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Yes, it was an issue before COVID, but people who are disabled, or people who have processing differences that make dealing with the distractions of an open plan office extremely difficult (that's the "neuro-normative" part), or people who have to juggle children and a job, or people who can't afford to live close enough to have a short commute, had it much better when working from home and naturally don't want to give that up.

And for some people it's the other way around. I have a colleague who has two young children and a small apartment, and it was very tough for him when work from home and school from home was mandatory.

Thanks, that clarifies things a bit. And I can understand not wanting to give up an improvement over pre-COVID times-- I agree it shouldn't be necessary. I guess I was just confused that they seem to be implying that a partial return to in-person would make things worse than pre-covid.

> Was this an issue before COVID? I can see how this policy might help shape the workforce, but not how it would change the workforce from what it already is unless it became more diverse during COVID as a result of flexible WFH options.

> I also understand their justification for how these might limit candidates except "whiter" and "neuro-normative", which their letter didn't seem to provide direct reasoning for. I suppose "whiter" might be the result of drawing more from the local population, but again they seem to be arguing that a policy that's still more flexible than pre-COVID will make things worse, which I don't follow.

I suspect race, gender, and height biases are a big deal and substantially mitigated by various kinds of remote work, but I don't have much more to add about these things.

About "neuro-normative," I have ADHD. Open plan offices, while they are a blight upon the productivity of every worker, are substantially worse for me than for other people. Apple literally prevents teams from communicating with other teams. The combination of open plan offices, secrecy, and demands to come to the office and listen to salespeople on calls all day but not discuss your work with more than a few other people is truly mind-blowing.

> >"... will change the makeup of our workforce [to] younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied"

> Was this an issue before COVID? I can see how this policy might help shape the workforce, but not how it would change the workforce from what it already is…

Don’t disagree with you, but I interpreted their point of comparison to be what would be if there were more WFH flexibility, rather than what is/was.

I am also sympathetic to that line of thinking because while I support diversity efforts, it strikes me that they are often framed around how to make more individuals who are underrepresented in an industry join a company (where they will be still be underrepresented) by relocating to a new community (where they will also be underrepresented), while losing the support of their previously local friends & family. Large companies that care about diversity could instead focus more on opening offices in diverse parts of the country in order create more attractive jobs within those communities, rather than simply bemoaning the challenge of getting underrepresented people to uproot their lives for them. Hopefully increased WFH opportunities will help address this issue.