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Apple has a new work-from-home policy, but it’s still not what employees want
- e40 5y agoI have no doubt that if most people lived next door to the office they wouldn't mind going into the office and might even prefer it. The sad reality for Apple and any company in the Bay Area: house prices near work are insane and commute times to the 'burbs are crazy long. Also, BART has gotten much less safe over the last few years, so some people feel they must drive. All of Apple's justifications mean nothing in the face of the above.
- skywal_l 5y agoIt's going to be a problem hard to resolved. It can be seen as a perk for a company to offer the possibility of remote work like bonuses or free coffee. The thing is, some people actually hate telework and would rather impose everyone to be present because this is how they feel the most efficient or because it is just how they like to work. So contrary to the traditional employer/employees balance of power, there is also a employees/employees thing going on here. Considering those who can telework full time without any limitations (say software engineer for example) what is the ratio of those who want to telework fulltime, part-time or not at all. It's hard to trust polls on this because they are usually driven by employers who have an agenda anyway.
- Symbiote 5y agoWe currently have something very similar to Apple's proposed policy (~2 days in the office per week, several weeks remote work per year). Some like it and will work from home as much as they can, others will come to the office but don't mind the flexibility. What was interesting was comments from an anonymous poll. A couple of people said they didn't like the policy since it meant they ended up caring for young children almost all the time. Previously, they would split things like taking them to/from school or looking after them if they were sick 50:50 with their partner. One person having so much flexibility meant this became 100:0. In theory we were flexible before 2020, but its only since 2020 that I've felt doing my laundry was an acceptable reason to work from home.
- chrisseaton 5y agoNot sure I get it - why would working from home mean that you need to look after the children more? You can still use whatever other childcare arrangements you were using before, exactly as if you were in an office.
- falcolas 5y agoThis, plus if your partner is dumping things on you because you're free, that's a partner communication issue, not a WFH issue.
- ectopod 5y agoIf your partner has to take unpaid leave you might both agree that it's better for you to care for the sick child. But you're still stuck with it.
- shagie 5y agoOften a sick child (can't go to daycare / school) gets a "today I take a PTO day, you take a PTO day next time." When one partner has WFH, neither person needs to take an absence from work, but the person who is WFH gets all the childcare. There's also the "the person with the flexible schedule allows the other schedule to become more normalized." In the before times, one of my co-workers picked up their child on alternating days. So Monday was late in (drop off child at school) and late out (spouse picked up the child). Tuesday was early in (spouse dropped off the child) and early out (pick up child at school). This way both people were able to get in 8h days at work. With WFH, my co-worker's schedule shifted so that they were the one always dropping off and picking up the child (and having what would be considered a split shift - working a few hours in the late afternoon or evening). For my co-worker, this was overall a net positive (school was a short distance from the house compared to a long, out of the way distance from work) allowing (even with the schedule change) less time spent ferrying a child around... but it also meant that my co-worker is doing all the child ferrying while their spouse is working a regular 9-5 that have oddities of child ferrying adjustments.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
- rightbyte 5y agoThe greatest advantages of remote work are that it removes many of the downsides of a bad work environment: * No commute (not the employers fault really) * You can zone out in irrelevant meetings. * Sit down during stand-ups. * Soft 'intimidation' does not work well over the phone * No open office noise etc. Since I changed job from a chaotic place with 50min commute each way, to a tidy job within walking distance, the remote work thing seems like a minor perk, rather than the best thing ever.
- randomdata 5y agoThe greatest advantage is that you can get other things done around the house (or beyond the house) between productivity stints. Even a short walk from the office tends to create a barrier to that.
- rightbyte 5y agoYe forgot that one. It is high on the list.
- haliskerbas 5y agoAdding two very important things for me personally: - a bathroom where I have true privacy and not someone waiting on me or able to perceive me with their senses - not having to deal with the smell of others or worry about my own
- laichzeit0 5y agoI’ve always chosen jobs where I live within a comfortable “shit radius” and can drive home when needed. There is simply no way I could ever use a public toilet. My girlfriend finds it hilarious that I come home to take a dump, but I simply can’t go in public.
- btrettel 5y agoThe commute often is the fault of the employer, if they decide to locate the business in an area will little housing or little housing that the employees want (for example, an area with only extremely expensive apartments or a bad school district).
- lnanek2 5y ago> So contrary to the traditional employer/employees balance of power, there is also a employees/employees thing going on here. We have that on my team at work too. About 10% of the people on the team prefer to work in office, but they always caveat that with, "but I don't want to come into an empty office." Meaning being, that want the rest of the team in the office too.
- floatingatoll 5y agoI only prefer working remotely as an alternative to an office with open-air seating. Give me an office with a window and a door, and I would quite willingly work from an office. My employer has, for over a decade, refused to build anything but open-air seating. So everything thinks I prefer to work remotely, because their own feelings taint their perceptions of my actions, but they don't ask my actual motivations and take for granted that I support their views. Please take care not to frame everyone who prefers working from an office as people who would "impose" their views on others. I work from home rather than impose my views on others, but your argument makes a very good point. I should probably step up and begin pressuring for better office design, since that would remove a crutch that the remote-work movement is unaware it's being propped up by. Yes, some will still prefer to work remotely, but I've done offices, and I've done remote, and it's clear there are pros and cons to each that vary per project and per team. It's time for office design to be given due credit for how it drives people into remote work, so that we can stop confusing a desire for a healthy working environment with a desire to work from our homes.
- Eric_WVGG 5y agoI'm reminded of an old bit by Joel Spolsky of Stack Overflow, where he outlines — in extreme detail — his designs for the old Fog Creek offices. It's very clear that he put more thought into these designs than the work that most interior architects I've encountered have bothered to perform. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/09/24/bionic-office/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/09/24/bionic-office/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2015/01/16/why-we-still-believe-in-private-offices/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2015/01/16/why-we-still-believe-i... (remarkable that cubicles used to be our idea of office hell, and now just seem like an unimaginable amount of personal space)
- shagie 5y agoIf you ever hunt up a copy of A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Mary Silverstein (the book that inspired Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software) it is an interesting read. Patterns 146, 151, and 152 get into the design of the office. For example, 146 - Flexible Office - https://books.google.com/books?id=FTpxDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA690&lpg=PA690&dq=a+pattern+language+146&source=bl&ots=S8pGqy6mbW&sig=ACfU3U3K1850NIpiyZXdh0rTlqcDdyBbsw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiJh7i_y6z0AhUOH80KHS0HCYoQ6AF6BAgVEAM#v=onepage&q=a%20pattern%20language%20146&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=FTpxDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA690&lpg=... It is a fascinating book to read (and you don't need to consume it all at once). There are things in there that helped me understand why my house (it had its stairs reversed in the 1920s) has a flow to it that leads to certain rooms getting less use than they were designed for - the staircase from the 2nd floor living space now goes to the back door (rather than the center of the house) which means 2nd floor to garage is an easy transition while 2nd floor to front door is a harder one. That in turn makes it more natural (for this design of the house) to go out the garage door and along the sidewalk past light commercial when going down town than out the front door and past neighbors through the residential roads.
- reedjosh 5y agoGross. Just let people work where they want already!
- randycupertino 5y agoI feel like the horse has left the barn. So many people at my firm have permanently moved to Montana, Houston, Arizona. No decrease in productivity. It's going to be really hard for management to entice them back to the office, if ever. Also noticing all the recruiters who contact me these days lead with remote or % wfh.
- corobo 5y agoRecently I've also noticed them throwing in "no whiteboard tests" as an interview perk too haha
- pkorzeniewski 5y agoIt's funny how these big companies try so hard to make their office space as "cool" as possible and think employees enjoy them but the moment they are given the choice to work remotely almost nobody wants to go back to office, at least not on a daily basis..
- ido 5y agoI interviewed at google (not googleplex but one of their other very fancy offices that spans multiple stories of an expensive skyscraper). The office seemed great as did all the amenities. But it was an hour's commute in each direction and if I had to work there I'd have worked from home as often as I could.
- GeekyBear 5y agoFor me, the desire to avoid ridiculous commute times is the most relatable issue. A two hour daily commute is like adding an additional day to your work week.
- closeparen 5y agoWe opened applications for full-remote status; the uptake was something like 5%. Almost nobody minds the office enough to fill out an HR JIRA.
- forgotmypw17 5y agoMaybe that says something about JIRA?
- thaumasiotes 5y agoWho are "we"?
- caskstrength 5y agoJIRA? Most of your coworkers just couldn't find the right project and then fill all the necessary tags/fields correctly.
- 5y ago
- jedberg 5y agoApple is a company that values loyalty in its employees. This is just a good way for them to weed out some of the disloyal. At the end of the day, there are so many people who want to work for Apple that I don't think it will be a big problem for them.
- theslurmmustflo 5y agoLoyalty doesn't build or design good products
- kroltan 5y agoAs is plain to see :P
- nebula8804 5y agoSpeak for yourself. After messing with Windows 11 last night, I cannot fathom how people tolerate that trash. Went back to my M1 Mac.
- Sohcahtoa82 5y agoFunny thing is, I'm the opposite after getting a Mac for work at my current job. You can't disable pointer acceleration via the Mouse configuration control panel. You have to use some terminal command. Scroll wheel acceleration can't be disabled at all without using 3rd party software. The Home/End should bring the cursor to the beginning/end of the current line, not the beginning/end of the current document. Disappearing scroll bars are only a feature on mobile applications where screen real estate is a premium. And why is there not even an option to ungroup my windows in the Dock? If I have 3 Chrome windows, I want 3 Chrome icons so I can switch between them more quickly. Windows groups by default, but there's at least an option to ungroup them. Everything about Mac feels like they believe that removing features is a feature.
- hbn 5y ago
- trollied 5y agoWhat would they do with a $5 billion empty building? Things have shifted now, and employers need to realise that they need to offer remote to bag the best engineers. I certainly never want a long commute again.
- itisit 5y agoIt will probably become an R&D campus more than anything.
- shmatt 5y agoI have a feeling Apple would be happy to have mediocre engineers as long as they are willing to be in the small subset willing to commute daily, showing the ultimate personal sacrifice to their employer
- barbazoo 5y agoIt does somehow feel like they built the office real estate equivalent of the Airbus A380.
- twiddling 5y agoI am trying to find the old study about companies and their decline after building white elephant HQ buildings.
- unboxedvariable 5y agoStarted remote a few months before the pandemic. Also started out my career in tech working remotely. In my current situation, I don't imagine ever returning and feel grateful for the opportunity to wrest back more control over my life and circumstances that would usually have been dictated to suit my employer. For me, remote work gives me _far_ more time, energy etc to invest in myself and family which is why I work in the first place. Not only that, but the chance to work for an employer in a remote capacity greatly diminishes the urge I have felt to go the consultancy route etc. There are a lot of habits and work processes instilled in us from having to report to hq every day but for a lot of people we are already emerging on the other side of replacing those arcane processes with modern internet native approaches. This will force a lot of change on people in terms of how we socialize and it is a major change, with major upside imo.
- subsubzero 5y agoApple has a new wfh policy, the spaceship HQ in cupertino has been renamed "home". All employees are free to work from "home" anytime they want and as long as they want. /s
- whywhywhywhy 5y agoUnless you have a very desirable and unique skill set I think it's naive to think you're going to eventually win, they didn't build that gigantic HQ for it to remain empty and the waste of money that is your empty desk in the donut will be pinned on you not sitting at it not them for building it. Not saying I agree with it, but I think this is one area of Apples culture that is going to go against the tide.
- rozap 5y agoYou will win though, just not at apple. Plenty of employers are fine with remote.
- unboxedvariable 5y agoRemote work could also be considered a significant cost cutting measure and one that, given to a startup, could result in a significant advantage. Startups don't hire juniors, so that's where I see this becoming more of a thing. All of those seniors out there that may never have considered remote work, why would they, they're paid great and live comfortably, now have a taste for remote work and are adjusting their spreadsheets to see how soon they could afford retirement etc etc. Investors have a major say in how the money is spent. All of a sudden, remote is where that exciting startup experience is, where the kids want to go. Sure, fly everybody together once or twice a year, far cheaper than an office.
- davidf18 5y agoThe flying saucer HQ was built for the previous era. Ironically, it is Apple equipment which has helped to bring the coming of the new era. Now it is somewhat more decentralized, with Apple locating where the talent wants to live.
- siruncledrew 5y agoGoogle, Amazon, and lots of other companies are in the same stance as Apple. Deep down, I think the issue goes past working flexibility down to a multi-billion dollar financial question of what do these companies do with their real estate assets? They've already built or bought gigantic office buildings and campuses across the US, so what do they do with them? Turn them into warehouses? Just let them sit at <50% capacity? Idk what the answer is, but I'm sure lots of CFOs are probably busy with this, since it seems like it would be "paddling against the current" to counteract remote preferences.
- citizenpaul 5y agoI'm sure real estate is part of the equation, though I doubt it really has much to do with the overall push to office. The real reason at the end of the day is sociopath managers/execs. They see work from home as freedom and office as control. I've had C levels tell me straight up they don't care if it is more efficient to work at home. They would rather be able to scream at someone if something is wrong, they would rather have 10 people sitting around getting paid for nothing so they can storm in and round them up for some random project. They simply are not interested in putting together a well though out plan and sending it to everyone. In most of the world the people in charge are not in place because of competence or successful harmony of efficient work. They simply are looking out for themselves more viciously than other people did and now they are in charge.
- VLM 5y agoI think we'll evolve 'better' sociopaths. Dozens of emergency text messages at 2am, conference calls with 30 people on them only 5 involved in the problem, weird demands for screen sharing, strangely scheduled video conferences for the sake of proving you can force people to attend video conferences... Bad management will always find a way to be bad.
- RandallBrown 5y agoThe answer is pretty simple. They won't renew the leases on the offices they're renting and they'll consolidate into the buildings they own. If it's still too much office space they'll sell or just let the workers that are coming in have more space. Years ago I heard stories of Amazon forcing employees to work from home because their offices didn't have enough bathrooms. Amazon is, as far as I know, allowing people to work from home full time now. That's what their recruiters have been telling me and that's what my friends that work there are saying.
- spoonjim 5y ago“What employees want” isn’t really relevant. I’m sure employees also want 10x the salary. What matters is 1) can they use their brand, their balance sheet, their luxury office, or other parameters to maintain the workforce of the size and skills required to conduct their business, or 2) is in-person so much more effective than remote that they can compete in the market with fewer or less-skilled on-site workers because those workers’ output is so much better when on-site.
- anon2020dot00 5y agoHow is "what employees want" not relevant? "What employees want" directly influences employee retention and hiring. In a hypothetical scenario, if an employee wants full remote work but Apple is not offering it but Google is then that then employee is going to go to Google to the detriment of Apple.
- Johnny555 5y ago“What employees want” isn’t really relevant I think John Deere said the same thing. When enough employees get together and demand what they want, they'll get it.
- spoonjim 5y agoExactly. What employees want and what they have the leverage to get can be worlds apart.
- anon2020dot00 5y agoLeverage is important and maybe most employees don't have enough leverage and so can't really do much about what they want. But what employees want, especially if reasonable, would also affect employee morale and satisfaction. Even without leverage, employees that love their jobs versus employees that hate their jobs makes a big difference.
- alanwreath 5y agoWFH vs No WFH vs Hybrid WFH has become the new emacs vs vi vs vscode (order not important), but I wonder if it will all go away when projects like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q13CishCKXY&t=110s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q13CishCKXY&t=110s become as available as a web browser
- throwaway_0054 5y agoHere’s something I don’t understand: Companies across the board the board seem to think they have every right to decide how to structure their employees lives. And almost universally they make a big show about listening to their employees and then afterwards show they don’t care one whit by demonstrating through their actions they either didn’t listen or don’t care. Then they rub salt in the wound with their carefully crafted corporate-speak press releases. For any industry based on knowledge work, this behavior is just about as unprofessional as one can be; it’s insulting to their workforce and breeds malcontent. On the other hand you have workplaces where honesty is both valued and respected on each side of the employer/employee divide. I suspect we hear little about such companies, and they keep on running. When might the big dishonest companies realize the dishonesty is at the core of not just the WFH problem, but nearly all of the problems they face? Is it even possible?
- rattlesnakedave 5y agoGreat observation. I don't think these megaliths will be able to come to this realization. It's directly in opposition to their existence. The good news is that as those who are honest and productive continue to realize they can form small bands with other like minded productive people, build high trust orgs that and remain profitable due to the agility that affords, we will hopefully not have to put up with this for much longer.
- izzydata 5y agoI work for a tech company in the midwest with about 5000 employees at the particular office I am at and we are currently in a state where you can either work from home or go to the office. I'd wager about ~10% of people go to the office and that includes people that have jobs that absolutely require the tools or equipment at the office. I should mention that the original plan was also this 2-3 days a week at the office, but has been put on hold indefinitely until something changes.
- nice_byte 5y agoI'd be fine with such policy. I don't want to ever work remote again. I used to think working from home would be more productive, but found it to be the exact opposite, between an endless supply of distractions, lack of face-to-face communication, overall drudgery of being stuck in your home all day, and having to think about meals (which is a surprisingly annoying change if you're used to just getting whatever's in the nearest cafeteria).
- rattlesnakedave 5y agoIt should all be optional. There should be no x days / week requirement. Management should be able to call everyone into a physical meeting room when necessary, but outside of that there's I'm not sure what x days / week serves.
- aaroninsf 5y agoITT: lots of people without kids, who appear to have a very very different relationship to in-office than anyone in my own circles, who do have kids. No one I know with kids wants to give up flexible WFH. Not one. No mystery why. Every minute commuting is a minute away from your already extremely limited family time. Every day without flexibility is a PITA wrt any of the myriad quiet duties parents have to move their kids around all day, which have now returned with their own vengeance because of the pandemic suppression of carpooling and public transit as viable options for many, particularly those with kids under 12, none of whom are yet fully protected, and won't be for weeks.
- rattlesnakedave 5y agoBack-to-the-office movement continues to be spurred by those whose employment depends on productivity theatre, and those who are dissatisfied with their home life and use the office as an escape. Very sad we can't compromise with an agreement where the productive remote folks can show up to the office when absolutely needed, without some arbitrary x days / week requirement. Hopefully this continues the brain drain out of companies that can't get with it due to their large RE holdings & extensive use of PMs.
- progman32 5y agoRemote work has added more than an hour to my usable, personal time each weekday because I'm no longer commuting. That's ten days over a year. Plus all the time saved in miscellaneous commute-related activities. That's a hard perk to give up. Tempus fugit. Memento mori.
- Foofoobar12345 5y agoLong term, I'd expect non-remote companies to outperform remote-only companies. On-site work leads to more chance encounters, more creativity, in addition to tighter feedback loops. I'm the founder of a remote-only startup (from before covid, 8+ years), and every once in a few months, we get together for a couple weeks to do some collaborative work, and the teams productivity is an order of magnitude higher, even though we don't overwork. Initially I attributed this to the different state of mind that we bring in those two weeks, but eventually I realized in a well functioning team, excitement just rubs of each other. We'll continue being remote as a lifestyle choice, but I firmly believe that if we were together in the same room, and spent even half the time at work, we'd be more productive. Additionally I believe remote is better suited for senior devs, with 10+ years of experience and generally have their lives together. I sincerely believe that juniors, especially those just out of college will hurt their trajectory, as they'll loose the ability to observe and learn the behavior of seniors and adopt mentors. Also some of my closest friends today are those I've met at work in my first job, and have been thorough the "trenches" together with. Ymmv.
- gathersight 5y agoIn 10 years we'll look back on these kind of discussions and laugh. The idea that human productivity is a corollary to office 'presence' is now absurd. Industrial centralization was arguably economically and socially necessary for 200+ years (especially when the alternative was serfdom) but this isn't the 18th century anymore. Large cities made successful by centralization have become logistically hellish and expensive. It's become largely illogical to live in one. Hybrid is a fudge and will be as burdensome for employees as it will be inefficient for their employers. Those that have hybrid forced on them will have to get used to endless scheduling admin "...is Ted in today? Has anyone seen Ted?". And in a split '2 days out' v '3 days in model' it's be hugely wasteful to have offices empty 4 days per week per person. Companies insisting on in-person or hybrid have a dependency on their local job market. Two potentially terminal pressures with this: their local market will atrophy as the most marketable people choose to work remote roles. And they'll be disadvantaged against remote-only competitors recruiting the best and most cost effective talent around the world.