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Snap is ordering employees back to the office 4 days a week
- hunglee2 4y agomission creep always the risk with hybrid. Best workers can hope for (outside of the US) is a compromise to a 4 day week on 5 day pay. Looks like a decent number of UK companies will end up doing this
- dbish 4y agoRemote is only going to be the new normal for a few companies in the end based on these trends. Mostly in office is on the way back and it’s no longer a seller’s market so companies have more power to make these demands. Especially for smaller companies, I think in person has a lot of value to move fast and build a deeply connected culture that I have not seen remotely or even hybrid if hybrid is only a day or two a week.
- autotune 4y agoGoing to need some stats on that. Every gig I applied to in the last two job searches was fully remote. The gig I landed on this last month is fully remote. It is still easy to ignore the low paying, contract, in office nonsense from employers who think they have the upper hand right now.
- dbish 4y agoAll the big tech are heading this way. I don’t have stats on small companies, but I would bet on the in office startups any day over the remote ones in 99% of the cases. https://twitter.com/sama/status/1590832457431281668 https://twitter.com/sama/status/1590832457431281668
- ReflectedImage 4y agoThen you don't really understand startups at all.
- dbish 4y agoI guess you can say that, I'm early in my startup journey, but do you think Sam Altman doesn't understand startups or have a pulse on what's happening there, because that is quite the claim?
- autotune 4y agoRight? The whole point of a startup is to be doing something different than what “big tech” is doing. If it’s more of the same with the added risk of failing in a year then no one would ever want to join a given startup.
- asdff 4y agoIf people penciled it out logically it makes no sense for a startup to return to office. Consider these two startups: Startup A, paying for an office lease, recruiting talent willing to live near the office. Startup B, saving thousands of dollars not having to pay an office lease, is able to recruit talent from around the world and with the overhead savings can pay for better talent and/or a larger labor pool. It's pretty obvious here that startup B is set up a lot better for success and has a head and shoulders advantage over startup A. This is not even considering the massive environmental costs from commuting and building an office building. The only reason to go for a model like startup A is if you 1, don't care about the environmental costs, and 2, believe in the hooey about "in person synergy" and value that more than just paying for more experience or more people.
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- claudiulodro 4y agoFor senior specialist tech roles, I think remote is here to stay. There simply aren't enough qualified people for e.g. a whole team of smart TV developers or even really good WordPress developers in any one mid-size city.
- badpun 4y agoThe premise is that, these specialists will have to move to the few cities where jobs requiring given rare specialty are concentrated. That’s how it works in the non-tech job world already.
- vineyardmike 4y agoI don’t know if I agree fully… I do think that “remote work” is the new “satellite office”. If you’re a walk street bank, why open a NJ office for low-importance work when you could just hire remotely. But I’m not convinced there is a willingness to return to office. Snap, the company in question, isn’t in good shape. Can they attract enough talent willing to be in office? I vaguely agree that “for smaller companies, I think in person has a lot of value to move fast and build a deeply connected culture”. But the issue seems to be with getting any big corp back. If you pay enough, people will move to you. We’ve seen that across all of human history. But can you pay more than remote companies? Do you gain enough productivity to offset the cost (either salary or missed talent)? If you hire a mixed team, you hired a remote team.
- asdff 4y agoWhat a great loss to the environment then forcing all of this commuting and useless office building construction and maintenance. I will never forget how crystal clear the air was during lockdown, and how these supposed 'thought leaders' have forced us away from that.
- angryasian 4y agoit was a great loss to a lot of things. people's personal mental heath, family time, ability to move to areas with affordable housing, a dissemination of people & money to states that need diversity, overall its a big loss
- spookthesunset 4y agoI dunno why anybody thought otherwise. This whole Covid thing was a temporary measure. Society will revert right back to the mean… even if some people go kicking and screaming back.
- adam_arthur 4y agoI think quite the opposite. Over time the companies that force in-person work will find it much more difficult to hire and retain talent vs those that optimize for a remote first workforce. I mean the efficiency gain in broadening hiring pool, not having to do relo packages, smaller office footprint, cost of commuting, lower comp/higher QoL are just far too great. Nobody wants to be trapped in the bay area and forced to pay $2m for a house an hour away from their office. They largely did it begrudgingly (myself included)
- Grimburger 4y ago> it’s no longer a seller’s market US unemployment is at historical lows, some people really lose sight of the bigger picture and get caught up in news headlines. In my country everywhere is clamouring for workers. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate
- orangepurple 4y agoIt's the new way to do layoffs
- Tepix 4y agoMy thoughts exactly.
- yucky 4y agoI wonder if that says more about the companies or the employees.
- postalrat 4y agoThe better way. Get people who want to work in the office together and get people who want to work from home away from the office.
- otagekki 4y agoSort of. If remote is efficient, they'll outsource the position to a low-income country. If remote is not efficient, they'll urge people to go back to office and whoever fails to comply will be let go.
- clpm4j 4y agoI don't think it's that straightforward. Remote US employees are not (in any scenario I've witnessed or been part of) equivalent to Remote Low-income Country employees. A person who previously worked in Snap's LA office who relocated to, say Scottsdale, is likely still going to be a much more valuable employee than an offshore person.
- fy20 4y agoDepends on what you mean by 'Remote Low-Income Country'. I work for a US company that opened an office in my country, pretty much only because it is much cheaper than the US. We are in the EU and our culture is pretty similar to the US (we grew up watching US TV shows in the original language), and everyone here has good written and spoken English (I say that as a native English speaker).
- tylerhou 4y agoPreviously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33781563 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33781563
- kbcool 4y agoSnap is trying to generate headlines in a desperate attempt to stay relevant. This has nothing to do with WFH. Just a sorry attempt at trying to piggyback on Musk's just as desperate attempt to get attention with his 996 proclamation.
- angryasian 4y agoSnap is struggling they are under $10 now. Ending WFH wouldn't be the right move to recruit talent.
- coolbreezetft22 4y agoI've been wanting to go back to the office, at least part of the week, as I feel pretty isolated and detached from my team and miss some of the traditional office amenities like coffee and nearby restaurants. But every time I tell myself I'm gonna go to the office I never follow through. By the time I drop my kids off at school I'm just like "ahh f it, don't feel like commuting 30-40 min" and I end up working from home. Ultimately the conveniences of wfh for someone with family responsibilities are tough to shake now that I've gotten into this habit
- yrgulation 4y agoFarm the cattle back to the stables.