10 ms·

The forced return to the office is the definition of insanity

82 points by Stratoscope 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
fundad 3y ago
Productivity is revenue divided by count of employees. (Ad) Revenue is down because of interest rates. The problem with forced return is going from no minimum days to a minimum, this article differentiates hybrid vs 5 day. Requiring any minimum days in the office is dumb.
PraetorianGourd 3y ago
The author of this piece, who seems to primarily write about Return to Office, runs a consulting firm on “the future of work”. So no doubt his opinions are rooted in sound research and not a vested interest in selling books and consulting on the future of work. I don’t think that this automatically disqualifies his opinion, but the onus is on him to avoid the perception of ulterior motives, which he didn’t do.
- Clent 3y ago
  Sounds to me like you're describing a subject matter expert.
  - ahahahahah 3y ago
    I mean, their "overwhelming evidence" was a link to an online survey run by a company promoting remote work. By that logic, let me just point you to some "overwhelming evidence" that trump won the election.
PartiallyTyped 3y ago
> Instead of being a productivity wonderland, the office is more like a productivity black hole, where collaboration, socializing, mentoring, and on-the-job training thrive, but focused work gets sucked into oblivion. In fact, research shows that the office is detrimental to productivity. My experience corroborates this. My team is spread across 4 or 5 cities, 2 countries, 2 continents, and 6h difference. I know none in the office, and yet I still have trouble getting work done because people can’t respect others and speak loudly. I shouldn’t need to wear headphones 8h a day just so I can have some silence when I can work remotely at a library, or in my apartment. I shouldn’t need to wear a sweater or warm clothing in the middle of the summer because people need to have the AC as low as they do. Let’s not forget the need to scramble to find a meeting room because the teams are as fragmented as they are. It’s absolutely insane. All of these get worse because of forced RTO. when attendance was sparser, I enjoyed it a lot more.
- peoplearepeople 3y ago
  In office, I found myself having to wear the 3inch thick 3M safety earmuffs.
nperez 3y ago
I really don't want to work for someone who reluctantly "allows" me to be in my home. Or someone who views it as a generous perk that might get taken away during tough times. So, I think people who want in-office work should embrace it and advertise it loud and clear. This makes it easier for me to move on and find the other companies who see value in me building out a home office fine-tuned for my own productivity at little-to-no additional cost to the company.
- hattar 3y ago
  At likely negative cost to the company.
  - stavros 3y ago
    They already pay me less because I work remotely, so it's priced in.
    - hattar 3y ago
      What I meant to say was, you're already saving them money by not going in. You're saving them the cost of office space, parking, etc. And then as you've pointed out, on top of all that they're paying you less.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- spacemadness 3y ago
  This is what they want. They are being brazen about it to make people unhappy enough to quit and go to those companies. Another easy round of layoffs for our wonderfully forward thinking CEOs.
PTOB 3y ago
Our CEO just announced, "You’ve probably heard that many businesses, including some of our competitors, are calling employees back to the office, significantly reducing or eliminating work-from-home options, and curtailing much of the flexibility they once allowed. Even the tech industry – among the first to send employees home in March 2020 – is calling staff back to the office. Some with perks, others with threats. Some of these companies are citing a loss of culture and others are seeing a drop in their profitability or revenue. It seems their solution to one, or all these problems, is to bring employees back under their roofs. Meanwhile, our flexible options seem to be working, creating a differentiator in the market. It’s been a draw for new hires and a benefit that our employees have enthusiastically embraced. And, since 2020, we’ve had our three highest revenue years, and we remain on track to grow further this year..."
- slickrick216 3y ago
  This signals they are not personally invested in commercial real estate or friends with people who are. Good for them.
  - jncfhnb 3y ago
    unless you’re invested in that particular building, your business is a drop in the bucket and not going to move the needle
    - Arn_Thor 3y ago
      It won’t move the needle, no. But neither does your vote. On the other hand, “get out the vote” campaigns are still a thing. It’s not a perfect analogy, but if business owners band together and all push people back to the office, it’s not unreasonable for them to hope it at least props up office space asset values.
    - SteveNuts 3y ago
      Sure but if you're a business that either purchased tens of millions of dollars of commercial real estate for your office, or are on the hook for a multi year, multi million dollar lease that doesn't look great on the balance sheet or to investors to have useless assets. And there's not much you can do to even that out when the price of commercial real estate is dropping significantly. I'm definitely not saying it's right, IMO it's a sunk cost and businesses need to plan for the future accordingly (even if it means unloading those assets at a loss).
the_jesus_villa 3y ago
I'm so grateful to be a freelancer when I read stuff like this. Upwork has plenty to complain about but at least they don't dictate where I can live and work.
mcbuilder 3y ago
Right now I'm working fully remote, but probably will end up spending 4-5 working weeks annual total in the office. I fly in maybe once every other month for like 3-4 days. When I go to the office, my productivity really drops. I am reminded why I hate working full time in the office. Still, it's worth it for team dinners and other "team building" activities. I joke that the thing we get out of going to the office is to socialize. I like the setup, though. When I do go, I'm basically doing a working vacation. We whiteboard, work on things I wouldn't normally do, have fun, and usually get something accomplished once I settle in.
- throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
  And I hate these working vacations. One time I made an excuse and skipped out of it, and got a months work done in the week everyone was wasting time at the on-site. Nobody online to bug me, no meetings, just pure productivity.
- vidanay 3y ago
  > When I go to the office, my productivity really drops. Same for me. The first couple of times, I became really frustrated with spending a week in the office. It seemed to be a cycle of "Plug in laptop, read and respond to a couple of emails, unplug laptop, go to a meeting, bullshit for the first 10 minutes of the meeting, listen to other people talk for 40 minutes, bullshit for the last 10 minutes of the meeting, close laptop, stop by the cafeteria for coffee, bullshit over coffee for 10 minutes, go back to desk." Repeat 3x-4x a day for five days. I "got over it" by finally accepting the fact that my week in the office is not going to be productive in my traditional sense. The cycle above is the work I am doing for that week.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  My company is still fully remote and one thing I’ve noticed is that individuals are more productive compared to the office, but teams are much less productive because everyone is just working on whatever they feel like instead of collaborating. It’s interesting to me that every individual seems to be more productive but our organization as a whole is clearly much less so.
Apreche 3y ago
Me and my friend think that some companies are doing this as a way to lay people off without laying people off. If that's the case, it's a severe miscalculation as the employees most likely to leave are in theory, the best ones. They believe in themselves and that they can get another (remote) job very easily.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  I think it’s pretty clear that rto is a way to get people to quit, but I’m not so sure about the first to leave theory. The best employees in my org are the ones who are most committed to the product. They’re not super likely to leave just because they’re so personally invested in what we’re doing. The average employees are still able to get offers, they’re the ones that tend to leave.
  - m0oncake 3y ago
    I think it is true that the best people are the first to go, at least based on my first hand experience. The forced rto was on of the nails in the coffin that got me to finally leave. I wasn't the only one to go and without trying to sound egotistical I was one of the best people there so it was easy to get another job that was fully remote. I've kept in contact with a few ex co-workers who are still there and the only reason they're staying is because they don't currently have the experience / knowledge to go somewhere else.
  - chii 3y ago
    > The best employees in my org One might want to differentiate between loyalty and competency. Is a highly competent workforce but they're not loyal, better than a very loyal but somewhat incompetent workforce?
  - spacemadness 3y ago
    So in other words, “the best employees” are the ones to turn the other cheek when they get mistreated because they are committed to “the product.” That’s certainly a convenient take for the managerial types in the room.
m0oncake 3y ago
I recently started a new job and went from working hybrid to fully remote. The department I worked in was spread across two different locations with most of the team working from the one I wasn't at. There was a huge push by management to force people back into the office more and more; I'd often end up sitting there alone all day while people from sales had calls and meetings on speaker at max volume along with an expensive, stressful commute on a packed train either side. This was one of the things that pushed me to finally look somewhere else (there were lots of other issues) and there's no way someone could get me to go back to pointlessly working in an office, spending hours per day and thousands per year commuting unpaid just so they can exercise further control while ironically reducing productivity significantly.
pyrophane 3y ago
I'm usually a little suspicious of articles that use the phrase "the evidence is clear" as a rhetorical device because evidence is rarely clear, especially when it comes to to things that have a human and social aspect. Their argument is mostly based on a single study. And then they just call out the biases of the CEOs pushing for back-to-office, but they don't acknowledge their own bias as someone who appears to run a consultancy that makes money off of exactly the thing they are arguing is the right approach.
- autoexec 3y ago
  The article might be poor, the author self-serving, and their views poorly sourced, but we don't have to rely on this one article to know that offices are terrible for productivity. Countless studies on the open floor plans and cube farms companies want to pull workers back to have shown that they are terrible for productivity, so you can take your pick from any of them. Many people here have experienced that for themselves. Offices are good for forced socialization, collaboration, networking, and micromanaging, but not for productivity, flexibility, employee's health and comfort, and especially not for work that requires long periods of intense focus.
  - billfor 3y ago
    Generally it wasn't technically possible to work fully remote until the last ten years so not sure how you can say that everyone that was working onsite or in an office from 1945-2010 had a bad time, since there wasn't any substantial alternative to compare it to. I do note that the world kept turning during this period and we were productive.
    - tharkun__ 3y ago
      One does not preclude the other. Working in an office can have been having a bad time regardless of whether there were viable alternatives (for most people). As an introvert my entire in-office existence was bad. I did not have an alternative. But now I do and I will cling to it as long as I can. Productivity is also a relative measure in that sense. Sure you were productive. A farmer a few hundred years ago can have been productive for the times he was living in. Compare it with a modern farm and he's outclassed and not "productive" at all.
cultofmetatron 3y ago
I for one am glad in some ways about this. My company is remote first and this means we won't have to compete for new hires as aggressively now that the big companies are shooting themselves in the foot. They wanna compete for the same talent as us? they'll need to offer 20-40k over our offers.
nine_zeros 3y ago
It will be really good for the world if the current crop of companies, their execs, their upper/middle management fail. Poor practices installed in by these people need to go.
diob 3y ago
I don't plan to ever return. It pains me to think how much of my youth was wasted commuting, being tired / less than 100%, and overall just wrecking my health for preconceptions around "how work is done". Is there a real reason to need folks in the office for most tech work? I can understand timezones being an issue with remote work, but at that point just don't hire in lots of disparate timezones. Still, I work with folks that wake up when I get off work, so I don't get it. Communication is the key, and it doesn't magically get better by going to an office. All you get is a false sense of control.
- m0oncake 3y ago
  How would you say timezones are an issue with remote work? It's not like they would be any different if people were going into an office.
  - codr7 3y ago
    It is pretty rare to have people from different time zones in the same office though.
  - diob 3y ago
    I agree with you, it comes down to communication. If folks can't communicate ideas clearly (written), then your team will suffer regardless of location.
  - timbit42 3y ago
    Timezones are an issue if you move out of North America. Some people move to Latin America so the timezones are similar. Moving to Asia is tricky unless you like to work all night and sleep during the day.
sacnoradhq 3y ago
It's the same as why economy class is uncomfortable: it's manipulation through misery but upgrade vs. increasing resignations.
bloppe 3y ago
The article comes across strangely indignant. I wonder if the author is personally this passionate about remote work, or if it's click-bait for the plurality of netizens that seem to be that passionate. Even if the article is entirely accurate, I see no sense in admonishing others for "insane" business practices. Other people making stupid business decisions should be viewed as an opportunity.
hsjqllzlfkf 3y ago
OT does anyone else get bored by the expression "X is the definition of Y"? As used the common parlance this is almost always false.
GianFabien 3y ago
With all the available space in office buildings, why not convert the open spaces back into individual offices? Before the enthusiasm for open plan offices, engineers had their own offices where they could close the door and concentrate on their work.
- m0oncake 3y ago
  That would definitely be a lot nicer but it still leaves the issue of spending thousands per year financially as well as hours of your life commuting to do something you could do just as well if not better from home anyway. People who work shifts already are at work far too long but then they have to tack on another 2-3 hours travelling which they're not even compensated for.
  - GianFabien 3y ago
    I agree. Nothing would entice me to endure the commute. I was thinking along the lines that some people don't have suitable space at home to comfortably work in and wouldn't mind going to the office if it wasn't as noisy, full of distractions.
clpm4j 3y ago
2021-2022: "The stock market is going up, let's hire tons of new employees and go fully remote." 2023: "Our valuation went down and customers aren't spending as much, let's do layoffs and bring everyone back into the office." Clearly the same idiots are still in the C-suite.
jasonpeacock 3y ago
Huh, same author as: https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/the-damaging-results-of-the-mandated-return-to-office-is/454043 https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/the-damaging... from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36500448 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36500448
deterministic 3y ago
Companies that are not WFH flexible will be less competitive. They will be less competitive in the job market, and operational costs (office space, middle management, wasted BS meetings etc.) will be higher compared with WFH companies.
nicholasbraker 3y ago
The problem is that the physical layout of most offices do not support an environment in which knowledge workers (especially in tech/professional services) kan thrive. Open office spaces are killing for focussed work so what you'll need is a choice. When you need to focus, retreat to a small room without distractions, if you need mentoring, go to a somewhat bigger room with a white board, if you want to collaborate, use the traditional open office adjacent to the coffee machine. The reason is that in some point in time companies and realtors decide that an open office space is the most efficient way to use square meters (or feet in freedom units.) and as such optimizes revenue. If offices were more optimized returning to an office for a few days a week can actually improve productivity. That said, it very much depends on the role if 100 % WFH, hybrid or full office work makes sense. IMHO is that informal relations (the "coffee machine chat") provides a certain advantage in _some_ roles. This aspect (providing some nuance..) seems to be missing from most discussions.
ochronus 3y ago
As I commented on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36500448 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36500448 - We need the flexibility to choose, there's no one size fits all here. Workplaces also need to cater for different needs and be appealing enough to make it worth going there. I've analyzed the results of a study on this last week: https://leadership.garden/back-to-the-office/ https://leadership.garden/back-to-the-office/
nokya 3y ago
My employer has a 40% WFH tolerance policy and asked us (team leads) to relay the information and control office presence. As team lead, I decided to relay this message differently. I instructed my team to do as they wish and come when they want, and to do so with three things in mind: 1. If they are not coming to the office because something is inadequate, they let me know and I will do my best to fix it. 2. Those who are younger than 35 should consider the long-term effects of staying at home and not interacting with peers on their professional career. They trusted me on item 1 and asked for a few things to change. Almost everything was in relation with hardware (better monitors, proper docking stations, good keyboards and mice, and in two cases, new laptops), one asked to clean the toilets more frequently and make some air freshener available, another asked for a water heating option to make tea and make some tea available (it was indeed unfair with the coffee drinkers who have a state-of-the-art coffee machine), they asked for a larger trash bin and a third lamp in the open space (team of 6). That's all I can remember. Regarding item 2, I don't know how they processed it but all I can say is that the team's WFH ratio is 24% for the last three months. Overall, I think it is all about creating a working environment people actually enjoy coming to. When I hear about employees who feel conflicted or reluctant to come to the office, I am genuinely convinced it is because one of the following: 1) They are in conflict with a colleague or their manager is an ass.ole. 2) Someone is making their life at the office unnecessarily painful or more difficult than it should (and it is most likely something related to a hardware purchase or shared commons). 3) There is a tangible constraint on coming to the office that makes their life difficult above a certain threshold (e.g., cost of transportation too elevated, medical/health/healthcare condition or issue at stake, etc.). 4) It's a wrong hire, and she/he should be laid off. As a team lead, if I see someone being reluctant to come to the office, I see it as my duty to identify which of the above is at cause and to do my best to resolve it.
- sgdread 3y ago
  #1 Can you fix the 2h commute? (edit) Would companies consider paying for commute time as work time?

82 points by Stratoscope 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Productivity is revenue divided by count of employees. (Ad) Revenue is down because of interest rates. The problem with forced return is going from no minimum days to a minimum, this article differentiates hybrid vs 5 day. Requiring any minimum days in the office is dumb.

PraetorianGourd 3y ago

The author of this piece, who seems to primarily write about Return to Office, runs a consulting firm on “the future of work”. So no doubt his opinions are rooted in sound research and not a vested interest in selling books and consulting on the future of work. I don’t think that this automatically disqualifies his opinion, but the onus is on him to avoid the perception of ulterior motives, which he didn’t do.

Clent 3y ago
Sounds to me like you're describing a subject matter expert.
- ahahahahah 3y ago
  I mean, their "overwhelming evidence" was a link to an online survey run by a company promoting remote work. By that logic, let me just point you to some "overwhelming evidence" that trump won the election.

PartiallyTyped 3y ago

> Instead of being a productivity wonderland, the office is more like a productivity black hole, where collaboration, socializing, mentoring, and on-the-job training thrive, but focused work gets sucked into oblivion. In fact, research shows that the office is detrimental to productivity. My experience corroborates this. My team is spread across 4 or 5 cities, 2 countries, 2 continents, and 6h difference. I know none in the office, and yet I still have trouble getting work done because people can’t respect others and speak loudly. I shouldn’t need to wear headphones 8h a day just so I can have some silence when I can work remotely at a library, or in my apartment. I shouldn’t need to wear a sweater or warm clothing in the middle of the summer because people need to have the AC as low as they do. Let’s not forget the need to scramble to find a meeting room because the teams are as fragmented as they are. It’s absolutely insane. All of these get worse because of forced RTO. when attendance was sparser, I enjoyed it a lot more.

peoplearepeople 3y ago
In office, I found myself having to wear the 3inch thick 3M safety earmuffs.

nperez 3y ago

I really don't want to work for someone who reluctantly "allows" me to be in my home. Or someone who views it as a generous perk that might get taken away during tough times. So, I think people who want in-office work should embrace it and advertise it loud and clear. This makes it easier for me to move on and find the other companies who see value in me building out a home office fine-tuned for my own productivity at little-to-no additional cost to the company.

hattar 3y ago
At likely negative cost to the company.
- stavros 3y ago
  They already pay me less because I work remotely, so it's priced in.
  - hattar 3y ago
    What I meant to say was, you're already saving them money by not going in. You're saving them the cost of office space, parking, etc. And then as you've pointed out, on top of all that they're paying you less.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
spacemadness 3y ago
This is what they want. They are being brazen about it to make people unhappy enough to quit and go to those companies. Another easy round of layoffs for our wonderfully forward thinking CEOs.

PTOB 3y ago

Our CEO just announced, "You’ve probably heard that many businesses, including some of our competitors, are calling employees back to the office, significantly reducing or eliminating work-from-home options, and curtailing much of the flexibility they once allowed. Even the tech industry – among the first to send employees home in March 2020 – is calling staff back to the office. Some with perks, others with threats. Some of these companies are citing a loss of culture and others are seeing a drop in their profitability or revenue. It seems their solution to one, or all these problems, is to bring employees back under their roofs. Meanwhile, our flexible options seem to be working, creating a differentiator in the market. It’s been a draw for new hires and a benefit that our employees have enthusiastically embraced. And, since 2020, we’ve had our three highest revenue years, and we remain on track to grow further this year..."

slickrick216 3y ago
This signals they are not personally invested in commercial real estate or friends with people who are. Good for them.
- jncfhnb 3y ago
  unless you’re invested in that particular building, your business is a drop in the bucket and not going to move the needle
  - Arn_Thor 3y ago
    It won’t move the needle, no. But neither does your vote. On the other hand, “get out the vote” campaigns are still a thing. It’s not a perfect analogy, but if business owners band together and all push people back to the office, it’s not unreasonable for them to hope it at least props up office space asset values.
  - SteveNuts 3y ago
    Sure but if you're a business that either purchased tens of millions of dollars of commercial real estate for your office, or are on the hook for a multi year, multi million dollar lease that doesn't look great on the balance sheet or to investors to have useless assets. And there's not much you can do to even that out when the price of commercial real estate is dropping significantly. I'm definitely not saying it's right, IMO it's a sunk cost and businesses need to plan for the future accordingly (even if it means unloading those assets at a loss).

the_jesus_villa 3y ago

I'm so grateful to be a freelancer when I read stuff like this. Upwork has plenty to complain about but at least they don't dictate where I can live and work.

mcbuilder 3y ago

Right now I'm working fully remote, but probably will end up spending 4-5 working weeks annual total in the office. I fly in maybe once every other month for like 3-4 days. When I go to the office, my productivity really drops. I am reminded why I hate working full time in the office. Still, it's worth it for team dinners and other "team building" activities. I joke that the thing we get out of going to the office is to socialize. I like the setup, though. When I do go, I'm basically doing a working vacation. We whiteboard, work on things I wouldn't normally do, have fun, and usually get something accomplished once I settle in.

throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
And I hate these working vacations. One time I made an excuse and skipped out of it, and got a months work done in the week everyone was wasting time at the on-site. Nobody online to bug me, no meetings, just pure productivity.
vidanay 3y ago
> When I go to the office, my productivity really drops. Same for me. The first couple of times, I became really frustrated with spending a week in the office. It seemed to be a cycle of "Plug in laptop, read and respond to a couple of emails, unplug laptop, go to a meeting, bullshit for the first 10 minutes of the meeting, listen to other people talk for 40 minutes, bullshit for the last 10 minutes of the meeting, close laptop, stop by the cafeteria for coffee, bullshit over coffee for 10 minutes, go back to desk." Repeat 3x-4x a day for five days. I "got over it" by finally accepting the fact that my week in the office is not going to be productive in my traditional sense. The cycle above is the work I am doing for that week.
HDThoreaun 3y ago
My company is still fully remote and one thing I’ve noticed is that individuals are more productive compared to the office, but teams are much less productive because everyone is just working on whatever they feel like instead of collaborating. It’s interesting to me that every individual seems to be more productive but our organization as a whole is clearly much less so.

Apreche 3y ago

Me and my friend think that some companies are doing this as a way to lay people off without laying people off. If that's the case, it's a severe miscalculation as the employees most likely to leave are in theory, the best ones. They believe in themselves and that they can get another (remote) job very easily.

HDThoreaun 3y ago
I think it’s pretty clear that rto is a way to get people to quit, but I’m not so sure about the first to leave theory. The best employees in my org are the ones who are most committed to the product. They’re not super likely to leave just because they’re so personally invested in what we’re doing. The average employees are still able to get offers, they’re the ones that tend to leave.
- m0oncake 3y ago
  I think it is true that the best people are the first to go, at least based on my first hand experience. The forced rto was on of the nails in the coffin that got me to finally leave. I wasn't the only one to go and without trying to sound egotistical I was one of the best people there so it was easy to get another job that was fully remote. I've kept in contact with a few ex co-workers who are still there and the only reason they're staying is because they don't currently have the experience / knowledge to go somewhere else.
- chii 3y ago
  > The best employees in my org One might want to differentiate between loyalty and competency. Is a highly competent workforce but they're not loyal, better than a very loyal but somewhat incompetent workforce?
- spacemadness 3y ago
  So in other words, “the best employees” are the ones to turn the other cheek when they get mistreated because they are committed to “the product.” That’s certainly a convenient take for the managerial types in the room.

m0oncake 3y ago

I recently started a new job and went from working hybrid to fully remote. The department I worked in was spread across two different locations with most of the team working from the one I wasn't at. There was a huge push by management to force people back into the office more and more; I'd often end up sitting there alone all day while people from sales had calls and meetings on speaker at max volume along with an expensive, stressful commute on a packed train either side. This was one of the things that pushed me to finally look somewhere else (there were lots of other issues) and there's no way someone could get me to go back to pointlessly working in an office, spending hours per day and thousands per year commuting unpaid just so they can exercise further control while ironically reducing productivity significantly.

pyrophane 3y ago

I'm usually a little suspicious of articles that use the phrase "the evidence is clear" as a rhetorical device because evidence is rarely clear, especially when it comes to to things that have a human and social aspect. Their argument is mostly based on a single study. And then they just call out the biases of the CEOs pushing for back-to-office, but they don't acknowledge their own bias as someone who appears to run a consultancy that makes money off of exactly the thing they are arguing is the right approach.

autoexec 3y ago
The article might be poor, the author self-serving, and their views poorly sourced, but we don't have to rely on this one article to know that offices are terrible for productivity. Countless studies on the open floor plans and cube farms companies want to pull workers back to have shown that they are terrible for productivity, so you can take your pick from any of them. Many people here have experienced that for themselves. Offices are good for forced socialization, collaboration, networking, and micromanaging, but not for productivity, flexibility, employee's health and comfort, and especially not for work that requires long periods of intense focus.
- billfor 3y ago
  Generally it wasn't technically possible to work fully remote until the last ten years so not sure how you can say that everyone that was working onsite or in an office from 1945-2010 had a bad time, since there wasn't any substantial alternative to compare it to. I do note that the world kept turning during this period and we were productive.
  - tharkun__ 3y ago
    One does not preclude the other. Working in an office can have been having a bad time regardless of whether there were viable alternatives (for most people). As an introvert my entire in-office existence was bad. I did not have an alternative. But now I do and I will cling to it as long as I can. Productivity is also a relative measure in that sense. Sure you were productive. A farmer a few hundred years ago can have been productive for the times he was living in. Compare it with a modern farm and he's outclassed and not "productive" at all.

cultofmetatron 3y ago

I for one am glad in some ways about this. My company is remote first and this means we won't have to compete for new hires as aggressively now that the big companies are shooting themselves in the foot. They wanna compete for the same talent as us? they'll need to offer 20-40k over our offers.

nine_zeros 3y ago

It will be really good for the world if the current crop of companies, their execs, their upper/middle management fail. Poor practices installed in by these people need to go.

diob 3y ago

I don't plan to ever return. It pains me to think how much of my youth was wasted commuting, being tired / less than 100%, and overall just wrecking my health for preconceptions around "how work is done". Is there a real reason to need folks in the office for most tech work? I can understand timezones being an issue with remote work, but at that point just don't hire in lots of disparate timezones. Still, I work with folks that wake up when I get off work, so I don't get it. Communication is the key, and it doesn't magically get better by going to an office. All you get is a false sense of control.

m0oncake 3y ago
How would you say timezones are an issue with remote work? It's not like they would be any different if people were going into an office.
- codr7 3y ago
  It is pretty rare to have people from different time zones in the same office though.
- diob 3y ago
  I agree with you, it comes down to communication. If folks can't communicate ideas clearly (written), then your team will suffer regardless of location.
- timbit42 3y ago
  Timezones are an issue if you move out of North America. Some people move to Latin America so the timezones are similar. Moving to Asia is tricky unless you like to work all night and sleep during the day.

sacnoradhq 3y ago

It's the same as why economy class is uncomfortable: it's manipulation through misery but upgrade vs. increasing resignations.

bloppe 3y ago

The article comes across strangely indignant. I wonder if the author is personally this passionate about remote work, or if it's click-bait for the plurality of netizens that seem to be that passionate. Even if the article is entirely accurate, I see no sense in admonishing others for "insane" business practices. Other people making stupid business decisions should be viewed as an opportunity.

hsjqllzlfkf 3y ago

OT does anyone else get bored by the expression "X is the definition of Y"? As used the common parlance this is almost always false.

GianFabien 3y ago

With all the available space in office buildings, why not convert the open spaces back into individual offices? Before the enthusiasm for open plan offices, engineers had their own offices where they could close the door and concentrate on their work.

m0oncake 3y ago
That would definitely be a lot nicer but it still leaves the issue of spending thousands per year financially as well as hours of your life commuting to do something you could do just as well if not better from home anyway. People who work shifts already are at work far too long but then they have to tack on another 2-3 hours travelling which they're not even compensated for.
- GianFabien 3y ago
  I agree. Nothing would entice me to endure the commute. I was thinking along the lines that some people don't have suitable space at home to comfortably work in and wouldn't mind going to the office if it wasn't as noisy, full of distractions.

clpm4j 3y ago

2021-2022: "The stock market is going up, let's hire tons of new employees and go fully remote." 2023: "Our valuation went down and customers aren't spending as much, let's do layoffs and bring everyone back into the office." Clearly the same idiots are still in the C-suite.

jasonpeacock 3y ago

Huh, same author as: https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/the-damaging-results-of-the-mandated-return-to-office-is/454043 https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/the-damaging... from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36500448 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36500448

deterministic 3y ago

Companies that are not WFH flexible will be less competitive. They will be less competitive in the job market, and operational costs (office space, middle management, wasted BS meetings etc.) will be higher compared with WFH companies.

nicholasbraker 3y ago

The problem is that the physical layout of most offices do not support an environment in which knowledge workers (especially in tech/professional services) kan thrive. Open office spaces are killing for focussed work so what you'll need is a choice. When you need to focus, retreat to a small room without distractions, if you need mentoring, go to a somewhat bigger room with a white board, if you want to collaborate, use the traditional open office adjacent to the coffee machine. The reason is that in some point in time companies and realtors decide that an open office space is the most efficient way to use square meters (or feet in freedom units.) and as such optimizes revenue. If offices were more optimized returning to an office for a few days a week can actually improve productivity. That said, it very much depends on the role if 100 % WFH, hybrid or full office work makes sense. IMHO is that informal relations (the "coffee machine chat") provides a certain advantage in _some_ roles. This aspect (providing some nuance..) seems to be missing from most discussions.

ochronus 3y ago

As I commented on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36500448 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36500448 - We need the flexibility to choose, there's no one size fits all here. Workplaces also need to cater for different needs and be appealing enough to make it worth going there. I've analyzed the results of a study on this last week: https://leadership.garden/back-to-the-office/ https://leadership.garden/back-to-the-office/

nokya 3y ago

My employer has a 40% WFH tolerance policy and asked us (team leads) to relay the information and control office presence. As team lead, I decided to relay this message differently. I instructed my team to do as they wish and come when they want, and to do so with three things in mind: 1. If they are not coming to the office because something is inadequate, they let me know and I will do my best to fix it. 2. Those who are younger than 35 should consider the long-term effects of staying at home and not interacting with peers on their professional career. They trusted me on item 1 and asked for a few things to change. Almost everything was in relation with hardware (better monitors, proper docking stations, good keyboards and mice, and in two cases, new laptops), one asked to clean the toilets more frequently and make some air freshener available, another asked for a water heating option to make tea and make some tea available (it was indeed unfair with the coffee drinkers who have a state-of-the-art coffee machine), they asked for a larger trash bin and a third lamp in the open space (team of 6). That's all I can remember. Regarding item 2, I don't know how they processed it but all I can say is that the team's WFH ratio is 24% for the last three months. Overall, I think it is all about creating a working environment people actually enjoy coming to. When I hear about employees who feel conflicted or reluctant to come to the office, I am genuinely convinced it is because one of the following: 1) They are in conflict with a colleague or their manager is an ass.ole. 2) Someone is making their life at the office unnecessarily painful or more difficult than it should (and it is most likely something related to a hardware purchase or shared commons). 3) There is a tangible constraint on coming to the office that makes their life difficult above a certain threshold (e.g., cost of transportation too elevated, medical/health/healthcare condition or issue at stake, etc.). 4) It's a wrong hire, and she/he should be laid off. As a team lead, if I see someone being reluctant to come to the office, I see it as my duty to identify which of the above is at cause and to do my best to resolve it.

sgdread 3y ago
#1 Can you fix the 2h commute? (edit) Would companies consider paying for commute time as work time?