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This is not only about before pandemic remote workers. Once people enjoyed the flexibility they aren't going back.

• ericfrazier 3y ago
  And why should they?
  • x86x87 3y ago
    Exactly. Cat is out of the bag now
  • lizardking 3y ago
    Unfortunately many people are being strong armed into it. People coming out of lay offs are finding less wfh opportunities than existed just a year ago, as a percentage of the available jobs.
    • rgrieselhuber 3y ago
      Organization is always the key. The minute people are treated as isolated cases they are exploitable.
• mc32 3y ago
  Some or many people are just as productive working from home, but also many are not and are more productive in an office environment. There need to be better more reliable ways of measuring this and affording those who are able to be productive while remote the option. Those who aren’t as productive WFH don’t get the choice.
  • bacza2 3y ago
    Why it always need to be only about productivity and not what is better for people? I get that company need to make money but surly productivity is not dropping 50% and company makes significantly less
    • grogenaut 3y ago
      How do you objectively measure productivity? Same question for "better for people". The former can be somewhat measured by in-effective methods such as lines of code produced, revenue per emp in division, and other measures. The latter via surveys. A company's direct objective it to turn a profit. Their indirect objective is might be to do that via retaining productive workers, or they may take a churn approach. Is it surprising they'd put more effort and weight on the former (prod) than the latter (better for people)? What math function allows you to strike the correct balance between the 2 measures. For some employees you might make them maximally satisfied by paying them a lot to do nothing. For others they might want little to no money for socially rewarding work. It's not going to be the same for every person. So in your mind what's the right optimization function for this equation?
    • mc32 3y ago
      If one company were to hire all the slackers and the other all the busy beavers, one will be more likely to succeed vs the other. Unless being a slacker becomes a protected class companies will hire the productive people, given a choice.
    • jheriko 3y ago
      ask yourself that question and answer it. just what in the hell are you thinking?
  • soulofmischief 3y ago
    Tying my ability to work remotely, and thus plan and live my life accordingly, to some kind of arbitrary performance mechanism installed by Initech's latest up-and-coming executive star, will result in me immediately leaving. I have the skill to back that statement, but I won't employ it just so that some patronizing manager can get a kick out of it.
  • SoftTalker 3y ago
    I'm more productive in the office, but I prefer working from home.
  • falcolas 3y ago
    > also many are not and are more productive in an office environment I see this assertion every time the WFH/RTO topic is brought up, but there's never any data to back it up. Mind changing that?
    • mc32 3y ago
      Ultimately only people's immediate managers have insight into this either from managing them or from their co-workers. People eventually will let you know who isn't pulling their weight (obviously people will forgive others if they know they have a temporary issue in their life --but not if its unwarranted).
      • falcolas 3y ago
        Simply saying "people will know" is a deflection that doesn't really help this point. If you (royal you - anybody who wants to make this claim) really want to claim that many people are measurably more productive at the office, we'll need studies to counter those done which show WFH is more productive than working from the office.
        • mc32 3y ago
          I think you misunderstand me. I think some people _are_ more productive WFH. But also there are lots of people who become quite unproductive WFH. Direct managers can often tell. I don't know of a study that says one way or another, but from experience those two kinds of people exist (among other kids of people).
        • Shaanie 3y ago
          Doing studies on this is difficult for many reasons. However, I bet there's a lot of people who noticed a drop in productivity from certain colleagues after the switch to WFH. I personally noticed that the productivity of colleagues with young children dropped significantly, for example. I really don't think it's a controversial statement that some people work better from home and some people work worse from home. In fact, I'd be extremely surprised if the opposite was true (everyone works better from home, or everyone works better in the office), I'd almost say that's impossible.
  • potta_coffee 3y ago
    Productivity increased exponentially for many years in line with technological advances. We were supposed to have flying cars and personal robots by now. The least they can do is allow us to reap our meager earnings from our own hovels.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • Terr_ 3y ago
    > productive [...] ways of measuring I always point out that most "productivity" numbers assume the costs of commuting hours/fuel are $0, because it measures from the perspective of employer costs, and it assumes the employer has used their bargaining-position to force all those variable-costs entirely onto the employees. So we've got (A) a misleading "productivity boost" sometimes being used to rationalize (B) one-sided policies which are (C) probably not sustainable in the long-term anyway.
  • bee_rider 3y ago
    A level of productivity is part of the package that the employer buys from the employee. Some people might be less productive WFH, but if the WFH perk is important enough to them that it is a deal-breaker, then… that’s what’s for sale, the company can take it or leave it. If you already have a set of employees, and you demand they all come in, you are selecting against people who know they can sustain their lifestyle by moving to another company. Only problem with low enough productivity enough to be bumped down to becoming totally unemployable don’t get the choice. These also are the people who are most likely to follow an in-office mandate. It seems like a bad filter to apply.
• DiggyJohnson 3y ago
  I enjoyed the flexibility of WFH but I still prefer working with local teams in the office. There are pros and cons to both, but it's silly to assume everyone has the same preference as you just because your preference is strongly held. This is my response to both your comment and TFA. There is less consensus on this topic than the very-vocal WFH crowd would have you believe. I know plenty of other talented engineers that feel similarly to me. They aren't dogmatic about it, but they prefer working with their teammates in the office.
  • ncallaway 3y ago
    Sure, but RTO is about… forcing the preference for in person work on everyone.
    • throwaway5959 3y ago
      RTO doesn’t really work if five people are back in the office.
      • Kye 3y ago
        Manufacturing buggy whips doesn't work if only five people own buggies. This is a problem for the buggy whip manufacturer to solve, not the people who bought a car or took the train. There's a third option beyond forcing everyone into boxes in the middle of nowhere (old and busted) and everyone working from home (new old hotness).
      • ncallaway 3y ago
        You see how that’s inherently about putting the preferences of the 5 people *above* the preferences of the rest of the office, yes?
        • throwaway5959 3y ago
          People are allowed to have different preferences and lifestyles than the majority. I’m not a CEO so it’s not my place to decide what a company does or doesn’t do.
• brightball 3y ago
  There’s a flip side to this where you’re not observing the negatives coming to the company as a result. It’s not all bad but it’s not all good either. Just as an example, I see people complain (a lot) about “cameras on” policies. This is the result of a company trying to eliminate an issue that they are seeing from non-participation to potential instances of fraud. They want to do return to office, but this is a “let’s find a middle ground” step. And yet, people will act as if it’s the end of the world. The alternative is being in the room itself. You have to pick your battles.
• pbhjpbhj 3y ago
  I asked about WFH prior to the pandemic and was told 'oh it won't work for you, ask again when you're in a senior position; you'll never develop without peer-friendships and a senior worker a couple of desks away'. Then we were forced to WFH. Now, we're being told to do hybrid, but there's no peer friendships because it's hotdesking, and the senior personnel are no longer nearby (they're at home or on a different floor) ... so there's no "return", we're not going back to what we had, we don't have our own desks anymore. Management acknowledge that office days (we're hybrid) will be low in productivity, but no changes to productivity requirements. It's all about collaboration, except you're next to random people you've never met and you can't talk because it's open plan and you'll disturb everyone. None of the reasons given for return fit the reality (in my office), but they probably make sense for senior managers (who seem unable to see past the end of their own noses).
  • light_hue_1 3y ago
    And of course, you will spend all of your time in the office zooming with other people who aren't there. Time to get a new job.
  • taway1874 3y ago
    It's just stupid. How do these people get to such senior positions?
• JeremyNT 3y ago
  > This is not only about before pandemic remote workers. Once people enjoyed the flexibility they aren't going back. I mean this is true in the scenario where demand for their skills outstrips the supply of available workers with said skills. In a different scenario, where tech jobs are being reduced across the board (due to return to normal interest rates and VC funding slowing down), such an "aren't going back" ultimatum isn't necessarily going to be compatible with "I need a job." And of course, if you believe Microsoft, ChatGPT is going to start eating tech jobs left and right any day now. The economy runs in boom and bust cycles, and the winds are shifting. The tech environment from 2020-2022 was extremely weird, and the balance of power now is shifting back to management. Management knows that (at least some) workers highly value remote work, and they're not going to hand that out for free. The only certainty here is change, and as tech workers lose leverage, "remote work" moves from a default assumption to an item that must be negotiated for (perhaps in exchange for some total compensation) - if it's available at all.