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Comment by dmode | Hacker News Reader

Here's an interesting quote from the verge version of the article

"We ran these surveys and asked people what they want to do. Twenty percent of our existing employees said that they were extremely or very interested in working remotely full time. And another 20 percent on top of that said that they were somewhat interested"

Another way to read this, is that 80% employees are not interested in remote. Companies doing this at large will probably realize that remote work is not popular as it made out to be.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/21/21265780/facebook-remote-...

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Wouldn't that be 60% are not interested. 100% - (20% very interested) - 20% (somewhat interested). People who are somewhat interested do not count towards being not interested.

Right, these sorts of surveys typically have 5 answers: strong negative, negative, neutral, positive, strong positive.

no, there were other choices there.

Probably another big chunk was neutral, so it may less than 50% not interested (which also isn't the same as against).

I don't know how the survey was worded. But if they asked me, would have said "somewhat interested", in that I want to work from home 1-2 days a week, but no way all 5 days a week

> extremely or very interested in working remotely full time

It sounds like you are not at all interested in working remotely full time

Correct, but it sounds like there was no option for "strongly interested in working remote part-time".

What other option is this person supposed to pick then? Saying "not at all interested" skews the results of the survey to mean that this person is not interested in remote work whatsoever.

Imo in the absence of "strongly interested in working remote part-time" answer, picking "somewhat interested in working remote full-time" is the most rational choice.

with 60% being not interested, what value is the survey if the ensuing decision disregarded the majority opinion?

There was probably a "I don't care" option, not far fetched to imagine that these 3 options combined were more than 50%.

remote work in the current COVID conditions with outside restrictions, home school, 24/7 juggling between work and babysitting for parents is not the same as your usual remote work conditions. I think the numbers drawn from this COVID WFH are far from the reality.

+1 and beyond those specific examples I don't think people have had a chance to fully setup a successful work from home "environment" which might include: dedicated room/office, better connectivity (internet/webcam/headphones), and proper routines/habits.

I imagine most people have moved past the "throw a desk in an unused area of the house and work mainly off a laptop" phase of WFH and in to the "have additional monitors, a quality chair, and access to basic office supplies" phase... there's definitely more phases that need to happen and to use the current/limited/reaction based setups as an example of what full-time WFH is is shortsighted, IMHO.

Also, there's a company/team culture shift that needs to happen too, which to the parent's point, is hard to just magically do while also balancing all these additional "challenges".

> Companies doing this at large will probably realize that remote work is not popular as it made out to be.

But will they care once the cost savings are realized? Similar things happened with open office floorplans.

Keep in mind, they are surveying existing employees who chose to work at a job that doesn't allow most people to work full time remote. If you interviewed the entire pool of potential employees -- ie people that live in topeka, kansas -- I imagine the number would be much higher.

"Internal Facebook surveys show the option of working from home is popular with employees, Mr. Zuckerberg said, but only 20% said they were extremely or very interested in working remotely long-term. More than half of employees said they 'really want to get back to the office as soon as possible,' he said."

That coupled with Facebook not reducing its office footprint and this transition supposedly taking a decade makes me wonder if people are making this a bigger deal than it actually is.

I suspect it is. During COVID, companies need to say a lot of things. But FB has spent serious $$$ on building amazing campuses. Also, Zuck was a firm believer in office space and open office. I doubt he has had a revalation suddenly

Sure, I think that's a likely outcome, but this is a great time to make that realization. We're trying to get people to slowly trickle back into offices as a public health measure; if it happens organically as people decide remote work isn't for them, that's a win-win-win for all parties. (I haven't heard of any companies making plans that they're gonna, like, sell all their offices.)

Working From Home is a change, and it's not at all surprising most people want to avoid change.

It definitely involves learning new habits and skills as part of the adjustment, which does involve some effort and possibly pain on the part of employees.

So I'm sure most people aren't interested up front. That doesn't say much about what their preference would be after some time to adjust.

That may have been true in the past. But right now most people have gotten a very good taste of WFH, being 3 months in quarantine. And AFTER that experience, people are rejecting it. I am not surprised. I have been WFH for 3 months now and absolutely hate it.

It's repeated here and there kind of everywhere these days, but the correct statement is "most people have gotten a very good taste of transitioning to WFH over night, without time to prepare, in a global pandemic". This is not traditional WFH.

As I said, it involves learning some new skills and new habits, and the adjustment period likely involves some pain from employees.

Three months of a situation assumed to be temporary is not a sufficient adjustment period.

Wondering how many of those rejecting it are sadly adults sharing a home with other adults, live in crammed rooms or just have empty lives. These are aspects to be taken into account - and wfh might give them the opportunity to live in better conditions and maybe move where they can finally live on their own and make actual friends.

The survey allowed multiple selections. 60%+ of people were at least somewhat interested in a mix of remote/onsite.

> The survey allowed multiple selections.

No, amongst 5 choices (strong negative, negative, neutral, positive, strong positive) you can't select multiple choices from those.

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