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> Quick search on this thread didn't reveal the word "flame" (as in "flame war"), so I can´t resist: That's what the remote vs on-site debate is. About as inter
by jkukul 3y ago
> Quick search on this thread didn't reveal the word "flame" (as in "flame war"), so I can´t resist: That's what the remote vs on-site debate is. About as interesting and ultimately inconclusive as Emacs vs Vi. Neither is universally better. It depends, _primarily_ on the people involved and their preferences
You nailed it. Ideally, both employees and employers should have the freedom to choose whether to work onsite or remotely, based on their preferences (again, this is subjective and not scientific). I believe the market could self-regulate in such a way. For instance, if the demand for remote work exceeds the supply, a savvy employer with a fit for remote work could take advantage of it by attracting better/more/cheaper talent through offering remote positions.
However, what needs to be debated and critizised is when employers change the rules midway through a game. It's unfair to hire people for a "remote role" and then force them to work in the office. This creates real-world hardships for individuals, such as the need to relocate.
Using your analogy, it would be like initially giving your future employees the choice between Emacs and Vim, but later giving Vim users extra points in performance reviews.
- cbarrick 3y ago> Using your analogy, it would be like initially giving your future employees the choice between Emacs and Vim, but later giving Vim users extra points in performance reviews. That analogy doesn't quite apply to this Google situation. Google has a distinction between "full remote" and "hybrid" employees. Attendance will NOT be considered in the performance reviews of full remote employees.
- rhtgrg 3y agoDid you miss the part of the email where remote employees near offices are "strongly encouraged" to switch to hybrid?
- hbn 3y ago> both employees and employers should have the freedom to choose whether to work onsite or remotely, based on their preferences Not that I'm antsy to get back to the office, but that scenario is not an "everyone wins" scenario, it's just another version of remote work. Onsite is only onsite if everyone is onsite. If it's some people in the office and some people at home, the people in the office are just working remotely from the office. All your meetings will be virtual, you don't get the benefits of onsite like being able to gauge someone's availability by just looking at them, you're gonna be screen sharing instead of just pulling up a chair next to someone, etc etc etc.
- jkukul 3y agoI actually agree with you 100%. I didn't express myself clearly. I meant: Both employees and employers should have the freedom to choose whether to work fully onsite, fully remotely, or hybrid, based on their preferences.
- fhd2 3y agoI'd argue that as soon as you have people sitting in different rooms (or at least floors or buildings), it starts to resemble a remote environment even on-site. I don't think people who work best on-site only reap the benefits if everyone they could possibly interact with is near them. There's models where teams within one company are either fully co-located in one place, or fully remote. Also not an "everybody wins" situation, since then what you can work on is limited by where and how you work. But that's not what it's about in my mind. When people with different preferences want to collaborate it's about finding compromises. Personally, I started to place more value on who I work with than what I work on, so for me this flies. It's not as easy as it sounds to pull off though, since it requires people to accept that some of their colleagues work best in a way they personally find wildly unproductive. Takes quite a bit of trust.