8 ms·

Any company that forces a return to office is going to lose some of their best employees, as those are the ones who will have the easiest time finding a better

by tedivm 3y ago

Any company that forces a return to office is going to lose some of their best employees, as those are the ones who will have the easiest time finding a better job. RTO is basically just a backdoor layoff, only they end up losing the people they should be desperate to keep. What's worse is there's no good reason for it, it's just a power play by execs who are kind of bad at their jobs.

pawelwentpawel 3y ago
While I do agree, I think that this might be too general to be correct in every case. I do wonder however if the COVID lockdowns and WFH made the remote work market worse. The amount of remote positions available skyrocketed but so did the amount of people wanting to work remotely. Now, the combination of layoffs and RTOs might make finding a remote job harder than it was before the pandemic - amount of remote jobs shrank and the remote talent pool grew. Would love to see some data / opinions on that.
aflag 3y ago
I could say the same about not making the move back to the office. Some of their best employees will prefer the office and will look for places where the culture is for everyone to be in the office. I think I'm not alone in dreading working from home and being by myself in the office is not much better. What I really want is to work with other people at the same place.
- tedivm 3y ago
  The reality is it's easy to accommodate both. There are a ton of hybrid companies out there. If someone wants a desk in an office by all means give them one. Supporting both groups of people gives you the best talent pool to work with. People who demand their coworkers come into the office though- well, it's not something I've personally seen, but it would make me think the person is a bit of a control freak.
  - cgeier 3y ago
    At least for people who like to come to the office (like me), this is even worse than working from home. You still spend lots of times in meetings in front of your computer, can't take those meetings in person, often can't solve quick issues on the way to lunch, and can't socialize with the people you are working with (which leads to getting to know people much quicker which IMHO makes working with people a lot easier).
    - tedivm 3y ago
      That's weird because I work remotely, socialize with my colleagues all the time, regularly solve problems for them in quick meetings, and generally don't encounter any of the concerns you do. Companies with bad cultures are going to have bad times regardless, culture definitely has to be managed. It is possible to build a remote or hybrid culture that works though.
      - aflag 3y ago
        How do you socialise? Do you have a zoom call with them over lunch when everyone eats together? If you need to draw something in a piece of paper to explain a concept or how a function behaves, how do you do that? Do you share your screen and draw everything with your mouse? If you want to show someone something you're writing do you start a call and share your screen with them? Then how do you and they point to stuff? What if they want to type in something? Do they just dictate? It's obviously all doable, but some people find that setup impersonal and annoying. Meanwhile, I have no trouble going to the office. It's nice to get out of the house, walk a bit. See other people going to work as well in the public transport. It all feels good to me.
    - walls 3y ago
      So many people eager to return to office seem to have confused work with their social life.
      - aflag 3y ago
        Work is part of social life. Your whole social life doesn't have to revolve around your best friend or wife or whatever people you chose. Living and socialising with people you didn't choose is important.
- hef19898 3y ago
  One of those situations where a good balance seems to matter. But hey, people quit Amazon all the time, voluntary or not. And as long they are not low level logistics folks in a FC somewhere, there shouldn't be any difficulty in finding a job. Not sure why that even deserves an article.
- oooyay 3y ago
  I work for a company that has multiple offices world wide. We also have a pretty sizeable, entirely remote workforce as well. You can do both. I think the rub is that often the office crowd, in order to get their office, have to drag the remote crowd with them otherwise they're not getting what they want out of the office experience. Personally speaking, I will never work in an office again. I get more done working from home, I video chat with my colleagues all the time - even pairing, I meet up with them in cool places 2-4 times a year, and I have way more time for gardening, house projects, pets, and my partner without a 1-4 hour commute in a 24 hour day.
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    > I think the rub is that often the office crowd, in order to get their office, have to drag the remote crowd with them otherwise they're not getting what they want out of the office experience. There might be a good business opportunity: Offer a "staff" of paid actors to go into a business, and walk around, having hallway and water cooler conversations, maybe drawing on whiteboards, and imitating the "buzz" of a robust office environment. That way, the people who like the office can bask in the ambience of a busy office, without having to force employees into the office that have no interest in that ambience!
  - aflag 3y ago
    Yeah, Amazon is big enough that they could have a full stack group of employees always in the office and another one always remote. Almost like two companies. That's not the reality of most places though. Usually one has to pick.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- pera 3y ago
  At work we are hybrid but the reality is that very few people likes to go to the office, single digit % I would say. Sometimes I'm literally the only person in the entire building.
  - aflag 3y ago
    We are dozens!
decremental 3y ago
[dead]
RandomLensman 3y ago
Some people also like to be in offices. What is correlation between performance and office preference in different fields?
- pgeorgi 3y ago
  It's not about the correlation, it's that higher performing employees have an easier time finding alternatives. And even if they mostly prefer the office, they might not like the heavy-handedness with which management is pushing through RTO right now - who knows what else they might force next that directly affects them? As such, everybody is kept on somewhat shaky grounds with these ever-changing decrees, and the people the companies should be most motivated to keep are best suited to leave.
  - RandomLensman 3y ago
    That the best typically find it easier to leave is generally true but doesn't really imply a company shouldn't have policies. Could companies finesse these things better, sure. But a sufficiently large company will work even if some top people leave - everyone is replaceable.
- Faaak 3y ago
  If you like being at the office, then you can still go without being forced, no ?
  - jacobyoder 3y ago
    Perhaps they like being in an office with their team mates. It's the colocation with coworkers, not specifically a particular office space.
    - malermeister 3y ago
      I can't imagine it'd be much fun if their team mates are there against their will though.
    - 3y ago
varelse 3y ago
[dead]
mschuster91 3y ago
> What's worse is there's no good reason for it, it's just a power play by execs who are kind of bad at their jobs. In the end it's more a financial thing IMO. When you just entered a 10 or 15 year lease right before Covid hit, you're now stuck with paying 7 years for an office you're not even using - that's objectively bad for any company's financials (and in some cases, bonuses for decisionmakers tied to stuff like "cost per employee"). The other side of rentals, the entire REIT industry, has it even worse, they're in pure panic mode: there are a lot of projects that got completed shortly before, during or after Covid... and that now lack renters while interest rates for refinancing keep going upwards as the free money ran out and central banks imposed serious rate hikes. And if that's not enough, cities also have a problem... when people don't commute by car, they don't pay road tolls, endangering their financial calculations. When they don't commute by public transport and don't pay subscription tickets any more, the transport authorities get into financial trouble. When storefronts of bakeries, coffee shops and other ancilliary services for office drones get boarded up as no one is in the office any more to buy all that stuff, blight sets in. Side industries are also hit: when people demand fast Internet at their homes to work efficiently or utilize other stuff such as water, electricity or trash more (because they'd have to expand their long-outdated, barely adequate service), utility providers have to invest serious amounts of money. Car insurances tied to distance driven per year lose money. The list of economic activities directly tied to an economy dedicated to people commuting from their homes to their office is really fucking long. Hence, there are massive financial interests putting up serious efforts, both political and medial, to push for people to come back to the office even though largely only the already uber-rich profit from that.
- cies 3y ago
  > When you just entered a 10 or 15 year lease right before Covid hit, you're now stuck with paying 7 years for an office you're not even using Is that not a sunk cost? From here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost I got: The bygones principle does not always accord with real-world behavior. Sunk costs often influence people's decisions, with people believing that investments (i.e., sunk costs) justify further expenditures. People demonstrate "a greater tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment in money, effort, or time has been made". This is the sunk cost fallacy, and such behavior may be described as "throwing good money after bad", while refusing to succumb to what may be described as "cutting one's losses".
wtcactus 3y ago
She is a "talent manager" hardly what we call an important employee for the company. As part of the ongoing internal shifts in companies, they are actually happy to see these people leave and focus on the workers that actually build their products. From what we can see in the trends, the era of bloated HR seems to be at an end.
- regularjack 3y ago
  Keeping employees happy is probably one of the most important things a company needs to do, so I would say, yes, talent managers are important to the company.
  - wtcactus 3y ago
    I'm going on a limb here, and state that 99% of actual developers, would get much happier to have the salary this person takes divided amongst them, than to have her sticking around coming up with "happy" activities.
    - tiznow 3y ago
      who cares?
- ygjb 3y ago
  Despite several rounds of layoffs and a general economic downturn, companies are still competing hard for talented people. You know those nightmare hiring scenarios that keep getting posted on social media sites? Where companies ghost people at the offer stage, or retract offers? That's caused by incompetent talent management. Companies that can't grow an retain talent, and the narrative that you need to job hop to grow in your career? Incompetent talent management. This article is written from the POV of a person who was dealing with disabilities, and had challenges at work, but was still able to remain at Amazon despite several rounds of layoffs. That is a pretty solid indicator that her leadership team found her to be an effective employee. It may not buy into the lean startup ethos, but contrary to popular belief, HR does a lot more than hiring & firing, and covering the companies butt on policy issues.
JeremyNT 3y ago
> Any company that forces a return to office is going to lose some of their best employees, as those are the ones who will have the easiest time finding a better job. Will they? These people are also (usually) going to be the best at knowing their own value, and they can negotiate exceptions to the policy (or their managers will know their value, and get them exempted preemptively). As a way to do soft layoffs it seems pretty ingenious.

by tedivm 3y ago

pawelwentpawel 3y ago

While I do agree, I think that this might be too general to be correct in every case. I do wonder however if the COVID lockdowns and WFH made the remote work market worse. The amount of remote positions available skyrocketed but so did the amount of people wanting to work remotely. Now, the combination of layoffs and RTOs might make finding a remote job harder than it was before the pandemic - amount of remote jobs shrank and the remote talent pool grew. Would love to see some data / opinions on that.

aflag 3y ago

I could say the same about not making the move back to the office. Some of their best employees will prefer the office and will look for places where the culture is for everyone to be in the office. I think I'm not alone in dreading working from home and being by myself in the office is not much better. What I really want is to work with other people at the same place.

tedivm 3y ago
The reality is it's easy to accommodate both. There are a ton of hybrid companies out there. If someone wants a desk in an office by all means give them one. Supporting both groups of people gives you the best talent pool to work with. People who demand their coworkers come into the office though- well, it's not something I've personally seen, but it would make me think the person is a bit of a control freak.
- cgeier 3y ago
  At least for people who like to come to the office (like me), this is even worse than working from home. You still spend lots of times in meetings in front of your computer, can't take those meetings in person, often can't solve quick issues on the way to lunch, and can't socialize with the people you are working with (which leads to getting to know people much quicker which IMHO makes working with people a lot easier).
  - tedivm 3y ago
    That's weird because I work remotely, socialize with my colleagues all the time, regularly solve problems for them in quick meetings, and generally don't encounter any of the concerns you do. Companies with bad cultures are going to have bad times regardless, culture definitely has to be managed. It is possible to build a remote or hybrid culture that works though.
    - aflag 3y ago
      How do you socialise? Do you have a zoom call with them over lunch when everyone eats together? If you need to draw something in a piece of paper to explain a concept or how a function behaves, how do you do that? Do you share your screen and draw everything with your mouse? If you want to show someone something you're writing do you start a call and share your screen with them? Then how do you and they point to stuff? What if they want to type in something? Do they just dictate? It's obviously all doable, but some people find that setup impersonal and annoying. Meanwhile, I have no trouble going to the office. It's nice to get out of the house, walk a bit. See other people going to work as well in the public transport. It all feels good to me.
  - walls 3y ago
    So many people eager to return to office seem to have confused work with their social life.
    - aflag 3y ago
      Work is part of social life. Your whole social life doesn't have to revolve around your best friend or wife or whatever people you chose. Living and socialising with people you didn't choose is important.
hef19898 3y ago
One of those situations where a good balance seems to matter. But hey, people quit Amazon all the time, voluntary or not. And as long they are not low level logistics folks in a FC somewhere, there shouldn't be any difficulty in finding a job. Not sure why that even deserves an article.
oooyay 3y ago
I work for a company that has multiple offices world wide. We also have a pretty sizeable, entirely remote workforce as well. You can do both. I think the rub is that often the office crowd, in order to get their office, have to drag the remote crowd with them otherwise they're not getting what they want out of the office experience. Personally speaking, I will never work in an office again. I get more done working from home, I video chat with my colleagues all the time - even pairing, I meet up with them in cool places 2-4 times a year, and I have way more time for gardening, house projects, pets, and my partner without a 1-4 hour commute in a 24 hour day.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  > I think the rub is that often the office crowd, in order to get their office, have to drag the remote crowd with them otherwise they're not getting what they want out of the office experience. There might be a good business opportunity: Offer a "staff" of paid actors to go into a business, and walk around, having hallway and water cooler conversations, maybe drawing on whiteboards, and imitating the "buzz" of a robust office environment. That way, the people who like the office can bask in the ambience of a busy office, without having to force employees into the office that have no interest in that ambience!
- aflag 3y ago
  Yeah, Amazon is big enough that they could have a full stack group of employees always in the office and another one always remote. Almost like two companies. That's not the reality of most places though. Usually one has to pick.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
pera 3y ago
At work we are hybrid but the reality is that very few people likes to go to the office, single digit % I would say. Sometimes I'm literally the only person in the entire building.
- aflag 3y ago
  We are dozens!

decremental 3y ago

[dead]

RandomLensman 3y ago

Some people also like to be in offices. What is correlation between performance and office preference in different fields?

pgeorgi 3y ago
It's not about the correlation, it's that higher performing employees have an easier time finding alternatives. And even if they mostly prefer the office, they might not like the heavy-handedness with which management is pushing through RTO right now - who knows what else they might force next that directly affects them? As such, everybody is kept on somewhat shaky grounds with these ever-changing decrees, and the people the companies should be most motivated to keep are best suited to leave.
- RandomLensman 3y ago
  That the best typically find it easier to leave is generally true but doesn't really imply a company shouldn't have policies. Could companies finesse these things better, sure. But a sufficiently large company will work even if some top people leave - everyone is replaceable.
Faaak 3y ago
If you like being at the office, then you can still go without being forced, no ?
- jacobyoder 3y ago
  Perhaps they like being in an office with their team mates. It's the colocation with coworkers, not specifically a particular office space.
  - malermeister 3y ago
    I can't imagine it'd be much fun if their team mates are there against their will though.
  - 3y ago

varelse 3y ago

[dead]

mschuster91 3y ago

> What's worse is there's no good reason for it, it's just a power play by execs who are kind of bad at their jobs. In the end it's more a financial thing IMO. When you just entered a 10 or 15 year lease right before Covid hit, you're now stuck with paying 7 years for an office you're not even using - that's objectively bad for any company's financials (and in some cases, bonuses for decisionmakers tied to stuff like "cost per employee"). The other side of rentals, the entire REIT industry, has it even worse, they're in pure panic mode: there are a lot of projects that got completed shortly before, during or after Covid... and that now lack renters while interest rates for refinancing keep going upwards as the free money ran out and central banks imposed serious rate hikes. And if that's not enough, cities also have a problem... when people don't commute by car, they don't pay road tolls, endangering their financial calculations. When they don't commute by public transport and don't pay subscription tickets any more, the transport authorities get into financial trouble. When storefronts of bakeries, coffee shops and other ancilliary services for office drones get boarded up as no one is in the office any more to buy all that stuff, blight sets in. Side industries are also hit: when people demand fast Internet at their homes to work efficiently or utilize other stuff such as water, electricity or trash more (because they'd have to expand their long-outdated, barely adequate service), utility providers have to invest serious amounts of money. Car insurances tied to distance driven per year lose money. The list of economic activities directly tied to an economy dedicated to people commuting from their homes to their office is really fucking long. Hence, there are massive financial interests putting up serious efforts, both political and medial, to push for people to come back to the office even though largely only the already uber-rich profit from that.

cies 3y ago
> When you just entered a 10 or 15 year lease right before Covid hit, you're now stuck with paying 7 years for an office you're not even using Is that not a sunk cost? From here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost I got: The bygones principle does not always accord with real-world behavior. Sunk costs often influence people's decisions, with people believing that investments (i.e., sunk costs) justify further expenditures. People demonstrate "a greater tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment in money, effort, or time has been made". This is the sunk cost fallacy, and such behavior may be described as "throwing good money after bad", while refusing to succumb to what may be described as "cutting one's losses".

wtcactus 3y ago

She is a "talent manager" hardly what we call an important employee for the company. As part of the ongoing internal shifts in companies, they are actually happy to see these people leave and focus on the workers that actually build their products. From what we can see in the trends, the era of bloated HR seems to be at an end.

regularjack 3y ago
Keeping employees happy is probably one of the most important things a company needs to do, so I would say, yes, talent managers are important to the company.
- wtcactus 3y ago
  I'm going on a limb here, and state that 99% of actual developers, would get much happier to have the salary this person takes divided amongst them, than to have her sticking around coming up with "happy" activities.
  - tiznow 3y ago
    who cares?
ygjb 3y ago
Despite several rounds of layoffs and a general economic downturn, companies are still competing hard for talented people. You know those nightmare hiring scenarios that keep getting posted on social media sites? Where companies ghost people at the offer stage, or retract offers? That's caused by incompetent talent management. Companies that can't grow an retain talent, and the narrative that you need to job hop to grow in your career? Incompetent talent management. This article is written from the POV of a person who was dealing with disabilities, and had challenges at work, but was still able to remain at Amazon despite several rounds of layoffs. That is a pretty solid indicator that her leadership team found her to be an effective employee. It may not buy into the lean startup ethos, but contrary to popular belief, HR does a lot more than hiring & firing, and covering the companies butt on policy issues.

JeremyNT 3y ago

> Any company that forces a return to office is going to lose some of their best employees, as those are the ones who will have the easiest time finding a better job. Will they? These people are also (usually) going to be the best at knowing their own value, and they can negotiate exceptions to the policy (or their managers will know their value, and get them exempted preemptively). As a way to do soft layoffs it seems pretty ingenious.