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Our company (~70 people) has gone to a 3 days in the office Tuesday through Thursday and wfh Monday and Friday . Initially we did pick your 2 wfh days but then

by taf2 4y ago

Our company (~70 people) has gone to a 3 days in the office Tuesday through Thursday and wfh Monday and Friday . Initially we did pick your 2 wfh days but then I realized what makes being in the office good is being together. So orienting the in office days to be the same for everyone means we have a few days in the middle that people can be together and collaborate and on the edges Monday and Friday remote. It works pretty good - we make some exceptions for people far from the office and of course we have fully remote but I like it it’s created a good balance….

user_named 4y ago
Did you care to ask your employees what they think? Why not?
- randomh3r0 4y ago
  Is the assumption here being that all employees would prefer 100% WFH?
  - user_named 4y ago
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  For what it’s worth: I’m at a company that did survey employees on this question. The results actually leaned toward return to office for a lot of the non-engineering parts of the company. Within engineering, the more junior people really wanted to return to office. The people with 10 years of experience and 2 kids at home really wanted to stay home. Not surprising, really. Our engineering team remained remote, but not everyone is happy about it. I get emails every other week asking engineers to not come into the office very often because we don’t have enough extra desks for remote employees to be in the office very frequently. > Did you care to ask your employees what they think? Why not? While I do think it’s very important to keep employee’s desires and career goals in consideration, questions like these aren’t necessarily aligned with what’s best for the company or getting work done. If you survey employees about how many hours they’d prefer to work each week or how big they want their next raise to be, you’re not going to get answers that reflect what’s best or even realistic from a business perspective. That doesn’t mean you can ignore your employees desires, of course! But you do have to keep in mind that most employees will default to responding with what’s best for them personally, and for a lot of people from the general population that can mean something very different than what’s best for their team or the company.
- woojoo666 4y ago
  you're wording implies that they didn't ask at all, especially the "why not" at the end. Yet I see nowhere in GP's comment that would allow you to make that assumption
  - jimbob45 4y ago
    Initially we did pick your 2 wfh days but then I realized what makes being in the office good is being together. He said “I realized” rather than “we decided”. It heavily implies that it was his decision.
    - taf2 4y ago
      sorry typing early in the morning it was a "I realized" and then a "we decided" e.g. someone in pretty much every company needs to come up with an idea and then socialize it and get by in... We got buy in as "we decided" to unify the days we work together and we work remote... I feel like maybe in this forum i've offended someone for sharing - apologies, just thought in this context sharing our experience was interesting for maybe others...
- marcinzm 4y ago
  My company gives everyone the option to be remote or hybrid even if they're near the office. Probably most of engineering comes into the office at least once a week if they're located near it. My whole team tends to come it at least once a week and a few almost every day. That said if it was 3 days a week I think my team would not be happy and I definitely would not be happy.
kawsper 4y ago
> but then I realized what makes being in the office good is being together. My favorite time in the office is during the summer period when a random set of people is left behind because of vacation. You get to speak to different people than your usual crowd, the cliques are split up, sometimes you even speak to someone from a different department. The work-from-home with an office available have been a bit like that.
john_minsk 4y ago
Nice. Even lazier Mondays and early checkout Fridays. I would vote for that.
- taf2 4y ago
  Me too :)
dinkledunk 4y ago
> we make some exceptions for people far from the office So move far away from the office. Got it.
jimbob45 4y ago
It sounds like you’re the CEO making decisions for everyone. How many resignations have you had as a result of your choices?
stingraycharles 4y ago
Thanks for sharing, there’s a lot of negativity in the replies but at least you’re sharing your thought process and the decisions that were made. How did you end up choosing Tue - Thu? Would it not make more sense to “sync” with each other in the office on the start and end of the week?
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  Because no one wants to commute on Monday morning and Friday afternoon if they can avoid it?
mbesto 4y ago
> as gone to a 3 days in the office Tuesday through Thursday and wfh Monday and Friday This is the way. People can debate all they want about in office VS remote, however there is VERY clearly some level of preference for employees whether they want one or the other. The pandemic just straight ripped people out of office chairs into their homes without even asking. This is a happy medium IMHO. For what its worth - my company was setup from the get-go as 100% remote and do quarterly in person meetings. When we recruit we are very up front about this "you need to be comfortable with essentially operating on your own".

by taf2 4y ago

user_named 4y ago

Did you care to ask your employees what they think? Why not?

randomh3r0 4y ago
Is the assumption here being that all employees would prefer 100% WFH?
- user_named 4y ago
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
For what it’s worth: I’m at a company that did survey employees on this question. The results actually leaned toward return to office for a lot of the non-engineering parts of the company. Within engineering, the more junior people really wanted to return to office. The people with 10 years of experience and 2 kids at home really wanted to stay home. Not surprising, really. Our engineering team remained remote, but not everyone is happy about it. I get emails every other week asking engineers to not come into the office very often because we don’t have enough extra desks for remote employees to be in the office very frequently. > Did you care to ask your employees what they think? Why not? While I do think it’s very important to keep employee’s desires and career goals in consideration, questions like these aren’t necessarily aligned with what’s best for the company or getting work done. If you survey employees about how many hours they’d prefer to work each week or how big they want their next raise to be, you’re not going to get answers that reflect what’s best or even realistic from a business perspective. That doesn’t mean you can ignore your employees desires, of course! But you do have to keep in mind that most employees will default to responding with what’s best for them personally, and for a lot of people from the general population that can mean something very different than what’s best for their team or the company.
woojoo666 4y ago
you're wording implies that they didn't ask at all, especially the "why not" at the end. Yet I see nowhere in GP's comment that would allow you to make that assumption
- jimbob45 4y ago
  Initially we did pick your 2 wfh days but then I realized what makes being in the office good is being together. He said “I realized” rather than “we decided”. It heavily implies that it was his decision.
  - taf2 4y ago
    sorry typing early in the morning it was a "I realized" and then a "we decided" e.g. someone in pretty much every company needs to come up with an idea and then socialize it and get by in... We got buy in as "we decided" to unify the days we work together and we work remote... I feel like maybe in this forum i've offended someone for sharing - apologies, just thought in this context sharing our experience was interesting for maybe others...
marcinzm 4y ago
My company gives everyone the option to be remote or hybrid even if they're near the office. Probably most of engineering comes into the office at least once a week if they're located near it. My whole team tends to come it at least once a week and a few almost every day. That said if it was 3 days a week I think my team would not be happy and I definitely would not be happy.

kawsper 4y ago

> but then I realized what makes being in the office good is being together. My favorite time in the office is during the summer period when a random set of people is left behind because of vacation. You get to speak to different people than your usual crowd, the cliques are split up, sometimes you even speak to someone from a different department. The work-from-home with an office available have been a bit like that.

john_minsk 4y ago

Nice. Even lazier Mondays and early checkout Fridays. I would vote for that.

taf2 4y ago
Me too :)

dinkledunk 4y ago

> we make some exceptions for people far from the office So move far away from the office. Got it.

jimbob45 4y ago

It sounds like you’re the CEO making decisions for everyone. How many resignations have you had as a result of your choices?

stingraycharles 4y ago

Thanks for sharing, there’s a lot of negativity in the replies but at least you’re sharing your thought process and the decisions that were made. How did you end up choosing Tue - Thu? Would it not make more sense to “sync” with each other in the office on the start and end of the week?

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
Because no one wants to commute on Monday morning and Friday afternoon if they can avoid it?

mbesto 4y ago

> as gone to a 3 days in the office Tuesday through Thursday and wfh Monday and Friday This is the way. People can debate all they want about in office VS remote, however there is VERY clearly some level of preference for employees whether they want one or the other. The pandemic just straight ripped people out of office chairs into their homes without even asking. This is a happy medium IMHO. For what its worth - my company was setup from the get-go as 100% remote and do quarterly in person meetings. When we recruit we are very up front about this "you need to be comfortable with essentially operating on your own".