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The hottest new perk in tech is freedom

121 points by SirLJ 3y ago

ochronus 3y ago
100% agreed! And we have a study about it, too - https://leadership.garden/back-to-the-office/ https://leadership.garden/back-to-the-office/
hardware2win 3y ago
I wouldnt change my job even with 30% increase if they werent offering remote. If you do not offer remote, then you better be... idk NASA, Microsoft, Apple, Jane Street or some fancy shit or paying way, way more If a company does not realize that 0% fully remote workforce is significant talent pool disadvantage then Im shocked. >They’re working with a more complex kind of product. It means a lot more coordination from a lot of different points of view, where previously these workers were permitted to work in silos,” Harrigan said. Yea, I do wonder how those complex, cross-geo products get built! Teams across US, EU, Asia - how do they do it??
- dekervin 3y ago
  The standard argument from now on should be... think of the planet and the massive savings in transportation induced greenhouse gases.
  - snarfy 3y ago
    Yep. If you are forcing work-from-office but it's not actually required, I think you should be forced to pay for the carbon footprint.
    - dekervin 3y ago
      I tought that idea had legs. Just looked at the price of carbon credits. It's around $ 15.0/tCO2e [0]. And on average a commuting employee emits around 4.96kg of C02. The price is so low it's clear the market is underpricing the externalities massively. I have to admit, the market is the wrong instrument for this problem. [0] https://carboncredits.com/how-to-calculate-carbon-credits/ https://carboncredits.com/how-to-calculate-carbon-credits/ [1] https://www.climatepartner.com/en/news/how-sustainable-commuting-can-improve-a-company-carbon-footprint#:~:text=Due%20to%20its%20significant%20impact,per%20commuting%20employee%20per%20day https://www.climatepartner.com/en/news/how-sustainable-commu....
  - basisword 3y ago
    Companies have anticipated this argument. I’m not sure I believe them but apparently working in the office is more environmentally friendly in a lot of cases.
    - dekervin 3y ago
      I would love to have that argument with higher-ups. In fact I would love to have them state their facts on public record. Just so historians have a paper trail to follow when they will try to answer the question , "what were they thining?" .
      - Lio 3y ago
        In practice you can't get away with that. It's like trying to argue that it would be a good idea to keep skills in house or objecting to some of the weird HR fads that go around like personality "tests"; you can't win. They may be acting irrationally but they don't want about it. The best thing, and probably the only thing, you can do is move to a job that treats you better. Remember though, the old company probably won't miss you because they're not interested in how retention affects performance. It's best to be dispassionate about it. We're all just "resource" and jobs are just "work". Disclaimer: I have worked fully remotely since 2016 and wouldn't go back to an office I couldn't cycle to in 30 minutes.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      >apparently working in the office is more environmentally friendly in a lot of cases. I would think you'd need very specific conditions. The office has to be climate-controlled in any case so any extra AC or heat used at home is incremental. (Other utilities etc. at home are probably pretty minor.) But to be a net negative, you probably have to assume you're not driving or you're only driving a short distance.
- Lolaccount 3y ago
  10000000% this .... vote me down CEO's! King Kong is out of the bag and you're not getting it back in again.
- JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 3y ago
  Teams around the world but also outsourcing. They had absolutely no issue working with people that didn't belong to the company, were less accountable, and couldn't be easily tested before being hired. But now it's a big issue if I want to avoid traffic jam and work more in a peaceful environment. I'm in the process of switching jobs, and when I'm offered less than 3 days of WFH, I increase my price but the recruiters still don't understand why. It's like COVID never happened and no one managed to adapt to this "old new thing" (because WFH is as old as the internet).
  - tsunamifury 3y ago
    It’s not about productivity. This is entirely about the effects office space utilization will have on their balance sheet and the macro economy at large. You are being told to bail out CRE holdings. That is it.
    - RestlessMind 3y ago
      > You are being told to bail out CRE holdings. That is it. This is such a ridiculous claim that it's hard to believe without any citation.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      Do you and everyone else who keeps repeating this really believe that no one in corporate management has ever heard of sunk costs. Plenty of companies are working to downsize their real estate footprint.
      - ljm 3y ago
        Like it or not, for some it’s also just their preference and they happen to have decision making power over it. Not everything is a conspiracy and some people do actually prefer working from the office. The problem is being offered that flexibility and then having it taken away, and people are well within their rights to protest that by walking out or putting themselves back on the market. These same companies were eager to cut pay for people choosing remote work so it follows that they should be prepared to increase pay for bringing people back into the office.
- spacemadness 3y ago
  This is the same group of people who overhired so much they needed layoffs immediately after. There is no long-term vision here. There is corporate real estate and executive hubris and control. They live in entirely different worlds than most of us.
  - black_13 3y ago
    [dead]
  - malfist 3y ago
    I think if anything, this shows that CEOs aren't any better at predicting the future than you or I. Dead reckoning seems to be all they do. Things are great? Let's hire like there's no tomorrow that won't be even better. Things are bad? Let's layoff and cut costs like there's no tomorrow that won't be worse.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      Nobody possesses a working crystal ball. Especially not those who think they do.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
    They don't care about corporate R/E at all. It's 95% self-preservation by management. Maybe 5% thinking about tax incentives. Time will tell if shareholders reward or punish companies that force RTO. So far they don't seem to care. But this will play a role in whether this trend continues or reverses.
    - RhysU 3y ago
      Are there ETFs that allow easily taking either side of the remote-or-not bet on better, long-term shareholder value?
    - mjr00 3y ago
      > They don't care about corporate R/E at all. Yeah, the meme about an evil conspiracy of corporate CEOs also owning commercial real estate is really, really dumb. Maybe you could theorize that when Andy Jassy and Tim Cook were the only people pushing for RTO, but now more and more companies are doing it, and I assure you that the CEO of (insert random 100-person tech company here) doesn't have deep investments in commercial real estate. Occam's razor: the simple fact is management thinks that people are more productive when in the office. They may be wrong about that, of course. But if the question is "why is management pushing for RTO," it's simply because they believe their teams will produce more and better output while in the office.
- user432678 3y ago
  The company I work for is currently evaluating return to the office five days a week. First thing I did is filed a request for two 4k monitors, “fancy” ergonomic keyboard and mouse (around £400), and an expensive ergonomic chair. Just in case they push back I also got the doctor’s prescription, that I need all that because of health issues, so they won’t be able to force me to work. My negotiation tactic is going to be “I have all that at home already”.
  - hbosch 3y ago
    In my experience, “I have all that at home already” has not been a good spot to negotiate from.
    - justsomehnguy 3y ago
      Quite the opposite, it's a perfect negotiating spot - you would see if the company gives a fuck fast. Surely, you should be in a position to fire the company, but it's not limited to 4k monitors.
    - user432678 3y ago
      Well, that’s the only spot I have, the other one would be to just start looking for a new job.
  - basisword 3y ago
    This is one of the big problems I’ve noticed as our company has went hybrid. The office environment in terms of equipment is generally much worse than what people had at home. Lots of requests for new monitors, better chairs etc. I think what makes this even worse is that quite a few companies I know transitioned from a private office to a “private” WeWork while they evaluate how many people are going to come in. It’s a significant downgrade in all cases. And you can’t even bring in your own gear because desks are booked and you’re not allowed to leave anything behind at the end of the day. Madness.
- avgDev 3y ago
  I work for unsexy manufacturing company. I haven't been to the office and we agreed I'm remote first. If recruiter messages me about "Hot company but onsite", I just ignore it. I honestly don't care about the company. At this point I care about 1-Remote 2-Money.
  - ChuckNorris89 3y ago
    >I work for unsexy manufacturing company. In which country? I had an interview for a SW dev position at a Austrian (Europe, not kangaroos) company that manufactures some high tech shit and they said it's 100% in office because if production workers need to be on the factory floor, then it's only fair that so does everyone else, no exceptions, including the SW devs. I'm struggling to find companies that offer 100% WFH here. Every single company mandates you in the office at least a few days a week here and why I ask them I get the answer "because Covid is over so we're back to normal now and we're more productive when everyone is in the office".
    - odiroot 3y ago
      > if production workers need to be on the factory floor, then it's only fair that so does everyone else, no exceptions, including the SW devs. That's a common culture in Germanic companies. Hey at least everyone is equally miserable.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      > they said it's 100% in office because if production workers need to be on the factory floor, then it's only fair that so does everyone else, no exceptions, including the SW devs. Did you ask them if everyone gets paid the same too, including the owners, and if not, how is that fair?
    - skinnymuch 3y ago
      Classic capitalist bourgeoisie tactic blaming exploited workers against one another.
    - avgDev 3y ago
      I'm in US. Remote is considered a part of the package for me. Why should I care a factory worker or manager needs to be there? I did variety of jobs that required me to be onsite all the time, hence why I switched to computers/programming. I might be switching to a hybrid model, where I go in for meetings as I will be taking a more of a leadership role. However, if I'm programming office is just not a good place to be, as it is harder for me to focus.
- ssnistfajen 3y ago
  Open source projects are essentially all built in async, fully remote environments. Many of which have become essential backbones of the industry. So the argument that fully remote work promotes silos or is weak on coordination don't really hold up. Besides, corporate silos are not a remote work problem. It has existed for as long as corporations themselves. Most big corps are not really building "complex" products but merely reinventing CRUD apps in-house.
- UncleMeat 3y ago
  I moved out of the bay area in 2020 for family reasons. Before Covid, I was expecting to take something resembling a 75% pay cut because of the move. Covid and increased availability of remote work meant that I got to keep my job with only a 15% pay cut. That was great. But I'm never going back. No matter what. That 75% pay cut remains a good deal if it is the only available option. Just don't tell my employer I'm willing to take so little.
francisofascii 3y ago
Freedom for developers could mean a lot of things, for this article they mean the freedom to work remote.
user_named 3y ago
My new job only gives me ten days off per year. This means I'll have to start looking for a new job immediately... Because that's being trapped in a cage.
- cryptonector 3y ago
  Ten paid days off, or ten days off regardless of whether they're paid?
  - user_named 3y ago
    Ten days PTO.
    - cryptonector 3y ago
      So take some unpaid days of too. If the job pays well enough, then why not.
- hnal943 3y ago
  ...why did you willingly accept a job where you feel caged?
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    Cuz I need to eat, and there are only [X] opportunities around where I live.
  - bamfly 3y ago
    They needed money, probably? Same reason 95% of jobs are ever accepted by anyone.
  - 0x0000000 3y ago
    Because the only worse thing than having a job is not having a job?
    - 3y ago
vsskanth 3y ago
It's good to have a range of options for employees and a new advantage for startups to utilize. In the next few years we will hopefully know how different approaches affect productivity and outcomes. I initially thought Google's work research teams would study this but I guess that was just a zero interest rate phenomenon and now they're also just another groupthink employer.
wtp1saac 3y ago
Man I feel out of sync with the hivemind sometimes. Young 20-something and work from home seems to effectively be the standard for most programming work, and it makes me wish I pursued a different career. I hate being stuck at home, video calling to endless pfps, and never seeing a single coworker’s face.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  coworkers aren't your friends they're "work friends", and your job isn't your life. join a club, go places, talk to people. even working from home I walk to local coffee shops and chat with the people there. 6am there is always the same old guy and he reads the whole damn newspaper before 7am -- and is keen to talk. Old-timey, but a nice guy. I'm on a softball team. there are a few meetup.com groups I like to hit, esp. the local LUG. there is a local non-profit art center and my wife sits on that board -- get to go to a few art events. the problem is you're stuck at home. get out more, killer.
- bamfly 3y ago
  I like the office better, actually. Quite a bit better. ... I just don't like it enough to make it worth 5ish hours of fighting rush-hour traffic [edit: per week], right after getting the kids where they need to be (for the morning half, at least), not being able to do my mise for dinner over lunch or move some clothes to the dryer during the day, the gas & wear & tear on my car, the risk to life and limb, not being able to work-and-travel, and not being able to move somewhere far away without changing jobs. Plus I can greet my kids when they get home from school every day. I don't prefer WFH per se—I prefer working in an office, especially in a nice area with cool stuff around, not so much in some soulless office park—but with that all factored in, it's not even a close call. WFH by a mile. [EDIT] Oh, and child care costs in the Summer. That's ~$2.5-3k/kid of value alone, per year, in sheer cost savings. More, if your workplace is in-person and also not flexible enough that you can get home before 5 in the evening and leave late-ish in the morning—more like $6-8k/kid per year, in that case, since you'll need before-school and after-school care.
  - srndsnd 3y ago
strict9 3y ago
Remote work with lots of PTO available (no questions asked) is an order of magnitude more important to me than salary. I'll happily settle for a medium-sized company with a decent tech stack that offers freedom and flexibility. There is (almost) no salary level that would make me trade the current setup remote work and lots of time off. I am more motivated to work and be productive than when I worked in an office. And I'm happier about what I do.
- Loughla 3y ago
  Flexibility is the name of the game. I've had offers (non-tech) that are roughly twice my current salary, but at institutions that are VASTLY less flexible than my current employer. I haven't worked a full week in nearly 12 years, and that's how I want it. Money is nice, but I can, quite literally, always get more money. Time is the one commodity that I absolutely cannot find more of. Employers need to understand this.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
FunkyDuckling 3y ago
Remote work is nice, but the biggest advantage I've have at a small company is picking my own hours. I work with teams across the world, So I can take a 2 hours break after lunch to go biking, and then come back. I want freedom in daylight hours to do things.
nielsbot 3y ago
“But, as their stock prices have suffered, Big Tech has not only dialed back on many on-site perks, they’ve also called workers back to the office.” I’m skeptical this has anything to do with stock prices.
ecshafer 3y ago
The weird thing with the back to office push is how consistent it is across companies. It has to be a McKinsey consultant or something, because all companies that push going back in are doing the 3 days in office hybrid basically. Its too uniform.
- schott12521 3y ago
  It’s because RTO is the last straw holding up commercial real estate. Either consultants or CEOs got together and realized that there’s no back, so they started to force it. Completely agree how much collusion between companies there is though.
  - screye 3y ago
    A real estate crash also eliminates net-worth for rich executives more so than random employees. They all have a vested interest in molding work-file culture to their benefit.
  - y-c-o-m-b 3y ago
    I would bet there's also some accounting or tax voodoo around it that's cutting into some of their profits and back-room deals.
    - red-iron-pine 3y ago
      There is definitely tax breaks for business who are "anchor tenants" in cities. Texas attracted tons of bodies to places like Austin via big tax breaks, for example. The idea being that the loss of Corporate Tax is made up by all of the people living, eating, shopping, travelling, etc. nearby.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  I'm convinced it's largely older C-levels walking the halls, seeing empty cubes, and panicking because "nobody is working!" I've yet to see any metrics that show forced RTO improves productivity, engagement, or anything else in white-collar industries.
say_it_as_it_is 3y ago
People like Harrigan, at Columbia's business school, are perpetuating old mythology about what constitutes professional management. They also pretend to think that they know what investors want, or prefer.
Graffur 3y ago
If the freedom includes mandatory status update video calls.. is it really freedom?
xwdv 3y ago
IMO the top talent will always be remote going forward. My opinions of those who are forced to work in the office with no physical requirement to be there, is that they are lower quality applicants with poor negotiation power and an inability to successfully pass interviews for the vast majority of companies in the world offering remote jobs, and thus they can only lean into their one positive attribute: a willingness to get dressed and commute to and from an office everyday.
hammock 3y ago
A lot of companies, the recruiter will say "on site" but the actual manager will be much more flexible with you on an individual basis
tristor 3y ago
I've been permanent remote since 2015. I will never take a job that forces me into the office. That said, I think I benefited greatly from being in an office with more senior people when I was starting out. The only argument in favor of RTO/Hybrid that's ever carried water with me is that remote work makes it harder for junior staff to succeed and learn, because there are less opportunities for collaboration and guidance/mentorship. That said, my experience in open source projects shows you can still learn as a junior person as long as you're willing to put in extra effort to do so and kind of dig for the information/knowledge you need. It's definitely an additional barrier of entry though that makes it more difficult for people who aren't obsessive about tech (and whether that's good or bad is debatable). Remote isn't new. There have been systems to support remote connectivity since the 90s, and it's been realistic for a tech worker to be permanent remote essentially since Git existed. There were a lot of workers who didn't realize they could do their jobs remotely, and now they do, it's been possible for decades. That cat is never going back into the bag. At least for me, it's been great and made it possible for me to change jobs during the pandemic easily without needing to be as fine-grained in my search as there's many many more remote opportunities now.
- vanilla_nut 3y ago
  I envision a world where a portion of senior workers -- 40%, I would guess, based on vague approximations of folks who prefer in-person or hybrid work -- work in office, with mentorship representing a huge portion of their responsibilities. Junior workers probably ought to spend at least a year or two in office to acclimate to office job life; high performers can escape once they've proven their abilities. That being said: I wonder how much of remote work preferences are actually a result of affordability and quality of life issues in cities, especially in the USA. I would have no problem working a hybrid or even full-time in-person gig in an office... if I could afford to buy a house, walk or bike to work, and live in a quiet, clean, interesting neighborhood. Being paid a decent salary in tech that should be possible, but it's really hard to manage in the USA at the moment for most definitions of quiet/clean/interesting. And before anyone claims that cities can't be "quiet" or "clean", I've spent enough time in nice European cities that do satisfy all three criteria to know that I'm not just being overly picky. Even if I had a million dollars, I doubt I could satisfy those criteria in the USA. Anyway, as long as we're stuck with an imperfect housing market, remote work is such a blessing. I'm sure it's helpful for some junior workers, too -- if you don't have to move to a $2k+/mo apartment in a major city straight out of college, you'll have a much easier time paying off loans and saving up money early in life. I suspect that's opened a lot of doors for folks who previously couldn't work the most prestigious tech jobs.
totallywrong 3y ago
I think we're well past the heated debates around covid time, and companies know it. It's either remote or nothing for so many of us.
EMM_386 3y ago
I've been remote for over 10 years, far before the pandemic, when the competition for remote positions was extreme. At the time, I decided I wasn't going back to an office again if I could help it. Then the pandemic hit and suddenly everyone is remote and the whole thing flipped upside down. Now it's a battle with return to the office or "flex". Thankfully, I am immune to this. And I have taken a substantial cut in pay in the beginning for it to stay this way. I prefer the freedom and flexibility over more money, but that's just me.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
5350-uiop-1130 3y ago
so...what is the opposite of freedom?
rybosworld 3y ago
Whether you prefer WFH or rather be in the office, I would be truly suspicious of a company that claims RTO is necessary. The reasons for RTO don't seem to be backed by rationale/logic. That should be immediately concerning to any individual contributor. For example: 1. Some flavor of "water cooler conversation is important for innovation!" Just... what? 2. "Collaboration is suffering" without any evidence offered. 3. "Productivity is suffering" without any evidence offered. 4. "How can we know if people are slacking off or not". Well how did you determine that in the office setting? Was it their physical presence from the hours of 9 to 5 that convinced you?
yitchelle 3y ago
No joke. I saw a job advert classifying bank holidays as a perk. Job was in a western European country.
m0llusk 3y ago
Seems like this is based on a lot of broken metrics. When working for a big company in an office there were often days when key contributors were off their peak for days at a time because of a commute that had a big crash delay or a road rage incident. Then there was a prolonged time during which key developments stalled because a critical contributor dropped his bike in the fast lane. He did recover, but still does not remember what exactly happened. And all of this super powers development and the bottom line? Some spreadsheet really needs a bigger externalities line item.
toss1 3y ago
>>And professionalism to them means butts in chairs. What this really means is NOT what they said ("...bigger stuff needs more in-person coordination, blah, blah,blah..."). It is actually the phenomenon found by a long-ago study of remote vs in-person management (I wish I could locate it). It found that teams under good managers are actually made better by remote work, and teams under bad managers were made worse. The good managers focused on results, while the bad managers focused on indicators of work (time spent in chairs, at screens, in meetings, etc.). In short, remote work amplifies the differences in management quality. What this study shows is that larger companies have overall lower quality and far larger quantity of bad managers. What they really need for performance is not more office time, as that will only paper over the problem of bad managers. What they need is far greater investment in good management (methods, training, etc.).
CoastalCoder 3y ago
I wish I could afford to change careers at the moment. I'd love to create / work-for a company that builds out WFH office spaces. I.e., that specializes in all the success factors: - workspace soundproofing* / acoustics - HVAC - networking - electricity - collaboration technology (esp. the ultimate prize for software developers: a viable replacement for in-person whiteboard collaboration, that's also compatible with corporate network security needs) - ergonomic furniture - features that help with mental health: natural light, sufficient artificial light, etc. - "HOW-TO" guides for dealing with other residents. I.e., policies and/or tools to make it clear when the workers can be interrupted, etc. - consulting with employers to make sure all of the above can work in harmony with the rest of the company * I mean "soundproofing" in the colloquial sense, i.e. good-enough psycho-acoustic improvement.
JamesLeonis 3y ago
Work From Home let me move closer to my retiring parents, who live nowhere near any of these tech hubs. There were two emergencies during COVID where I was critical. All these RTO incentives, perks, and threats all say the same thing to me: "You won't be here when something happens again." > “Bigger companies, more complex companies, are more likely to be looking for more professional types of management,” said Kathy Harrigan, a professor of corporate management at Columbia University’s business school. “Investors expect that.” hmmmm... > And professionalism to them means butts in chairs. Harrigan says in-person work is necessary to coordinate the complicated, varied businesses these tech conglomerates now operate. The move to AI has only made in-person coordination more of a necessity, she said. > “They’re working with a more complex kind of product. It means a lot more coordination from a lot of different points of view, where previously these workers were permitted to work in silos,” Harrigan said. [Bernie Sanders Voice]: I am once again asking Management for evidence [0]. > “In the face of volatility and uncertainty, it is human nature to want to revert back to something that is a known quantity,” said Caitlin Duffy, a research director at Gartner, about the push to return to the office. “And so there might be some psychological things happening that may be overriding the evidence in front of them.” > The evidence, she says, shows that offering flexibility in where people work makes them happier and, by extension, more productive and innovative. Accounts to the contrary were “unfounded.” What’s worse, Duffy said, is that arbitrarily calling people back to the office might actually hurt workers’ productivity and innovation by driving fatigue and burnout. Well that's a refreshing turn of events! But can I see the evidence? [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36406079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36406079
dontupvoteme 3y ago
I think the RTO thing is a lot more nefarious and high level than just middle managers wanting to keep their jobs, or boomers wanting the old way, or trying to prevent moonlighting, etc. This is the same story since the industrial revolution. It's just new to many. The capitalist class is not happy to have their proles to have the freedom of movement and choice of where they work. Much like how America ties expensive healthcare (and high risk of bankruptcy) to working for The man, forcing the white collared proletarians into the office shows power and importance of work over life. This also explains why it seems to be the CEOs pushing for it (in reality it is probably the board of directors i bet) Officer workers almost always were insulated from the bloody history of workers rights and strikes, and I don't think there's a single white collar union in America, but I was surprised to find out how always on guard european engineers/white collar workers are about the employer trying to take advantage of you. (They did eventually do 3 day hybrid, but I'm pretty sure a lot of people come in 1 or 2 days)
nunez 3y ago
Can you teach old dogs new tricks? Big companies are typically older. They were created and grew in an environment that knew nothing _but_ the office. Having amazing(ly expensive) offices were prized social signals for them and were huge attractors of great talent, especially when residential Internet sucked so hard in comparison. They also employed tons of people in the area outside of tech (property managers, facilities, janitorial staff, accounts, etc.) and were embedded into their communities. Also, their DNAs were built _around_ the office. I can easily sympathize with them saying that collaboration happens easiest when everyone's in the office; the leaders saying this likely can't imagine another way of working! Asking a company as big as Google to simply give all of that up and rent WeWorks isn't impossible, but is a huge, huge ask. While some groups can easily switch to a remote workflow, as companies, they just aren't mentally or physically equipped to do that without a significant number of breaking changes. That said, _my_ problem with how they are going about it is that they are walking back on their incredibly enthusiastic support for remote work during COVID-times _without saying why_. Nobody's going out there and saying "So we were super excited about remote work, but after seeing a 30% drop in "productivity" year-over-year, we knew it couldn't be sustained." (This is a fake reason; I have no idea what the numbers are). They also aren't saying "We can't give up our office spaces without significantly wrecking the community that formed around us." Instead, their giving platitudes like "collaboration happens best in the office" and leaving us to conjecture the change of heart. I love the fact that smaller companies are making remote work work for them, but I'm afraid that so long as big tech gets bigger, the effect is temporary at best.
- cwalv 3y ago
  I think the real reason is because going into an office to just end up sitting alone and joining meetings remotely is worse than just working remotely. It's a chicken and egg problem; they think that once there's a critical mass, people will want to RTO, but they can't hit the critical mass without some top down "incentive" to kick start it.
- premun 3y ago
  This is a bad take. Large companies have often team collaborating across the globe so they're used to partial remote already. My company (Microsoft) turned mostly remote, teams that started through COVID have never seen office. Also the company doubled through COVID so a large portion of the company is remote first. Also.. Offices cost a lot whether you're big co or a start-up.
closeparen 3y ago
The higher prevalence of RTO in bigger companies tracks with the perception that it’s a middle management-driven phenomenon.

121 points by SirLJ 3y ago

100% agreed! And we have a study about it, too - https://leadership.garden/back-to-the-office/ https://leadership.garden/back-to-the-office/

hardware2win 3y ago

I wouldnt change my job even with 30% increase if they werent offering remote. If you do not offer remote, then you better be... idk NASA, Microsoft, Apple, Jane Street or some fancy shit or paying way, way more If a company does not realize that 0% fully remote workforce is significant talent pool disadvantage then Im shocked. >They’re working with a more complex kind of product. It means a lot more coordination from a lot of different points of view, where previously these workers were permitted to work in silos,” Harrigan said. Yea, I do wonder how those complex, cross-geo products get built! Teams across US, EU, Asia - how do they do it??

dekervin 3y ago
The standard argument from now on should be... think of the planet and the massive savings in transportation induced greenhouse gases.
- snarfy 3y ago
  Yep. If you are forcing work-from-office but it's not actually required, I think you should be forced to pay for the carbon footprint.
  - dekervin 3y ago
    I tought that idea had legs. Just looked at the price of carbon credits. It's around $ 15.0/tCO2e [0]. And on average a commuting employee emits around 4.96kg of C02. The price is so low it's clear the market is underpricing the externalities massively. I have to admit, the market is the wrong instrument for this problem. [0] https://carboncredits.com/how-to-calculate-carbon-credits/ https://carboncredits.com/how-to-calculate-carbon-credits/ [1] https://www.climatepartner.com/en/news/how-sustainable-commuting-can-improve-a-company-carbon-footprint#:~:text=Due%20to%20its%20significant%20impact,per%20commuting%20employee%20per%20day https://www.climatepartner.com/en/news/how-sustainable-commu....
- basisword 3y ago
  Companies have anticipated this argument. I’m not sure I believe them but apparently working in the office is more environmentally friendly in a lot of cases.
  - dekervin 3y ago
    I would love to have that argument with higher-ups. In fact I would love to have them state their facts on public record. Just so historians have a paper trail to follow when they will try to answer the question , "what were they thining?" .
    - Lio 3y ago
      In practice you can't get away with that. It's like trying to argue that it would be a good idea to keep skills in house or objecting to some of the weird HR fads that go around like personality "tests"; you can't win. They may be acting irrationally but they don't want about it. The best thing, and probably the only thing, you can do is move to a job that treats you better. Remember though, the old company probably won't miss you because they're not interested in how retention affects performance. It's best to be dispassionate about it. We're all just "resource" and jobs are just "work". Disclaimer: I have worked fully remotely since 2016 and wouldn't go back to an office I couldn't cycle to in 30 minutes.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    >apparently working in the office is more environmentally friendly in a lot of cases. I would think you'd need very specific conditions. The office has to be climate-controlled in any case so any extra AC or heat used at home is incremental. (Other utilities etc. at home are probably pretty minor.) But to be a net negative, you probably have to assume you're not driving or you're only driving a short distance.
Lolaccount 3y ago
10000000% this .... vote me down CEO's! King Kong is out of the bag and you're not getting it back in again.
JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 3y ago
Teams around the world but also outsourcing. They had absolutely no issue working with people that didn't belong to the company, were less accountable, and couldn't be easily tested before being hired. But now it's a big issue if I want to avoid traffic jam and work more in a peaceful environment. I'm in the process of switching jobs, and when I'm offered less than 3 days of WFH, I increase my price but the recruiters still don't understand why. It's like COVID never happened and no one managed to adapt to this "old new thing" (because WFH is as old as the internet).
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  It’s not about productivity. This is entirely about the effects office space utilization will have on their balance sheet and the macro economy at large. You are being told to bail out CRE holdings. That is it.
  - RestlessMind 3y ago
    > You are being told to bail out CRE holdings. That is it. This is such a ridiculous claim that it's hard to believe without any citation.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Do you and everyone else who keeps repeating this really believe that no one in corporate management has ever heard of sunk costs. Plenty of companies are working to downsize their real estate footprint.
    - ljm 3y ago
      Like it or not, for some it’s also just their preference and they happen to have decision making power over it. Not everything is a conspiracy and some people do actually prefer working from the office. The problem is being offered that flexibility and then having it taken away, and people are well within their rights to protest that by walking out or putting themselves back on the market. These same companies were eager to cut pay for people choosing remote work so it follows that they should be prepared to increase pay for bringing people back into the office.
spacemadness 3y ago
This is the same group of people who overhired so much they needed layoffs immediately after. There is no long-term vision here. There is corporate real estate and executive hubris and control. They live in entirely different worlds than most of us.
- black_13 3y ago
  [dead]
- malfist 3y ago
  I think if anything, this shows that CEOs aren't any better at predicting the future than you or I. Dead reckoning seems to be all they do. Things are great? Let's hire like there's no tomorrow that won't be even better. Things are bad? Let's layoff and cut costs like there's no tomorrow that won't be worse.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Nobody possesses a working crystal ball. Especially not those who think they do.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  They don't care about corporate R/E at all. It's 95% self-preservation by management. Maybe 5% thinking about tax incentives. Time will tell if shareholders reward or punish companies that force RTO. So far they don't seem to care. But this will play a role in whether this trend continues or reverses.
  - RhysU 3y ago
    Are there ETFs that allow easily taking either side of the remote-or-not bet on better, long-term shareholder value?
  - mjr00 3y ago
    > They don't care about corporate R/E at all. Yeah, the meme about an evil conspiracy of corporate CEOs also owning commercial real estate is really, really dumb. Maybe you could theorize that when Andy Jassy and Tim Cook were the only people pushing for RTO, but now more and more companies are doing it, and I assure you that the CEO of (insert random 100-person tech company here) doesn't have deep investments in commercial real estate. Occam's razor: the simple fact is management thinks that people are more productive when in the office. They may be wrong about that, of course. But if the question is "why is management pushing for RTO," it's simply because they believe their teams will produce more and better output while in the office.
user432678 3y ago
The company I work for is currently evaluating return to the office five days a week. First thing I did is filed a request for two 4k monitors, “fancy” ergonomic keyboard and mouse (around £400), and an expensive ergonomic chair. Just in case they push back I also got the doctor’s prescription, that I need all that because of health issues, so they won’t be able to force me to work. My negotiation tactic is going to be “I have all that at home already”.
- hbosch 3y ago
  In my experience, “I have all that at home already” has not been a good spot to negotiate from.
  - justsomehnguy 3y ago
    Quite the opposite, it's a perfect negotiating spot - you would see if the company gives a fuck fast. Surely, you should be in a position to fire the company, but it's not limited to 4k monitors.
  - user432678 3y ago
    Well, that’s the only spot I have, the other one would be to just start looking for a new job.
- basisword 3y ago
  This is one of the big problems I’ve noticed as our company has went hybrid. The office environment in terms of equipment is generally much worse than what people had at home. Lots of requests for new monitors, better chairs etc. I think what makes this even worse is that quite a few companies I know transitioned from a private office to a “private” WeWork while they evaluate how many people are going to come in. It’s a significant downgrade in all cases. And you can’t even bring in your own gear because desks are booked and you’re not allowed to leave anything behind at the end of the day. Madness.
avgDev 3y ago
I work for unsexy manufacturing company. I haven't been to the office and we agreed I'm remote first. If recruiter messages me about "Hot company but onsite", I just ignore it. I honestly don't care about the company. At this point I care about 1-Remote 2-Money.
- ChuckNorris89 3y ago
  >I work for unsexy manufacturing company. In which country? I had an interview for a SW dev position at a Austrian (Europe, not kangaroos) company that manufactures some high tech shit and they said it's 100% in office because if production workers need to be on the factory floor, then it's only fair that so does everyone else, no exceptions, including the SW devs. I'm struggling to find companies that offer 100% WFH here. Every single company mandates you in the office at least a few days a week here and why I ask them I get the answer "because Covid is over so we're back to normal now and we're more productive when everyone is in the office".
  - odiroot 3y ago
    > if production workers need to be on the factory floor, then it's only fair that so does everyone else, no exceptions, including the SW devs. That's a common culture in Germanic companies. Hey at least everyone is equally miserable.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    > they said it's 100% in office because if production workers need to be on the factory floor, then it's only fair that so does everyone else, no exceptions, including the SW devs. Did you ask them if everyone gets paid the same too, including the owners, and if not, how is that fair?
  - skinnymuch 3y ago
    Classic capitalist bourgeoisie tactic blaming exploited workers against one another.
  - avgDev 3y ago
    I'm in US. Remote is considered a part of the package for me. Why should I care a factory worker or manager needs to be there? I did variety of jobs that required me to be onsite all the time, hence why I switched to computers/programming. I might be switching to a hybrid model, where I go in for meetings as I will be taking a more of a leadership role. However, if I'm programming office is just not a good place to be, as it is harder for me to focus.
ssnistfajen 3y ago
Open source projects are essentially all built in async, fully remote environments. Many of which have become essential backbones of the industry. So the argument that fully remote work promotes silos or is weak on coordination don't really hold up. Besides, corporate silos are not a remote work problem. It has existed for as long as corporations themselves. Most big corps are not really building "complex" products but merely reinventing CRUD apps in-house.
UncleMeat 3y ago
I moved out of the bay area in 2020 for family reasons. Before Covid, I was expecting to take something resembling a 75% pay cut because of the move. Covid and increased availability of remote work meant that I got to keep my job with only a 15% pay cut. That was great. But I'm never going back. No matter what. That 75% pay cut remains a good deal if it is the only available option. Just don't tell my employer I'm willing to take so little.

francisofascii 3y ago

Freedom for developers could mean a lot of things, for this article they mean the freedom to work remote.

user_named 3y ago

My new job only gives me ten days off per year. This means I'll have to start looking for a new job immediately... Because that's being trapped in a cage.

cryptonector 3y ago
Ten paid days off, or ten days off regardless of whether they're paid?
- user_named 3y ago
  Ten days PTO.
  - cryptonector 3y ago
    So take some unpaid days of too. If the job pays well enough, then why not.
hnal943 3y ago
...why did you willingly accept a job where you feel caged?
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  Cuz I need to eat, and there are only [X] opportunities around where I live.
- bamfly 3y ago
  They needed money, probably? Same reason 95% of jobs are ever accepted by anyone.
- 0x0000000 3y ago
  Because the only worse thing than having a job is not having a job?
  - 3y ago

vsskanth 3y ago

It's good to have a range of options for employees and a new advantage for startups to utilize. In the next few years we will hopefully know how different approaches affect productivity and outcomes. I initially thought Google's work research teams would study this but I guess that was just a zero interest rate phenomenon and now they're also just another groupthink employer.

wtp1saac 3y ago

Man I feel out of sync with the hivemind sometimes. Young 20-something and work from home seems to effectively be the standard for most programming work, and it makes me wish I pursued a different career. I hate being stuck at home, video calling to endless pfps, and never seeing a single coworker’s face.

red-iron-pine 3y ago
coworkers aren't your friends they're "work friends", and your job isn't your life. join a club, go places, talk to people. even working from home I walk to local coffee shops and chat with the people there. 6am there is always the same old guy and he reads the whole damn newspaper before 7am -- and is keen to talk. Old-timey, but a nice guy. I'm on a softball team. there are a few meetup.com groups I like to hit, esp. the local LUG. there is a local non-profit art center and my wife sits on that board -- get to go to a few art events. the problem is you're stuck at home. get out more, killer.
bamfly 3y ago
I like the office better, actually. Quite a bit better. ... I just don't like it enough to make it worth 5ish hours of fighting rush-hour traffic [edit: per week], right after getting the kids where they need to be (for the morning half, at least), not being able to do my mise for dinner over lunch or move some clothes to the dryer during the day, the gas & wear & tear on my car, the risk to life and limb, not being able to work-and-travel, and not being able to move somewhere far away without changing jobs. Plus I can greet my kids when they get home from school every day. I don't prefer WFH per se—I prefer working in an office, especially in a nice area with cool stuff around, not so much in some soulless office park—but with that all factored in, it's not even a close call. WFH by a mile. [EDIT] Oh, and child care costs in the Summer. That's ~$2.5-3k/kid of value alone, per year, in sheer cost savings. More, if your workplace is in-person and also not flexible enough that you can get home before 5 in the evening and leave late-ish in the morning—more like $6-8k/kid per year, in that case, since you'll need before-school and after-school care.
- srndsnd 3y ago

strict9 3y ago

Remote work with lots of PTO available (no questions asked) is an order of magnitude more important to me than salary. I'll happily settle for a medium-sized company with a decent tech stack that offers freedom and flexibility. There is (almost) no salary level that would make me trade the current setup remote work and lots of time off. I am more motivated to work and be productive than when I worked in an office. And I'm happier about what I do.

Loughla 3y ago
Flexibility is the name of the game. I've had offers (non-tech) that are roughly twice my current salary, but at institutions that are VASTLY less flexible than my current employer. I haven't worked a full week in nearly 12 years, and that's how I want it. Money is nice, but I can, quite literally, always get more money. Time is the one commodity that I absolutely cannot find more of. Employers need to understand this.
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FunkyDuckling 3y ago

Remote work is nice, but the biggest advantage I've have at a small company is picking my own hours. I work with teams across the world, So I can take a 2 hours break after lunch to go biking, and then come back. I want freedom in daylight hours to do things.

nielsbot 3y ago

“But, as their stock prices have suffered, Big Tech has not only dialed back on many on-site perks, they’ve also called workers back to the office.” I’m skeptical this has anything to do with stock prices.

ecshafer 3y ago

The weird thing with the back to office push is how consistent it is across companies. It has to be a McKinsey consultant or something, because all companies that push going back in are doing the 3 days in office hybrid basically. Its too uniform.

schott12521 3y ago
It’s because RTO is the last straw holding up commercial real estate. Either consultants or CEOs got together and realized that there’s no back, so they started to force it. Completely agree how much collusion between companies there is though.
- screye 3y ago
  A real estate crash also eliminates net-worth for rich executives more so than random employees. They all have a vested interest in molding work-file culture to their benefit.
- y-c-o-m-b 3y ago
  I would bet there's also some accounting or tax voodoo around it that's cutting into some of their profits and back-room deals.
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    There is definitely tax breaks for business who are "anchor tenants" in cities. Texas attracted tons of bodies to places like Austin via big tax breaks, for example. The idea being that the loss of Corporate Tax is made up by all of the people living, eating, shopping, travelling, etc. nearby.
alistairSH 3y ago
I'm convinced it's largely older C-levels walking the halls, seeing empty cubes, and panicking because "nobody is working!" I've yet to see any metrics that show forced RTO improves productivity, engagement, or anything else in white-collar industries.

say_it_as_it_is 3y ago

People like Harrigan, at Columbia's business school, are perpetuating old mythology about what constitutes professional management. They also pretend to think that they know what investors want, or prefer.

Graffur 3y ago

If the freedom includes mandatory status update video calls.. is it really freedom?

xwdv 3y ago

IMO the top talent will always be remote going forward. My opinions of those who are forced to work in the office with no physical requirement to be there, is that they are lower quality applicants with poor negotiation power and an inability to successfully pass interviews for the vast majority of companies in the world offering remote jobs, and thus they can only lean into their one positive attribute: a willingness to get dressed and commute to and from an office everyday.

hammock 3y ago

A lot of companies, the recruiter will say "on site" but the actual manager will be much more flexible with you on an individual basis

tristor 3y ago

I've been permanent remote since 2015. I will never take a job that forces me into the office. That said, I think I benefited greatly from being in an office with more senior people when I was starting out. The only argument in favor of RTO/Hybrid that's ever carried water with me is that remote work makes it harder for junior staff to succeed and learn, because there are less opportunities for collaboration and guidance/mentorship. That said, my experience in open source projects shows you can still learn as a junior person as long as you're willing to put in extra effort to do so and kind of dig for the information/knowledge you need. It's definitely an additional barrier of entry though that makes it more difficult for people who aren't obsessive about tech (and whether that's good or bad is debatable). Remote isn't new. There have been systems to support remote connectivity since the 90s, and it's been realistic for a tech worker to be permanent remote essentially since Git existed. There were a lot of workers who didn't realize they could do their jobs remotely, and now they do, it's been possible for decades. That cat is never going back into the bag. At least for me, it's been great and made it possible for me to change jobs during the pandemic easily without needing to be as fine-grained in my search as there's many many more remote opportunities now.

vanilla_nut 3y ago
I envision a world where a portion of senior workers -- 40%, I would guess, based on vague approximations of folks who prefer in-person or hybrid work -- work in office, with mentorship representing a huge portion of their responsibilities. Junior workers probably ought to spend at least a year or two in office to acclimate to office job life; high performers can escape once they've proven their abilities. That being said: I wonder how much of remote work preferences are actually a result of affordability and quality of life issues in cities, especially in the USA. I would have no problem working a hybrid or even full-time in-person gig in an office... if I could afford to buy a house, walk or bike to work, and live in a quiet, clean, interesting neighborhood. Being paid a decent salary in tech that should be possible, but it's really hard to manage in the USA at the moment for most definitions of quiet/clean/interesting. And before anyone claims that cities can't be "quiet" or "clean", I've spent enough time in nice European cities that do satisfy all three criteria to know that I'm not just being overly picky. Even if I had a million dollars, I doubt I could satisfy those criteria in the USA. Anyway, as long as we're stuck with an imperfect housing market, remote work is such a blessing. I'm sure it's helpful for some junior workers, too -- if you don't have to move to a $2k+/mo apartment in a major city straight out of college, you'll have a much easier time paying off loans and saving up money early in life. I suspect that's opened a lot of doors for folks who previously couldn't work the most prestigious tech jobs.

totallywrong 3y ago

I think we're well past the heated debates around covid time, and companies know it. It's either remote or nothing for so many of us.

EMM_386 3y ago

I've been remote for over 10 years, far before the pandemic, when the competition for remote positions was extreme. At the time, I decided I wasn't going back to an office again if I could help it. Then the pandemic hit and suddenly everyone is remote and the whole thing flipped upside down. Now it's a battle with return to the office or "flex". Thankfully, I am immune to this. And I have taken a substantial cut in pay in the beginning for it to stay this way. I prefer the freedom and flexibility over more money, but that's just me.

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5350-uiop-1130 3y ago

so...what is the opposite of freedom?

rybosworld 3y ago

Whether you prefer WFH or rather be in the office, I would be truly suspicious of a company that claims RTO is necessary. The reasons for RTO don't seem to be backed by rationale/logic. That should be immediately concerning to any individual contributor. For example: 1. Some flavor of "water cooler conversation is important for innovation!" Just... what? 2. "Collaboration is suffering" without any evidence offered. 3. "Productivity is suffering" without any evidence offered. 4. "How can we know if people are slacking off or not". Well how did you determine that in the office setting? Was it their physical presence from the hours of 9 to 5 that convinced you?

yitchelle 3y ago

No joke. I saw a job advert classifying bank holidays as a perk. Job was in a western European country.

m0llusk 3y ago

Seems like this is based on a lot of broken metrics. When working for a big company in an office there were often days when key contributors were off their peak for days at a time because of a commute that had a big crash delay or a road rage incident. Then there was a prolonged time during which key developments stalled because a critical contributor dropped his bike in the fast lane. He did recover, but still does not remember what exactly happened. And all of this super powers development and the bottom line? Some spreadsheet really needs a bigger externalities line item.

toss1 3y ago

>>And professionalism to them means butts in chairs. What this really means is NOT what they said ("...bigger stuff needs more in-person coordination, blah, blah,blah..."). It is actually the phenomenon found by a long-ago study of remote vs in-person management (I wish I could locate it). It found that teams under good managers are actually made better by remote work, and teams under bad managers were made worse. The good managers focused on results, while the bad managers focused on indicators of work (time spent in chairs, at screens, in meetings, etc.). In short, remote work amplifies the differences in management quality. What this study shows is that larger companies have overall lower quality and far larger quantity of bad managers. What they really need for performance is not more office time, as that will only paper over the problem of bad managers. What they need is far greater investment in good management (methods, training, etc.).

CoastalCoder 3y ago

I wish I could afford to change careers at the moment. I'd love to create / work-for a company that builds out WFH office spaces. I.e., that specializes in all the success factors: - workspace soundproofing* / acoustics - HVAC - networking - electricity - collaboration technology (esp. the ultimate prize for software developers: a viable replacement for in-person whiteboard collaboration, that's also compatible with corporate network security needs) - ergonomic furniture - features that help with mental health: natural light, sufficient artificial light, etc. - "HOW-TO" guides for dealing with other residents. I.e., policies and/or tools to make it clear when the workers can be interrupted, etc. - consulting with employers to make sure all of the above can work in harmony with the rest of the company * I mean "soundproofing" in the colloquial sense, i.e. good-enough psycho-acoustic improvement.

JamesLeonis 3y ago

Work From Home let me move closer to my retiring parents, who live nowhere near any of these tech hubs. There were two emergencies during COVID where I was critical. All these RTO incentives, perks, and threats all say the same thing to me: "You won't be here when something happens again." > “Bigger companies, more complex companies, are more likely to be looking for more professional types of management,” said Kathy Harrigan, a professor of corporate management at Columbia University’s business school. “Investors expect that.” hmmmm... > And professionalism to them means butts in chairs. Harrigan says in-person work is necessary to coordinate the complicated, varied businesses these tech conglomerates now operate. The move to AI has only made in-person coordination more of a necessity, she said. > “They’re working with a more complex kind of product. It means a lot more coordination from a lot of different points of view, where previously these workers were permitted to work in silos,” Harrigan said. [Bernie Sanders Voice]: I am once again asking Management for evidence [0]. > “In the face of volatility and uncertainty, it is human nature to want to revert back to something that is a known quantity,” said Caitlin Duffy, a research director at Gartner, about the push to return to the office. “And so there might be some psychological things happening that may be overriding the evidence in front of them.” > The evidence, she says, shows that offering flexibility in where people work makes them happier and, by extension, more productive and innovative. Accounts to the contrary were “unfounded.” What’s worse, Duffy said, is that arbitrarily calling people back to the office might actually hurt workers’ productivity and innovation by driving fatigue and burnout. Well that's a refreshing turn of events! But can I see the evidence? [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36406079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36406079

dontupvoteme 3y ago

I think the RTO thing is a lot more nefarious and high level than just middle managers wanting to keep their jobs, or boomers wanting the old way, or trying to prevent moonlighting, etc. This is the same story since the industrial revolution. It's just new to many. The capitalist class is not happy to have their proles to have the freedom of movement and choice of where they work. Much like how America ties expensive healthcare (and high risk of bankruptcy) to working for The man, forcing the white collared proletarians into the office shows power and importance of work over life. This also explains why it seems to be the CEOs pushing for it (in reality it is probably the board of directors i bet) Officer workers almost always were insulated from the bloody history of workers rights and strikes, and I don't think there's a single white collar union in America, but I was surprised to find out how always on guard european engineers/white collar workers are about the employer trying to take advantage of you. (They did eventually do 3 day hybrid, but I'm pretty sure a lot of people come in 1 or 2 days)

nunez 3y ago

Can you teach old dogs new tricks? Big companies are typically older. They were created and grew in an environment that knew nothing _but_ the office. Having amazing(ly expensive) offices were prized social signals for them and were huge attractors of great talent, especially when residential Internet sucked so hard in comparison. They also employed tons of people in the area outside of tech (property managers, facilities, janitorial staff, accounts, etc.) and were embedded into their communities. Also, their DNAs were built _around_ the office. I can easily sympathize with them saying that collaboration happens easiest when everyone's in the office; the leaders saying this likely can't imagine another way of working! Asking a company as big as Google to simply give all of that up and rent WeWorks isn't impossible, but is a huge, huge ask. While some groups can easily switch to a remote workflow, as companies, they just aren't mentally or physically equipped to do that without a significant number of breaking changes. That said, _my_ problem with how they are going about it is that they are walking back on their incredibly enthusiastic support for remote work during COVID-times _without saying why_. Nobody's going out there and saying "So we were super excited about remote work, but after seeing a 30% drop in "productivity" year-over-year, we knew it couldn't be sustained." (This is a fake reason; I have no idea what the numbers are). They also aren't saying "We can't give up our office spaces without significantly wrecking the community that formed around us." Instead, their giving platitudes like "collaboration happens best in the office" and leaving us to conjecture the change of heart. I love the fact that smaller companies are making remote work work for them, but I'm afraid that so long as big tech gets bigger, the effect is temporary at best.

cwalv 3y ago
I think the real reason is because going into an office to just end up sitting alone and joining meetings remotely is worse than just working remotely. It's a chicken and egg problem; they think that once there's a critical mass, people will want to RTO, but they can't hit the critical mass without some top down "incentive" to kick start it.
premun 3y ago
This is a bad take. Large companies have often team collaborating across the globe so they're used to partial remote already. My company (Microsoft) turned mostly remote, teams that started through COVID have never seen office. Also the company doubled through COVID so a large portion of the company is remote first. Also.. Offices cost a lot whether you're big co or a start-up.

closeparen 3y ago

The higher prevalence of RTO in bigger companies tracks with the perception that it’s a middle management-driven phenomenon.