Apple has a new work-from-home policy, but it’s still not what employees want
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
A two hour daily commute is like adding an additional day to your work week.
Last I checked, that's not really true for any of those companies. Where did you pick up the "almost nobody" part?
The hq houses about 7000 has at attendance of about <3% in another state.
> almost nobody wants to go back to office, at least not on a daily basis
Where's the evidence people DO want to go back to the office?
Mine: parents with kids. Not one wants to return to wasting hours on commute, which is particularly egregious at Apple because many are not allowed to work on the bus because of the culture of paranoia and disclosure.
Most people where I work are not going in to the office every day, but it cannot be inferred that it is because they don’t want to.
The thought of permanent WFH, with your job occupying a corner of your 600 sq ft apartment in perpetuity, is demoralising. Just having the option of a change of scenery, even if one doesn’t make use of it every day or even once in a given week, makes a huge difference.
In my opinion the pushing of permanent WFH by a certain privileged set is an obnoxious display of housing privilege. Of course that group has a big house in the countryside among the birds and the trees, where they don’t have to deal with neighbours, traffic noise, or other distractions. But that doesn’t entitle them to make those decisions or project their opinions onto the rest of us.
There is some confusion between covid lockdown vs WFH. I live in a recreational state with great phone coverage and wifi everywhere, I must spend at least half my time at some comfy park or a table outdoors at a coffee shop or something similar. Certainly I spend a lot of working hours in my nice back yard.
The impression I've gotten is people are not getting locked down and chained to a desk for WFH, just get the work done, doesn't matter if I'm reading engineering datasheets at the local bar (before drinking...) or the tables at the local park, etc.
This, to me, is the crux of the matter. I can accept that there are days when I'm needed in the office, but for the vast majority of days when I'm not, having the ability to decide has incredible benefits for me, and the company doesn't miss out on anything.
WFH reality means that the most pleasant part of my day is destroyed. It takes all the joy of living in the city away.
Then don't wfh if your company gives you the option to do one or the other.
Companies that today mandate one mode or the other (or some odd combination) are losing the potential value the ill-affected team can bring to the table.
WFH for those who'd like to, WFO for those who don't.
People working from the office saying "well I can't be as effective if so few people are coming into the office" are basically saying that their productivity needs outweigh the productivity needs of others.
The WFH pushers like to set up a “why spend 1-2 hours on commute when you could use that time on other things” straw-man. Some of us enjoyed our 20-30 minute commute as a separation between work and the rest of our lives.
It is not nice to come home from that coffee shop and see your workplace, waiting for you, across the room when you walk in your front door.
Dunno, I just close my work laptop when I'm done working and ignore it for the rest of my day just fine. I understand that non-insignificant amount of people have some weird psychological issue with that, but I don't agree that we should force everyone back to the office because of that.
like sleep
I have an hour commute each way if I want to go in and a dedicated 12x12 office bathed in natural light. There's no possible way a company office could come close to the productivity and comfort I have here, even on video calls.
Another chunk of the population lives in apartments not much bigger than my personal office and have a 10 minute walking commute into an office. If I were in that situation I'd maybe enjoy going into an office to do work more (but I probably would never choose to put myself into that specific living scenario).
There is likely everything in between those extremes. You also need to question intro/extro personalities, how much and what type of collaboration is part of the job, etc.
We used to live in a world where there was only one option: come into the office where the paper work lived. Now we have a choice. Let's take maximum advantage of that.
To flip your argument, why does your decision to live in a crowded, noisy, high rent (= small living space) city entitle you to make those decisions or project your opinions onto the rest of us?
If I go play ping pong for an hour, do I now owe that hour to the company later? If I'm working past 5, will I be inclined to keep working because I can just go grab a free bite to eat later?
My current employer offers a few perks. We have pool tables, video games, etc. But you'll pretty much never find people using them because they're busy working. Seems like mostly a recruiting tool and little more. That's why I'm perfectly fine staying home and not utilizing the cool office space. I didn't use that stuff anyway.
> The campus felt designed to suck more work hours out of you.
Another way to describe it is that the campus is designed to suck more employees away from the competition. If you assume the existence of an employee as a given, then the only reason for a perk must be to extract more labor from that employee.
But that's not how Google is looking at it. They're trying to convince good employees to work for them instead of other tech companies. Those perks exist to keep the grass greener on Google's side of the fence instead of Facebook/Apple/Amazon/etc.
This provides an entirely rational/economic answer for nice perks without needing overtime to justify them. (There are, of course, also plenty of non-financial justifications for the perks.)
In the Google offices I've worked in, they tend to be almost completely empty by 6:00.
> If I go play ping pong for an hour, do I now owe that hour to the company later?
My experience is that different employees have different feelings about that. Some do, some don't. Personally, I don't feel I owe the company another 30 minutes if I go outside for a walk because the walk tends to reinvigorate me and increase my productivity. But I would probably feel weird if I was playing a game for a significant period of time more than once a week or so.
> If I'm working past 5, will I be inclined to keep working because I can just go grab a free bite to eat later?
Some do, but dinner is extremely low-key compared to lunch. On the rare times I've been around at dinner time, the cafes are mostly empty with just a few partaking.
There are so many stories out there of people getting a "side gig" while working remote. The "working at two companies at once" is a real concern for tech companies - where IP assignment can create legal nightmares.
One of the simplest ways to prevent this is to make it not feasible for a 2nd job to be held. If you're in the office for 8h for 3 days a week, it is not practical to be able to hold a second job at the same time.
For companies with larger or more secretive initiatives and products these ideas are likely more reasonable.
The tech companies know that they've got people who are "coasters" who are doing the minimum and collecting a pay check - they don't want to continue to enable to them to have multiple jobs that they're coasting in.
Sounds like the job simply isn't attractive enough. Why would I waste time as a second job when helping my employer will result in a stock price increase that I'll make capital gain on?
The "free services" are designed to keep you at your desk working longer. You don't need to rush out and waste part of the day if you have an intense craving for a certain type of food or need to get a haircut or do laundry.
And a lot of great developers are young, fresh out of university, and the only thing they know in life is either having parents or a campus provide everything they need in life and living a semi-managed existence. Offering everything to developers is just a natural extension of that lifestyle.
But I'd respect a company far more that just paid you over the market rate, didn't shell out as a company for extra services, and let you use your own money to decide what services you needed to manage your own life.
As far as the office toys go (video games, pool tables, etc) there are very few times I've seen them used in any office outside of a planned holiday or office party. That said, I like some of that stuff as a decoration even if it's rarely used. It reminds me that there's more to life than just working.
As a programmer, our job is to make decisions all the time - how to design the software. That leads to decision fatigue ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_fatigue ).
One part of that is "if people are making choices that aren't important to work, they're less productive at work."
Here's a decision to make - what do you have for breakfast? Where do you go for lunch? And so on...
Granted, these are trivial decisions to make - but they're decisions none the less.
What if... the company could give you catered breakfasts and lunches? Or even to the point of back in the dot com boom I recall tales of a big tech company that even allowed you to set the billing address for things like rent and the like and it would be a payroll deduction with the company handling it for you.
Those extra services are certainly there to entice and ensnare people who don't make those decisions themselves... but they're also there to try to improve productivity.
Yes! That's the point. If you think there are 10x devs out there and that your company is capable of attracting them, then paying extra to remove friction to get a little bit of extra time out of them is worth more than an ever increasing headcount with regular devs.
> If I go play ping pong for an hour, do I now owe that hour to the company later?
No. Engineering isn't about hours, it's about results. If playing an hour of ping pong means the next 3 hours will be more productive for the players and they will be more creative it's an investment. I've seen tough bugs get solved by engineers going on a walk when they were absolutely stuck.
> My current employer offers a few perks. We have pool tables, video games, etc. But you'll pretty much never find people using them because they're busy working. Seems like mostly a recruiting tool and little more. That's why I'm perfectly fine staying home and not utilizing the cool office space. I didn't use that stuff anyway.
A company won't just become Google by buying beanbag chairs and getting a ping pong table. That's cargo culting [0].
I don't want to go back to the office not because I want to WFH. It's because COVID is still a big threat. I'd go back to work in the office in a heartbeat if there isn't a pandemic around. The office is cool, and the in person interaction is great, despite me being an introvert.
Unless we have data on how many people choose to work remotely due to COVID, I would not hastily attribute those people to the camp of "only want to work remotely".
So contrary to the traditional employer/employees balance of power, there is also a employees/employees thing going on here.
Considering those who can telework full time without any limitations (say software engineer for example) what is the ratio of those who want to telework fulltime, part-time or not at all. It's hard to trust polls on this because they are usually driven by employers who have an agenda anyway.
Some like it and will work from home as much as they can, others will come to the office but don't mind the flexibility.
What was interesting was comments from an anonymous poll. A couple of people said they didn't like the policy since it meant they ended up caring for young children almost all the time. Previously, they would split things like taking them to/from school or looking after them if they were sick 50:50 with their partner. One person having so much flexibility meant this became 100:0.
In theory we were flexible before 2020, but its only since 2020 that I've felt doing my laundry was an acceptable reason to work from home.
When one partner has WFH, neither person needs to take an absence from work, but the person who is WFH gets all the childcare.
There's also the "the person with the flexible schedule allows the other schedule to become more normalized." In the before times, one of my co-workers picked up their child on alternating days. So Monday was late in (drop off child at school) and late out (spouse picked up the child). Tuesday was early in (spouse dropped off the child) and early out (pick up child at school). This way both people were able to get in 8h days at work. With WFH, my co-worker's schedule shifted so that they were the one always dropping off and picking up the child (and having what would be considered a split shift - working a few hours in the late afternoon or evening).
For my co-worker, this was overall a net positive (school was a short distance from the house compared to a long, out of the way distance from work) allowing (even with the schedule change) less time spent ferrying a child around... but it also meant that my co-worker is doing all the child ferrying while their spouse is working a regular 9-5 that have oddities of child ferrying adjustments.
* No commute (not the employers fault really)
* You can zone out in irrelevant meetings.
* Sit down during stand-ups.
* Soft 'intimidation' does not work well over the phone
* No open office noise
Since I changed job from a chaotic place with 50min commute each way, to a tidy job within walking distance, the remote work thing seems like a minor perk, rather than the best thing ever.
- a bathroom where I have true privacy and not someone waiting on me or able to perceive me with their senses
- not having to deal with the smell of others or worry about my own
Now they're the ones who realize they hate their commute and want to stay full remote forever whereas I'm more than ready to get back into it.
I don't think there's anything wrong with this dichotomy, but it's fun to watch.
Also, easier to coordinate home and personal projects and matters incl healthcare.
But, no kids/etc vying for your attention
But, more reliable internet
But, easier work-life separation (for some people+companies)
Anecdotally, I've experienced better adherence to processes since the shift to remote work since communication is mostly written instead of oral communication.
This seems "normal" at very large megacorporations if you work at a higher level. I knew Scala and Play framework (trendy and cool at the time; does anyone still use?) so I got shoved into the role; at least they didn't force me to move to one of the operations sites; presumably the other two would squeal too much if the third "got me".
This seems to be how most major corporations work; the "active directory genius" (not me..) is in charge of all AD servers worldwide; does it really matter which city he lives in if he's responsible for servers all over the world? Same for "the woman who's really good at docker" or the guy whom actually understands DNS.
For years I wasted a lot of time, money, and gasoline to drive 20 miles into work just to work on server software 1500 miles away all day long. May as well stay home.
We have that on my team at work too. About 10% of the people on the team prefer to work in office, but they always caveat that with, "but I don't want to come into an empty office." Meaning being, that want the rest of the team in the office too.
Please take care not to frame everyone who prefers working from an office as people who would "impose" their views on others. I work from home rather than impose my views on others, but your argument makes a very good point. I should probably step up and begin pressuring for better office design, since that would remove a crutch that the remote-work movement is unaware it's being propped up by.
Yes, some will still prefer to work remotely, but I've done offices, and I've done remote, and it's clear there are pros and cons to each that vary per project and per team. It's time for office design to be given due credit for how it drives people into remote work, so that we can stop confusing a desire for a healthy working environment with a desire to work from our homes.
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/09/24/bionic-office/
https://stackoverflow.blog/2015/01/16/why-we-still-believe-i...
(remarkable that cubicles used to be our idea of office hell, and now just seem like an unimaginable amount of personal space)
Patterns 146, 151, and 152 get into the design of the office.
For example, 146 - Flexible Office - https://books.google.com/books?id=FTpxDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA690&lpg=...
It is a fascinating book to read (and you don't need to consume it all at once). There are things in there that helped me understand why my house (it had its stairs reversed in the 1920s) has a flow to it that leads to certain rooms getting less use than they were designed for - the staircase from the 2nd floor living space now goes to the back door (rather than the center of the house) which means 2nd floor to garage is an easy transition while 2nd floor to front door is a harder one. That in turn makes it more natural (for this design of the house) to go out the garage door and along the sidewalk past light commercial when going down town than out the front door and past neighbors through the residential roads.
We’re not going in the right direction.
If I wasn’t working remote, I’d have a worse office environment than when I was a 16-year-old kid doing IT for a mom-and-pop.
First part time internship had an office with a door and my freaking name on the front.
Second internship had a nice private high walled cubicle.
That internship turned into a full time job, and they moved us into a large 4 person area's where each screen faced a different direction, and the walls weren't as high.
Finally after two years they moved us into the open office, all next to each-other, and gave us the shittiest beats headphones $100 could buy. Audio quality aside, they squeezed the head into a migraine. Comically bad.
Also noticing all the recruiters who contact me these days lead with remote or % wfh.
No one I know with kids wants to give up flexible WFH. Not one.
No mystery why. Every minute commuting is a minute away from your already extremely limited family time. Every day without flexibility is a PITA wrt any of the myriad quiet duties parents have to move their kids around all day, which have now returned with their own vengeance because of the pandemic suppression of carpooling and public transit as viable options for many, particularly those with kids under 12, none of whom are yet fully protected, and won't be for weeks.
Things have shifted now, and employers need to realise that they need to offer remote to bag the best engineers.
I certainly never want a long commute again.
There are a lot of habits and work processes instilled in us from having to report to hq every day but for a lot of people we are already emerging on the other side of replacing those arcane processes with modern internet native approaches. This will force a lot of change on people in terms of how we socialize and it is a major change, with major upside imo.
At the end of the day, there are so many people who want to work for Apple that I don't think it will be a big problem for them.
You can't disable pointer acceleration via the Mouse configuration control panel. You have to use some terminal command. Scroll wheel acceleration can't be disabled at all without using 3rd party software.
The Home/End should bring the cursor to the beginning/end of the current line, not the beginning/end of the current document.
Disappearing scroll bars are only a feature on mobile applications where screen real estate is a premium.
And why is there not even an option to ungroup my windows in the Dock? If I have 3 Chrome windows, I want 3 Chrome icons so I can switch between them more quickly. Windows groups by default, but there's at least an option to ungroup them.
Everything about Mac feels like they believe that removing features is a feature.
Cmd + left/right arrow
> And why is there not even an option to ungroup my windows in the Dock? If I have 3 Chrome windows, I want 3 Chrome icons so I can switch between them more quickly. Windows groups by default, but there's at least an option to ungroup them.
Cmd+` to jump between Windows of the currently active application
Seriously, employers who start with that "loyalty" thing... eeeuwhh... just run. Away. It's a business relationship, not family nor friends. The loyalty you'll get from an employer... doesn't exist. Why should they anticipate any from us?
BTW, that opening line above... I once quoted it directly to my manager during the 6-month assessment interview. Need I mention that my increase/bonus was a little lean that year. :O
Not saying I agree with it, but I think this is one area of Apples culture that is going to go against the tide.
Investors have a major say in how the money is spent. All of a sudden, remote is where that exciting startup experience is, where the kids want to go. Sure, fly everybody together once or twice a year, far cheaper than an office.
I'm the founder of a remote-only startup (from before covid, 8+ years), and every once in a few months, we get together for a couple weeks to do some collaborative work, and the teams productivity is an order of magnitude higher, even though we don't overwork. Initially I attributed this to the different state of mind that we bring in those two weeks, but eventually I realized in a well functioning team, excitement just rubs of each other.
We'll continue being remote as a lifestyle choice, but I firmly believe that if we were together in the same room, and spent even half the time at work, we'd be more productive.
Additionally I believe remote is better suited for senior devs, with 10+ years of experience and generally have their lives together. I sincerely believe that juniors, especially those just out of college will hurt their trajectory, as they'll loose the ability to observe and learn the behavior of seniors and adopt mentors. Also some of my closest friends today are those I've met at work in my first job, and have been thorough the "trenches" together with.
Ymmv.
Large cities made successful by centralization have become logistically hellish and expensive. It's become largely illogical to live in one.
Hybrid is a fudge and will be as burdensome for employees as it will be inefficient for their employers. Those that have hybrid forced on them will have to get used to endless scheduling admin "...is Ted in today? Has anyone seen Ted?". And in a split '2 days out' v '3 days in model' it's be hugely wasteful to have offices empty 4 days per week per person.
Companies insisting on in-person or hybrid have a dependency on their local job market. Two potentially terminal pressures with this: their local market will atrophy as the most marketable people choose to work remote roles. And they'll be disadvantaged against remote-only competitors recruiting the best and most cost effective talent around the world.
All of Apple's justifications mean nothing in the face of the above.
Companies across the board the board seem to think they have every right to decide how to structure their employees lives. And almost universally they make a big show about listening to their employees and then afterwards show they don’t care one whit by demonstrating through their actions they either didn’t listen or don’t care. Then they rub salt in the wound with their carefully crafted corporate-speak press releases.
For any industry based on knowledge work, this behavior is just about as unprofessional as one can be; it’s insulting to their workforce and breeds malcontent.
On the other hand you have workplaces where honesty is both valued and respected on each side of the employer/employee divide. I suspect we hear little about such companies, and they keep on running.
When might the big dishonest companies realize the dishonesty is at the core of not just the WFH problem, but nearly all of the problems they face? Is it even possible?
The good news is that as those who are honest and productive continue to realize they can form small bands with other like minded productive people, build high trust orgs that and remain profitable due to the agility that affords, we will hopefully not have to put up with this for much longer.
Deep down, I think the issue goes past working flexibility down to a multi-billion dollar financial question of what do these companies do with their real estate assets?
They've already built or bought gigantic office buildings and campuses across the US, so what do they do with them? Turn them into warehouses? Just let them sit at <50% capacity?
Idk what the answer is, but I'm sure lots of CFOs are probably busy with this, since it seems like it would be "paddling against the current" to counteract remote preferences.
The real reason at the end of the day is sociopath managers/execs. They see work from home as freedom and office as control. I've had C levels tell me straight up they don't care if it is more efficient to work at home. They would rather be able to scream at someone if something is wrong, they would rather have 10 people sitting around getting paid for nothing so they can storm in and round them up for some random project. They simply are not interested in putting together a well though out plan and sending it to everyone. In most of the world the people in charge are not in place because of competence or successful harmony of efficient work. They simply are looking out for themselves more viciously than other people did and now they are in charge.
Bad management will always find a way to be bad.
Amazon is, as far as I know, allowing people to work from home full time now. That's what their recruiters have been telling me and that's what my friends that work there are saying.
Convert them back from open spaces to proper offices? This would make them close to 100% capacity and also reward people who are willing to work in person.
I should mention that the original plan was also this 2-3 days a week at the office, but has been put on hold indefinitely until something changes.
"What employees want" directly influences employee retention and hiring. In a hypothetical scenario, if an employee wants full remote work but Apple is not offering it but Google is then that then employee is going to go to Google to the detriment of Apple.
I think John Deere said the same thing. When enough employees get together and demand what they want, they'll get it.
But what employees want, especially if reasonable, would also affect employee morale and satisfaction.
Even without leverage, employees that love their jobs versus employees that hate their jobs makes a big difference.