small business to decide that you don't want to hire out of state. Unless you have specific needs and are located somewhere unusual, hiring a few people in-state shouldn't be that big a limitation. In general, the overall trend seems to be people moving away from urban areas but staying in cities--with a few obvious exceptions where a greater metro area spans into neighboring states as in New England.
- codegeek 5y ago
  I run one of those companies and hence speaking from experience. I want to hire employees (not contractors) all over the United States but it is such a pain. I did that in 2 states already (in addition to primary state) and drowning with shitty paperwork.

ghaff 5y ago

Note that this article is not really about in-office vs. remote/WFH preferences in general. It's primarily focused on that the COVID situation is still such that a lot of companies don't feel they can force people back in the office, are not necessarily comfortable with doing so, and that many people are not willing to. (Now, perhaps COVID safety is in part an excuse but still.)

cratermoon 5y ago
> COVID situation is still such that a lot of companies don't feel they can force people back in the office If only someone had done something about 18 months ago and stopped the virus from blowing up into a economy-wrecking disaster.
- warent 5y ago
  I don't disagree but turning this thread into a snide echo chamber isn't great. Please don't do this here.
  - cratermoon 5y ago
    OK let's ask the question differently. The reason people aren't returning to the office is because of the COVID-19 situation. We have ways to fix that. Mitigation: isolation, quarantine, social distancing of those suspected, their families, and the elderly Suppression: All of the mitigation measures, but applied to the entire population, plus closure of all non-essential activity We also have one we didn't have 18 months ago: a vaccine, and vaccine mandates. CEOs could be going to their elected representatives and pushing hard for these to happen. Why aren't they doing that? Why is the US content with ineffective half-measures that are prolonging the economic disruption that CEOs are so concerned about? Instead of say 6-9 weeks of disruption followed by a safe return to pre-pandemic activities, the US re-opened too early because of pressure from business. They weren't thinking long term, and now instead of short-term pain we have entire industries and supply chains disrupted. And yes I know this a global thing but the failures of the US to behave as a world citizen are, arguably, driving the continued global disruption.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

cratermoon 5y ago

Why do they insist on having their employees in the office? Are they so hidebound they can't innovate ways to disrupt office culture and build the future of work?

pixelgeek 5y ago
Yes
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Jensson 5y ago
In theory they would adapt but in practice many lack the skills to do so. CEO's who are hired in simple times when market stays the same aren't tested on how well they adapt to change, so when change happens many CEO's wont know what to do. Easiest way to handle it is to ignore the change and just continue with the old ways (which often kills even the largest of companies).
ghaff 5y ago
In fairness, this isn't just about CEOs. All supporters of remote work (including myself) aside, there is no shortage of people who really would like to get back to pre-pandemic office work which isn't going to happen if most of their co-workers meander into the office one day a week, if that.
- cratermoon 5y ago
  > if most of their co-workers meander into the office one day a week, if that. An innovative mix office/remote work ought to be able to address such challenges. I prefer remote work myself, but I am fully empathic with people who prefer office work. I know people with families who don't have the space or quiet to work from people. People living in tiny apartments that just want to be elsewhere. People with roommates. Stating the choice as "either go back to the office or work from home" is a false dichotomy.
  - 5y ago

pixelgeek 5y ago

Jim Cramer is a shit-artist and so I assume that anyone on his show talking about any issue is also a shit-artist with an agenda. As such, I have to assume that this is just a bunch of hot air and that businesses are going to try to use this to change labour laws to their benefit to address this "real issue"

hprotagonist 5y ago

> CEOs are at their wits' end to figure out how to get their employees back to the office as high levels of Covid infections persist 18 months into the pandemic. Gee, i wonder why! My employer asked in a survey what would make you feel OK to return to the office and my reply was "3 months of <5/100k cases in the metro area, 80%+ vaccination rate in the metro area, and vaccinations approved for children", all of which are both true answers and externalities they cannot control at all.

AviationAtom 5y ago

Instead of trying to get people back in the office, why not try harder to figure out how to better manage a remote workforce?

blueline 5y ago

pretty interesting that nowhere in the article does it mention that any of these CEOs have tried, say, offering higher compensation/better benefits compared to similar remote-friendly jobs. when i see "at their wits' end" i take that to mean "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas"

SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
The CEOs are trying to convince their existing workers to return to the office, not attract new ones. Maybe I'm not typical here, but I'd be pretty uncomfortable if my company announced a raise that only office attendees are eligible for with the explicit goal of pressuring people to go in.
solarmist 5y ago
Nowhere in the article does it make a case that returning to the office is desirable outside of the CEO’s need to feel important.
- pixelgeek 5y ago
  I recall reading a few articles after the first year of the pandemic talking about this very thing and how once employees realised how much unpaid time they pissed away each day getting to work that it would be impossible to get them back. The only case for people going back to the office are people who want to be in an office environment. And I think those people are disappearing rapidly. My partner was one of those people who wanted to get back to the office and has had a pretty significant change of mind in the last year. What I want to know is who are these CEOs that they are only just dealing with this issue two years into this pandemic when lots of people were already discussing this? If these folks are so behind the curve on this issue then why are they even CEOs in the first place?
pixelgeek 5y ago
I was talking about this with my partner and that was her first response. Clearly enhanced wage packages are something that only work for C suite 'employees' > "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas" I always love this

lemoncookiechip 5y ago

Putting aside the topic of remote work. The main problem here, is that the USA, like most of the rest of the world, is applying a band-aid over a gaping wound in hopes of stopping the bleeding. Every single time we had a lockdown, or increase in restrictions, we then had the opposite happen shortly after. Restrictions were lifted arbitrarily or too soon, as well as push-back from a small minority who is either tired of how the government is/was handling the situation, in a dire living situation or being bombarded with misinformation and spreading it. Why is it that in a country as developed and with the education level of the USA, we have to incentivize people to take a drug that could save them, either from death, a horrible experience or from chronic ailments after said experience in some cases. We quite literally had states offering prize money, beer, food and other things so that people would get vaccinated. The fact that these programs had to exist in the first place is ludicrous. The fact that so many people who identify as anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers are so open about it and proudly and loudly scream it at others is in itself insane. For the first wave of COVID, the world handled it as best as it could, for how prepared it was (not very). But after so many waves of COVID spread, we're still handling it poorly, with so many wrong or unclear voices that it is staggering. I'm sorry for rambling on, but this topic is exhausting and a never ending cycle of doing without committing to it, which keeps us in the cycle.

notyourwork 5y ago
> I'm sorry for rambling on, If you have to qualify your text with this, you should reconsider posting it and perhaps revise the wording or message.
- chrsig 5y ago
  Or not. This often applies to sayings like "no offense but, <offense>". I can easily find room for "I'm sorry for rambling on, ..." to account for people not feeling like there's room for their input. Social anxiety is a thing.
- happytoexplain 5y ago
  It's OK to politely acknowledge the potential negative sides of any given choice you make. Nothing is absolute or binary. Everything has pros and cons.

pcurve 5y ago

No single CEO will be able to pull off the feat. Just like it took a large exogenous shock to get companies to let people work from home, it's going to take another shock to get people back into office. That shock will come in the next economic downturn, and employment market tilts in favor of employer. Outside the U.S., people have long returned to office, and the trend is continuing. Longer term, it will become more clear which industry and what companies WFH is a competitive edge vs liability. Highly productive, self-motivated, competent workers are in certain sectors are over-represented on HN, but that's not the norm. Having worked in sectors with distributed and WFH workforce, tighter supervision and protocols are required to keep competitive edge.

swman 5y ago
My experience has been that people just move slow af ever since the lockdowns and remote only. Like I get it we all have differing amounts of equity and “ceos are evil” is common amongst some of the boot camp devs. However, that’s not an excuse to just cruise control through the week. It’s pretty frustrating to see some that some people are barely doing any work, people are offline on slack or have blocked off whole afternoons as busy. You’d think it would have become more efficient with lockdowns..
kyriakos 5y ago
Not in US and in my knowledge software engineers haven't returned to office. WFH became so normal people are seeking jobs outside the country to the extend local companies can't find people to hire.

notyourwork 5y ago

The longer this WFH pandemic continues the more reinforcement my personal decision to not return to full time in office receives. I see absolutely no benefit to going to an office everyday. My team (and company) has functioned as well as we did the 5 years I worked there prior.

ghaff 5y ago
New defaults emerge. I was unofficially remote pre-pandemic (in that I didn't have an assigned desk and rarely went in to the nearest office). But I already see people who thought they'd come back in 2-3 days a week who find that number slipping downwards to a day or maybe not at all on a given week.

mprovost 5y ago

My father started his programming career in the 1970s when you were expected to wear a shirt and tie to the office every day. Then there was an energy crisis, and they turned up the temperature on the air conditioners. They also let everyone wear short sleeve shirts for the first time (still ties though). My father wore short sleeves for the rest of his career, even after the energy crisis was over and the temperature returned to normal. Once you give workers a benefit it's extremely hard to go back.

deleted 5y ago
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lifeisstillgood 5y ago

If all you do is talk to your immediate co-workers you lose contact with rest of the business. The larger the business the worse this gets. I have been endlessly productive in lockdown, and for the first six months it did not matter that I was not picking up on gossip etc. Lately I am realising all the changesI missed (and others missed). It makes everything harder. So IMO if CEOs want to keep the value of those sort of interactions, (ie have everyone in the office) do waaaaay more communication, more cross-org meet-ups and mixers, have people come into office on same day for lunches and social activities The thing that "being in an offi e" facilitates is cross-pollination of ideas, just like a city does. And what facilitates that is not working but interacting

al2o3cr 5y ago
I was not picking up on gossip ... It makes everything harder. To me, this suggests a company that isn't communicating effectively - side-channels like gossip were filling in the gaps when folks were in-office, but now they aren't. Fixing _that_ problem may or may not be a matter of putting butts-in-seats again.
- kthejoker2 5y ago
  Eh? I don't see that as a.problem at all - not all communication is top-down, ideas also start from the bottom, not all ideas or dialogue is scripted .. to expect there not to be a gossip / side-channel as an effective marketplace of ideas, that's a problem.

anotherevan 5y ago

"...as high levels of Covid infections persist 18 months into the pandemic," seems to be a pretty key point that no one seems to be noting.

pixelgeek 5y ago

What companies need to do is pay people for their time to and from work. Job done. If you want workers to spend 1 - 2 hours a day getting to the office then pay them.