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It might be efficient to work 60 hours week. Doesn't mean we should agree to it. Remote work improves quality of life. I don't care about company KPI or efficie

It might be efficient to work 60 hours week. Doesn't mean we should agree to it. Remote work improves quality of life. I don't care about company KPI or efficiency, I care about my own well-being first and foremost, as long as I have a choice. Companies should adapt and if it means that their efficiency will decrease, so be it.

CalRobert 2y ago
Unfortunately this can be a race to the bottom as companies with wfh are driven out of business by those without
- Roark66 2y ago
  Show me one example of this.
  - CalRobert 2y ago
    I was just referencing ops statement about how wfh is better even if it’s less efficient. I love wfh. I miss it.
  - akoboldfrying 2y ago
    Why do you think bosses overwhelmingly want RTO? I think they want it because they fear productivity losses that mean lower profits, and ultimately lead to the threat of becoming uncompetitive. If you agree with that, is your position that these fears are irrational (because in your view, no such productivity loss would occur)?
    - shinryuu 2y ago
      At the same time if they get worse talent because of it they could get lower productivity because of it
      - akoboldfrying 2y ago
        Agreed. So I think the question is: Which effect dominates? Both effects depend greatly on whether most other employers in the industry agree amongst themselves on whether to allow WFH: If everyone allows WFH, or everyone forbids it, there's no incentive to change employers, so these are stable equilibria, all other things being equal. Employers prefer the no-WFH equilibrium since (they believe) that leaves productivity highest.
    - chasd00 2y ago
      Bosses want rto because they’re paying rent for empty office space. I’ve been wfh for a decade in the consulting business, only time I’m not wfh is meeting a client. My teams are distributed across the world and our stock price says wfh is fine. Bosses want rto because they can’t stand paying rent for empty space.
      - akoboldfrying 2y ago
        You may be right that a big part of it is the psychological weight of that sunk cost. But if that were the only reason, there would be an easy win-win: Rent less office space and let people WFH.
        artwr 2y ago
        You're right but commercial leases for offices are usually multi year and larger companies usually sign longer leases (20, 30 years or more). They can be costly, though not impossible to wind down. So for those large companies, the sunken cost is larger.
    - kreims 2y ago
      Small benefit with externalized costs, I think. There are benefits to in office work. I don’t consider them valuable enough to offset the cost of 10hrs of uncompensated time every week or doubling my mortgage cost. I hope tax codes will incentivize allowing remote work options given the reduced burden to transportation infrastructure.
- noch 2y ago
  > companies with wfh are driven out of business by those without This is unlikely. Notice the parent post said: >> I don't care about company KPI or efficiency, I care about my own well-being first and foremost […] So you have a situation where: - Most of your employees think of your company's success and their lifestyle as competing interests. - Most of your employees are focused on optimizing their lifestyle rather than the quality of their work. Essentially these are people who don't actually want to work and would be just as happy or happier on UBI. Now if you have another company whose employees believe in the company's mission, prioritize company success, don't see a necessary trade-off between work and lifestyle, and enjoy working with their teams in person, the latter company will outcompete the former. I recall one of my German managers said: "The difference between workers today and the previous generation is that we lived to work, while they work to live."
  - varjag 2y ago
    It's adorable but my modern German car came plagued by software glitches, from a development team of 6000.
    - CalRobert 2y ago
      When your project tracking is a fax machine that’s no surprise.
  - benterix 2y ago
    > Now if you have another company whose employees believe in the company's mission, prioritize company success, don't see a necessary trade-off between work and lifestyle, and enjoy working with their teams in person This is a nice image you've painted but this company doesn't exist except in the minds of some CEOs and startup founders. You know what actually happens? A CEO announces RTO, people are outraged, everybody is looking at their options, those who manage to do it switch jobs immediately, those who can't do it at the next opportunity, the ones who are left are a combination of extroverts who finally can have endless interactions with those who want them and those who don't, and a bunch of disgruntled employees who don't give a fuck about your company because of the way you treated them.
- ajuc 2y ago
  > Unfortunately this can be a race to the bottom This works as an argument against 8h work day and 5-day work week too. Ultimately if something is better for the society (and WFH obviously is - commute time, carbon footprint, land prices, housing crisis - it helps with almost everything) - we should just force companies to use it by regulation, so that there's no "race" in that regard cause the conditions are the same for everybody. The exact regulation is tricky, but sth in the spirit of "if your job can be WFH you should have an option of WFH" is a good starting point.
  - abustamam 2y ago
    I agree that WFH is better for society, but anecdotally, it probably caused more of a housing crisis here in CA. Folks took their bay area salaries and moved to cheaper suburbs and totally wrecked the RE market. And I have read stories of similar things happening in other places that techies flocked to, like Austin, though I don't think it's necessarily fair to blame that on remote work because there were other factors in play there (politics for example)
    - ajuc 2y ago
      > Folks took their bay area salaries and moved to cheaper suburbs and totally wrecked the RE market. Isn't that what we want? Land prices averaging out? Then we can build where it's cheaper so more people have homes (with access to good jobs). It probably won't be limited to suburbs, if you can WFH from the same state - you can WFH from another state.
      - rescbr 2y ago
        Land prices averaged up, but local salaries aren’t doing the same.
    - CalRobert 2y ago
      Isn’t that improving the housing shortage in the bay?
  - zeroonetwothree 2y ago
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- codexjourneys 2y ago
  This will be counterbalanced by the fact that WFH is better for many employees from a work-life balance perspective, so higher-performing employees who have more choices will tend to gravitate toward companies that allow WFH. I expect many companies will arrive at an equilibrium with at least 2 days WFH for focused work and 3 days in-office for collaboration. This seems to already be happening since the % of companies offering hybrid is up this year. The question is how many great employees laggard companies will lose before accepting that. (Caveat: this does not apply to companies doing mostly ground-breaking work that have more mission-focused, highly qualified applicants than they can handle. Some companies may be surprised to find they are no longer in this bucket.)
  - zanybear 2y ago
    Unfortunately, once you go one way the 2 days are no longer of focus work. Not all people schedule the same type of work at the same time .
- steveBK123 2y ago
  Or the opposite - companies with the most draconian and rigid RTO mandates end up with high attrition. Anyone who can work anywhere else does so, and the company becomes a collection of misfits over time. Currently the hard-RTO companies in the news are clearly doing it for silent layoffs reasons as there are simultaneous leaks of 5-figure attrition targets. Maybe a strong FTC/DOJ stance on antitrust, plus the top-down mandates will lead to more small company innovation as well.
  - LaserToy 2y ago
    Companies need to make money. High performers will go to companies that make tons of money, even if relo to Sahara is needed
    - steveBK123 2y ago
      Sure but it's often a cycle right, the high performers go to innovative companies that create lots of money. The companies that make lots of money then end up being softer & more extravagant with their employee (ahem, GOOG and a lot of Mag7/FAANG) until some equilibrium point where they're so soft they lose their edge. Then a new up&comer rises and the cycle repeats.
      - LaserToy 2y ago
        Exactly. So, we need to make those companies more successful:)
akoboldfrying 2y ago
It sounds like you're advocating for a legally protected right to WFH. Are you?
- vbezhenar 2y ago
  I'm just expressing my opinion with regards to WFH. I work from home currently and it significantly changed by life to the better. Whether WFH should be legally protected, I don't know. I, personally, would be all for it, but at the same time I might underestimate some factors. Probably it makes sense to start with disabled people. There are not a lot of them, so potential negatives wouldn't hurt society that much and helping disabled people generally is well received. So basically if disabled person want to work in a job that could be done remotely and qualified for it, you must allow remote work, or something like that. Then you can follow with people caring for kids or disabled elders, they often must be at home, but at the same time they might have enough time to allow for some work. With enough statistics smart people could make an informed decision, whether forcing WFH worth it or not.
  - akoboldfrying 2y ago
    The problem I see with that is that anyone who is legally granted the right to WFH becomes much less employable, similar to the way that young women are often passed over in favour of men now because employers don't want to risk someone getting pregnant and taking lots of time off.
Eumenes 2y ago
> I don't care about company KPI or efficiency, I care about my own well-being first and foremost, as long as I have a choice. You better be good then or have a niche/rare skillset. There's no intrinsic right to remote work. Things will mostly revert to pre-covid, where only the best/most disciplined/highest performers are given the freedom to WFH. Sure, some companies will be 'remote first', but for the most part, you'll need to be a special hire with an exemption carved out. I'm already seeing this in my workplace. Managers are begging leadership for remote headcount but getting Bay area headcount instead. The teams getting remote headcount are the hardest to fill/most in demand skillsets, and almost always very senior.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
rad_gruchalski 2y ago
> I don't care about company KPI or efficiency, I care about my own well-being first and foremost, as long as I have a choice. This is a double edged sword. You don’t care about the company, you care for yourself. Your company sees that and gives you a certain treatment. If you don’t care just quit?
- baruch 2y ago
  Your company already doesn't really care about you (for the vast majority of them at least), so there is a conflict of interest but you personally shouldn't take the side of the company.
  - rad_gruchalski 2y ago
    There’s an element to that, for sure. But can it be generalised to a whole planet? I’m certain you have met people on your way who genuinely rooted for you. Companies are made out of people.

CalRobert 2y ago

Unfortunately this can be a race to the bottom as companies with wfh are driven out of business by those without

Roark66 2y ago
Show me one example of this.
- CalRobert 2y ago
  I was just referencing ops statement about how wfh is better even if it’s less efficient. I love wfh. I miss it.
- akoboldfrying 2y ago
  Why do you think bosses overwhelmingly want RTO? I think they want it because they fear productivity losses that mean lower profits, and ultimately lead to the threat of becoming uncompetitive. If you agree with that, is your position that these fears are irrational (because in your view, no such productivity loss would occur)?
  - shinryuu 2y ago
    At the same time if they get worse talent because of it they could get lower productivity because of it
    - akoboldfrying 2y ago
      Agreed. So I think the question is: Which effect dominates? Both effects depend greatly on whether most other employers in the industry agree amongst themselves on whether to allow WFH: If everyone allows WFH, or everyone forbids it, there's no incentive to change employers, so these are stable equilibria, all other things being equal. Employers prefer the no-WFH equilibrium since (they believe) that leaves productivity highest.
  - chasd00 2y ago
    Bosses want rto because they’re paying rent for empty office space. I’ve been wfh for a decade in the consulting business, only time I’m not wfh is meeting a client. My teams are distributed across the world and our stock price says wfh is fine. Bosses want rto because they can’t stand paying rent for empty space.
    - akoboldfrying 2y ago
      You may be right that a big part of it is the psychological weight of that sunk cost. But if that were the only reason, there would be an easy win-win: Rent less office space and let people WFH.
      - artwr 2y ago
        You're right but commercial leases for offices are usually multi year and larger companies usually sign longer leases (20, 30 years or more). They can be costly, though not impossible to wind down. So for those large companies, the sunken cost is larger.
  - kreims 2y ago
    Small benefit with externalized costs, I think. There are benefits to in office work. I don’t consider them valuable enough to offset the cost of 10hrs of uncompensated time every week or doubling my mortgage cost. I hope tax codes will incentivize allowing remote work options given the reduced burden to transportation infrastructure.
noch 2y ago
> companies with wfh are driven out of business by those without This is unlikely. Notice the parent post said: >> I don't care about company KPI or efficiency, I care about my own well-being first and foremost […] So you have a situation where: - Most of your employees think of your company's success and their lifestyle as competing interests. - Most of your employees are focused on optimizing their lifestyle rather than the quality of their work. Essentially these are people who don't actually want to work and would be just as happy or happier on UBI. Now if you have another company whose employees believe in the company's mission, prioritize company success, don't see a necessary trade-off between work and lifestyle, and enjoy working with their teams in person, the latter company will outcompete the former. I recall one of my German managers said: "The difference between workers today and the previous generation is that we lived to work, while they work to live."
- varjag 2y ago
  It's adorable but my modern German car came plagued by software glitches, from a development team of 6000.
  - CalRobert 2y ago
    When your project tracking is a fax machine that’s no surprise.
- benterix 2y ago
  > Now if you have another company whose employees believe in the company's mission, prioritize company success, don't see a necessary trade-off between work and lifestyle, and enjoy working with their teams in person This is a nice image you've painted but this company doesn't exist except in the minds of some CEOs and startup founders. You know what actually happens? A CEO announces RTO, people are outraged, everybody is looking at their options, those who manage to do it switch jobs immediately, those who can't do it at the next opportunity, the ones who are left are a combination of extroverts who finally can have endless interactions with those who want them and those who don't, and a bunch of disgruntled employees who don't give a fuck about your company because of the way you treated them.
ajuc 2y ago
> Unfortunately this can be a race to the bottom This works as an argument against 8h work day and 5-day work week too. Ultimately if something is better for the society (and WFH obviously is - commute time, carbon footprint, land prices, housing crisis - it helps with almost everything) - we should just force companies to use it by regulation, so that there's no "race" in that regard cause the conditions are the same for everybody. The exact regulation is tricky, but sth in the spirit of "if your job can be WFH you should have an option of WFH" is a good starting point.
- abustamam 2y ago
  I agree that WFH is better for society, but anecdotally, it probably caused more of a housing crisis here in CA. Folks took their bay area salaries and moved to cheaper suburbs and totally wrecked the RE market. And I have read stories of similar things happening in other places that techies flocked to, like Austin, though I don't think it's necessarily fair to blame that on remote work because there were other factors in play there (politics for example)
  - ajuc 2y ago
    > Folks took their bay area salaries and moved to cheaper suburbs and totally wrecked the RE market. Isn't that what we want? Land prices averaging out? Then we can build where it's cheaper so more people have homes (with access to good jobs). It probably won't be limited to suburbs, if you can WFH from the same state - you can WFH from another state.
    - rescbr 2y ago
      Land prices averaged up, but local salaries aren’t doing the same.
  - CalRobert 2y ago
    Isn’t that improving the housing shortage in the bay?
- zeroonetwothree 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
codexjourneys 2y ago
This will be counterbalanced by the fact that WFH is better for many employees from a work-life balance perspective, so higher-performing employees who have more choices will tend to gravitate toward companies that allow WFH. I expect many companies will arrive at an equilibrium with at least 2 days WFH for focused work and 3 days in-office for collaboration. This seems to already be happening since the % of companies offering hybrid is up this year. The question is how many great employees laggard companies will lose before accepting that. (Caveat: this does not apply to companies doing mostly ground-breaking work that have more mission-focused, highly qualified applicants than they can handle. Some companies may be surprised to find they are no longer in this bucket.)
- zanybear 2y ago
  Unfortunately, once you go one way the 2 days are no longer of focus work. Not all people schedule the same type of work at the same time .
steveBK123 2y ago
Or the opposite - companies with the most draconian and rigid RTO mandates end up with high attrition. Anyone who can work anywhere else does so, and the company becomes a collection of misfits over time. Currently the hard-RTO companies in the news are clearly doing it for silent layoffs reasons as there are simultaneous leaks of 5-figure attrition targets. Maybe a strong FTC/DOJ stance on antitrust, plus the top-down mandates will lead to more small company innovation as well.
- LaserToy 2y ago
  Companies need to make money. High performers will go to companies that make tons of money, even if relo to Sahara is needed
  - steveBK123 2y ago
    Sure but it's often a cycle right, the high performers go to innovative companies that create lots of money. The companies that make lots of money then end up being softer & more extravagant with their employee (ahem, GOOG and a lot of Mag7/FAANG) until some equilibrium point where they're so soft they lose their edge. Then a new up&comer rises and the cycle repeats.
    - LaserToy 2y ago
      Exactly. So, we need to make those companies more successful:)

akoboldfrying 2y ago

It sounds like you're advocating for a legally protected right to WFH. Are you?

vbezhenar 2y ago
I'm just expressing my opinion with regards to WFH. I work from home currently and it significantly changed by life to the better. Whether WFH should be legally protected, I don't know. I, personally, would be all for it, but at the same time I might underestimate some factors. Probably it makes sense to start with disabled people. There are not a lot of them, so potential negatives wouldn't hurt society that much and helping disabled people generally is well received. So basically if disabled person want to work in a job that could be done remotely and qualified for it, you must allow remote work, or something like that. Then you can follow with people caring for kids or disabled elders, they often must be at home, but at the same time they might have enough time to allow for some work. With enough statistics smart people could make an informed decision, whether forcing WFH worth it or not.
- akoboldfrying 2y ago
  The problem I see with that is that anyone who is legally granted the right to WFH becomes much less employable, similar to the way that young women are often passed over in favour of men now because employers don't want to risk someone getting pregnant and taking lots of time off.

Eumenes 2y ago

> I don't care about company KPI or efficiency, I care about my own well-being first and foremost, as long as I have a choice. You better be good then or have a niche/rare skillset. There's no intrinsic right to remote work. Things will mostly revert to pre-covid, where only the best/most disciplined/highest performers are given the freedom to WFH. Sure, some companies will be 'remote first', but for the most part, you'll need to be a special hire with an exemption carved out. I'm already seeing this in my workplace. Managers are begging leadership for remote headcount but getting Bay area headcount instead. The teams getting remote headcount are the hardest to fill/most in demand skillsets, and almost always very senior.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

rad_gruchalski 2y ago

> I don't care about company KPI or efficiency, I care about my own well-being first and foremost, as long as I have a choice. This is a double edged sword. You don’t care about the company, you care for yourself. Your company sees that and gives you a certain treatment. If you don’t care just quit?

baruch 2y ago
Your company already doesn't really care about you (for the vast majority of them at least), so there is a conflict of interest but you personally shouldn't take the side of the company.
- rad_gruchalski 2y ago
  There’s an element to that, for sure. But can it be generalised to a whole planet? I’m certain you have met people on your way who genuinely rooted for you. Companies are made out of people.