I also happened to see that tweet about Tesla staff and WFH.
My gut is telling me that a lot of companies will seek to leverage this economic downturn and layoffs to threaten staff into returning.
The dialogue until now has been fairly conciliatory, but we will start to see more come or go type of ultimatums...I am convinced.
What do you think?
You could say this about any shitty part of tech work though. Software devs won't be put on 24/7 on-call rotations because they can just quit and work somewhere else. Software devs won't be forced to put together a quick hack because they can just quit and work somewhere else. Software devs won't be forced to work nights and weekends to meet an arbitrary deadline because they can just quit and work somewhere else.
For whatever reason, it doesn't end up being that simple.
A lot of what makes people want to leave companies is the simple nature of working with other people in a for-profit enterprise. That is not going to change by moving to another for-profit enterprise. So those people probably feel pretty stuck regardless of how good the market is.
Personally, when I was consulting I really wanted to want multiple clients at once but I actually found myself most happy with just one.
IMO certain professions may be ok with remote but for the most part, the kind of work Tesla does, remote work is suboptimal.
We are going to see a bifurcation of companies that adopt either strategies. Time will tell.
What's _the kind of work Tesla does_? Sure, remote assembly may be suboptimal. What about software development? Operations? Etc.
You don't need face to face all the time. But sure, be a dick and give a one week deadline for people to adjust again and see how it goes.
If you have an axe to grind about WFH, probably should work as a non-software engineer or talk to someone who does and have a sense that perhaps your view is biased towards a particular type of personality that you may have.
Even amongst software engineers, there is a debate about how well WFH works.
I am having trouble thinking of a job that requires a minimum of 40 hours in the office plus untold many hours that can be done either remotely or in the office.
The factory workers are already in the factories. The ones remote are the ones who can do their work remote and the company has only broken records since the pandemic started with remote work.
Elon himself says, you can do remote work, after you’ve been in the office for 40 hours, implying, that remote work is totally possible
You took that seriously? It was clearly a joke.
Ironically, my first day coincided with the March 2020 lockdowns, so I never ended up going into the office. Since then the company has hired engineers from across the country and contractors from around the world. Leadership has mentioned many times how nice it would be to have everyone back in the office, but it's simply too late at this point. We're too distributed to bring everyone back. I worked out of the office recently and I was literally the only one there.
This was at a big 3-letter corporation and at a startup before that. I switched to remote 10 years ago and don't ever want to work from "the office" ever again.
Now we're in the process of releasing our leased office, and renting a much smaller space for occasional collaboration. My team, which is only 7 people to start with, live in 4 different metros.
There is no back for us as a company. This is how we work now.
For the OP: I would take a look at how companies are hiring. If their job reqs are all for specific locations and no remote listings, then I would expect that you would be correct for that company. If their listings are remote, then I would expect that they're probably beyond that point.
Believe it or not, I don't say that in a spiteful way. I respect that the people who own companies have the right to declare rules for their company. But at the same time, we get to set our own rules for our own lives. If those sets of rules do not match... then do not work there. There is enough variety in this world to find a place that works for you. There might not be enough variety for people like Musk to find all the workers they need.... but that is their problem. I'm just going to find a good place for myself and enjoy my work.
Personally, I like the freedom of choosing every day and I have bursts of office weeks when I feel social and burts of home office weeks when I feel anti-social. I have colleagues who haven't seen the office since February 2020, others come in every single day... it varies a lot.
I cannot see it going back any time soon. The advantages are too numerous.
We still have offices and are encourage to use them like any other resources. They have became hubs where we meet when needed to increase productivity instead of obligatory energy drains. New hubs were recently purchased and customized to our needs. Some even have private cafés and bars in them.
This requires trust from the management team, which we have proved over and over for decades.
If anything, people are working slightly longer hours now. The 2 hours people would use to do commute are no longer existent so a lot of people are willing to throw extra hours.
It's common for people to voluntarily stay in chatrooms while cooking diner and using the time to do teambuilding and also casually talk about work related issues. Similar to how people used to gather in common spaces after work. We even had events where the company would send us ingredients so that we could all cook the same recipes together and enjoy a remote lunch (on paid time).
Some of my coworkers are even living the digital nomad lifestyle where they travel across the world yet work their full time. Meetings where people have a beach or forest behind them are common -- and they are not static image backgrounds.
I do not miss the previous model and would never go back to it willingly.
I cannot imagine the company going back either as they would now need to fire all the new hires who are not close to the offices... and those offices have been converted into hubs with meetings rooms and a small amount of workstations. Even if the entire company wanted to go back tomorrow, there would not be enough workstations.
I know some of the major banks who were adamant about return to office have quietly surrendered that hybrid is here to stay.
You’ll find all sorts of companies though and I suspect if we head into a recession the remote rights crowd will lose ground.
What I am waiting for is the day that accounting gets the CFO to realize if they got more people working remotely they could reduce real estate. Once the emotions of the situation die down sooner or later the accountants will point out that productivity didn’t drop during remote work lockdowns and there’s money that could be saved. This is the moment things really shift. But that’ll be 5 years IMO.
Edit: to be clear they already know these facts but right now it’s all emotions based decision making. Once the emotions fade and a little water goes under the bridge a profit motive in cost cutting will be the thing that strangles in office work. If you think about it it’s quite a luxury to spend that much money just to collocate bags of mostly water for their social pleasure. And accounting doesn’t give a rats ass about your social pleasure.
The one I’m thinking of in particular is a huge part of the downtown economy, all those workers taking lunch breaks.
I don’t envy the corporate officers, although I envy their salary. It’s not an easy playing field to navigate.
I hope the glut of office space can be rezoned to mid use - smaller office foot prints combined with residential and commercial. We are frankly overweight office space in regions saddled with a massive shortfall of residential space.
However I really emphasize with commercial businesses right now. Downtown seattle is a ghost town. The lunch crowd businesses are suffering, and the streets have been taken over by the mentally ill and those that feed on them.
Previously, remote was basically for people that had been with the company before and left the area, but that we wanted to keep.
The pandemic finally wore down the last bit of resistance to embracing remote fully. We still have our (scaled down) office location, but new hires need not have ever set foot in the area.
> Bock says that after three to five years of flexible work models and hybrid plans, the normal in-office schedule will prevail at Google—and beyond. He predicts this transition will happen over the next few years, telling Bloomberg it’s the “boil the frog method.”
Now, if it gets taken away, people will leave unless $$$ is used to compensate the lost value.
The global workforce is shrinking due to demographic trends, so there will always be jobs to fill for quite a few decades.
My team is spread out across Europe, and gets a serious amount done. Given the remote first element I can still be in contact with them whilst travelling.
Compare that to the local companies that want me in the office 3-4 days a week for $ (almost half the salary), with a team where communication is not remote first and it's a complete no-brainer which is more attractive.
Remote is here to stay. Some companies will do it, some won't. Time will tell which have the competitive advantage..
I guess I am on the other side - the more remote permeates, the harder it will be to claw it back. Not just because people like it and are now empowered, but also the practical/logistical headaches involved.
Second scenario. The California employee decides to work in Mumbai. Why not? Cost of living is lower and relatives are near. The employer then gets a tax bill because it is "doing business" in India. Or the ED VA. Or anywhere the employee decides to rent an apartment.
These issues have been put aside during the force majeure pandemic {in war and plagues the laws are silent, or at least, temporarily shut up} but a return to normalcy now means there is no more force majeure excuse.
This sounds so American: Insurance and litigation for every little thing.
So to his second point, does the employer get a tax bill because a worker is in a region? The employee might get an income tax bill in the region, and that seems to be the accepted norm. Maybe the company does get a bill.
Companies can easily set policies to only allow work in jurisdictions they have tax and legal infrastructure to handle.
This isn't the same as requiring all your employees to come in the office.
It's almost as if no company ever in existence of the universe has had regional sales employees.
If you want to work from home then do so. There's more options for 100% complete work from home than ever before. Will it pull back from the lockdown era? Probably. Will that affect your ability to find a job that fits how you work best -- I sincerely doubt it.
If the place you work is willing to incur attrition forcing talented people back in the office against their will there's going to be a whole industry of folks perfectly willing to attract that talent to continue working from home.
I know people who strongly prefer being remote and those who strongly prefer working in the same space, and the world has room for both types of companies.
So, no. But if a companies wants employees to return to office most of them would do it like adults and being discretionary.
My company got rid of all physical space in US and UK and EU and is considering/discussing hybrid in India (monthly/bi-monthly in person 5-7 days work in office together; with a weekend included; travel and expense paid by the company). Most aren’t agreeing for that either. Out of 180 present only 4 raised hands for hybrid (I was one of them! sigh) — even our managers didn’t say yes for full-time on site.
edit: Also if your company is in manufacturing, typically a 'pause' of operations is a big warning sign that orders are down and layoffs are coming soon.
Can't require masking or the vax but if you want to keep working from home, you're being selfish.
However, my significant other has had a very different experience of late. They (staid corporate Fintech company) panicked at the start of the pandemic and needed to FedEx lots of new laptops around the country just to get people online. Roll forward two years and they start introducing two days back at the office "after consultations with staff", and then last week announced full time back in the office from September. So far this week about 5 percent of staff have resigned, and my SO will also once something new and remote is lined up.
The FAANGs have spent millions of dollars building or leasing their current offices, it's not hard to see the Finance/Accounting folks escalating that those investments should to be utilized. (Not saying that it's a primary driver here - but surely it's a factor.)
If Elon thinks great products can be shipped only from the office, it's fine. We continue to ship "subpar" stuff from wherever. Our products are still useful to a lot of people, get the job done and is profitable and making lots of money.
Modern tech and knowledge work seems like it would happen in a hybrid of office and home (or wherever).
A third data point: Every other office our company has is now open, and employees have to (or are strongly encouraged to cough cough) return.
We are all-remote with hundreds of employees as you noted.
You can read more about how things work at GitLab via our handbook and our all-remote guide:
Unknown companies doing remotes will pay more if you're decent at negotiating and selling yourself.
Buffer has better salaries, I may explore that at the next switch.
* I think that relatively few companies will return to "back to office = 5d / week"
* I think that many companies will return to "back to office = 1-4 days / week" or "back to office = everyone is in the office for a full work-week every month"
But I think that some amount of essentially 100% remote roles will endure, just as they existed pre-pandemic. If I were guessing 5-15% of the workforce will settle into that state.
Companies are practical. If 5d / week in office means a lot of employee retention issues, and you aren't ok with that, rational actors aren't going to intentionally floor the car off a bridge.
WFH 100% roles don't do innovation and collaboration the same way that happens in person and even flying folks together for planning sessions is subpar for our goal to impact the communities we operate in positively. With a critical mass volunteering for causes the local team cares about, getting involved with schools, setting up internship programs, etc. are all much easier to achieve.
My long-term belief is we'll see a sorting of companies deciding on how they want to operate, then advertising that in recruiting, and finding people who are also passionate about the same. While we go through the changes it will be turbulent for both employee and employer.
But why 2+ days per week? It feels like you're really limiting your pool of candidates when you insist that people come into the office multiple days a week. Why not try an "innovation week" once per quarter to get that work done, and ad-hoc team meetups instead? With the expenses you'd save from ditching the office lease, you could run a lot of social events for employees that serve a similar purpose.
Not trying to criticize or change your mind -- I'm just curious how you came to the conclusion that hybrid is the answer, since it sort of feels like the worst of both worlds to me.
...one of the 2 days teams are all in together, they focus on internal team activities.
...the other of the 2 days team members spread out across the week, they focus on collaboration with other teams.
It does limit our prospective candidates to being in specific geographies or being willing to move to them, the trade-off is we're seeing many people who voluntarily are in more than 2 days per week, they really missed the separation of home/work, the getting to meet and know new people (WFH video/phone/chat is works for getting work done with each other, it isn't great at really getting to build relationships, it happens much more slowly).
This is an area where we're still innovating on overall as a company and we will continue to do so, also what works for us may not work for others, there isn't a global monoculture. One of our [4] core values is, "People First -- We provide an opportunity for people to do meaningful work with people they love to work with", and as we live the value, we find people enjoy being at the office because they enjoy being around their team members.
I'm introverted and used to be bullish on remote work, but I did a mix of remote and in-person collaboration in grad school and observed first-hand that there really is no comparison. Consequently, starting my job during COVID I was skeptical about remote work and was gratified to seemingly find that it at least kind-of worked. Things got done, the ball kept moving...
But now that we have in-person days there's no question. The level of engagement, collaboration, ideas, 'hallway conversations' that crop up is massively higher...to the point that it feels like a waste of time. I'm so distracted from my main focus of making widgets to talk about hypothetical futures that it feels like I'm falling behind my main 'assigned' duties, but already the fruits of this are starting to be born out and we're probably avoiding mishaps and more fully sucking talent out of everyone due to lower barrier of participatory entry.
I understand not everyone feels this way, but I will note that some of our team is still (and will forever be) remote. In mixed meetings they're the same as they ever were, which is to say, mostly silent. The in-person people are much more engaged.
Bottom-line: if your work is well-defined or scoped at the individual or perhaps small-team level, remote might work. If you're pushing boundaries I'm skeptical--not that remote work can't work, but that it works best.
Is it really volunteering then?
I'm not programming to 'get involved with the community'.
We understand this isn't what all folks want and don't mandate involvement.
My guess is yes, the tech industry will largely be back in offices by the end of 2022, for a very simple reason: most of the tech giants have returned to working in-office or announced that they will be returning in the near future. Twitter is the notable exception, but of course if Elon's takeover goes through, they will no longer be. The rest of the tech industry largely copies whatever MANGA does, for better or for worse. Remote jobs and fully-remote companies will still exist, but they will be notable because they're unusual.
I don't think Amazon is entirely back to the office for corporate workers either.
AFAIK Microsoft is one of the few that dove head first into back to office.
I think Apple and Google will follow.
- CEO expresses the virtues of in-person to all employees - CTO follows up, reminding IT that we have more flexibility.
A friend of mine left a company because they tried to get him to come back to the office after letting him work remote for almost 18 months, he just doesn't want to do it.
I'm okay of going back into the office sometimes, what is really frustrating is I can't choose where I live anymore. I can't decide that I want to go and buy a house out in Nebraska. I need to stay in an expensive Metro
I do think that the balance will shift a bit more back towards being in office, but it will happen via current companies failing and new companies starting as "in office." Obviously there will be the hit in hiring but some people will think it's worth it and it will be easier when starting fresh vs. de-transitioning a company that went remote.
How is this related to companies ending remote?
(btw this week the UK has a 4-day weekend starting tomorrow)
During the pandemic the productivity slump was about equal across the board. The first company that brings the workers back into the office will get the productivity gain of 15-20% over its newly "we are remote peers", cleaning its peers clocks. In a couple of quarters the management of the "we are remote peers" will tell everyone to get back into the office.
I think there will be some normalisation over the next year or two as offices reopen, but the trend over the last decade has only been towards more remote working. A decade ago it was difficult to find companies open to remote work but in 2018 (the last time I looked for a job pre-pandemic) it wasn't hard at all -- at least within tech.
The thing I'm most concerned about in the immediate future is the tech job market in general. I'm a fairly senior dev so I'm not too worried about myself, but I think junior devs might have a hard time finding work if the economy takes a turn for the worse. I'm not that worried about remote working though. Almost everyone I speak to seems fairly adamant that they won't be returning to the office just for the sake of it. Going forward there will be more pressure than ever for companies to accommodate those who wish to work remotely and personally I don't see myself ever taking a non remote job again. I'm sure some companies will insist employees work from the office, but those companies will find it increasingly harder to recruit talent.
Eventually we will reach a Nash equilibrium [1]
We have always been about flexibility and work/life balance, so it's not surprising that 30-40% of us have young kids at home. Last time they tried moving to a hybrid working plan, a ton of people said that they would have to quit because child-related stuff was still a mess. I bet in another year or two, they'll look to see if things have stabilized, and if so they'll start the move back to in-office work.
It was fun! I had to fly into SF. We had a nice time.
Came home. Covid positive. Me and my partner. Hooray.
So yeah, I think there is a balance.
I am not one of those "we need to stay inside forever" people. All activity has an inherent risk, and we are not robots that do everything perfectly every day. However, in retrospect I think having us fly in without a working vaccine was reckless.
So I guess my point is that covid is still out there and forcing people to congregate on a regular basis isn't the move yet. People are still getting sick.
For me, it was a very mild sickness. My poor partner is MISERABLE today.
Working remotely full time is pretty much forbidden. People who moved out of the area during the pandemic were told to move back or leave their jobs (which more than a few did). No one was fired over it (that I'm aware of), but there were a number of resignations and retirements.
Would be nice if more leaders would lead by example, instead of dictate.
On the other hands, the smart orgs are focused on figuring out how to use the disruption to their advantage.
Of course, in the short term, there will be winners in both camps. But WFH is not a fad, just as the internet was not a fad.
So while there will of course be companies ending remote because reasons, there are certainly others that are committing to full remote.
Some workplaces that were more-remote for transient pandemic reasons (including government mandates) will become less-remote, either because they think, or they know, that will offer them an advantage. Others, their eyes opened to remote's potential, may continue to encourage or expand remote work.
Employees & employers should absolutely self-sort into the situations that work best for them. There's no one right answer for the whole economy, across many industries, teams, and individual work-styles. And those employers that erroneously choose one style, despite another working better for their teams, will receive negative feedback from the markets for both hiring & their products.
Initially the plan was to return to office full time, so this is a shift in the direction of remote.
I Work in MD/DC/VA area where traffic can be very bad so this can help younger co-workers with families who typically have to live further out. They did create a formal remote work process for those that want or need to come to the area. This includes new hires during the pandemic who may not need to relocate right away (or at all).
My company just reinstated the mask mandate, so I don't think we're headed back soon. Also, a lot of folks seem to have shadow relocated to avoid a salary adjustment, so if/when management does ask people back, they're in for a hell of a surprise.
I know I feel like a sucker for sticking around the bay area during the pandemic. It's looking like the housing market will correct soon. When that happens, we're leaving. Hopefully in 4-6 months, but sometimes these things take years to play out.
For one thing there has been a lot of shifting. Some colleagues prefer to live in a remote location close to family, where the living costs are low too. And they'll be forever remote from now on.
And there are those who are more flexible. I like seeing people but I'm not an extrovert. Peak remote work wasn't quite "work from home" but "work from a co-working space". For some reason, many offices are not as cozy and arr too remote compared to a co-working space.
Of course, there are people like Jeffrey Toobin on Zoom calls, but fortunately, not too many.
However, every lower-level manager that I know has told their reports that they can either come into the office or continue working from home indefinitely, whatever works for them.
I plan to mainly work from home but will probably spend more time in the office during the summer, due to: 1) Wife and kids will be home more, and I focus better in a quiet office. 2) I get to ride my motorbike in the nicer weather. 3) 50% less traffic along my commute due to college kids going home and university staff on vacation.
Thus: it depends.
Less money means pressure to lower salaries.
That creates a pressure to hire outside the US, thus remote.
So, given that we understood that remote is possible, the downturn will make remote more likely.
It'll probably take another 2-3 years before most companies have processes in place that can sustain a mass exodus. In the meantime they're going to allow remote and keep future plans as ambiguous and non-committal as possible...
My company was on-site always before the pandemic, no remote work. After the pandemic and the productivity we showed during it, the policy was changed to "office optional" for all workers, you may need to go if your job description actually needs you on site for something, but if not, it's always optional (in theory forever).
About half of the people I work with I haven't seen face to face.
But there are many other companies who found themselves just as productive (if not more so) during covid and are happy to embrace the lower costs associated with not needing so much office space and hiring workers from areas with lower cost of living
Tesla makes cars. I think it helps to be as close to the cars as possible if your goal is to put out the best products.
But to be fair I do think that commute should be paid at some rate.
Some will feel compelled to move, others much less so.
Recently I tried to see how those tradeoffs stack up against each other. I had an insight. A lot of what I missed about working from the office had nothing to do with working from the office. It had a lot to do with me being younger, without so many family commitments, and a lot of free time and flexibility. Concretely, in my 20's and early 30's, I would have preferred working from an office. But later on, I vastly prefer working from home. The tradeoffs get weighed differently depending on what stage in life I am at.
The key is "and talk to your coworkers" though. Video calls just don't do it for me.
Jokes, ping pong, lunches, going to the gym, coffee breaks, beers, useless meetings, company parties.
Most of my time in the office wasn't productive but I was sure happier about the company.
Working remote it's easier not to give a crap about your employer. Still, at least you have time to get stuff done without anyone bothering you and then have some extra free time.
My point is that even if I can choose it's just not as nice as before so I certainly hope some companies will revert. Remote work is simply not for me and I want to work at a company that doesn't have these drawbacks. I want to come into work, have my desk and know who I will meet there every day.
I just hope that there will be companies that are fully onsite and proud of it. Now they are getting shamed for it even when there are people like me who wants to a work at such a company.
Too much money in office space and all the surrounding businesses to keep the status quo.
You don't get to (a) keep wages low for existing employees in a market where wages have been increasing by 10% a year for years and (b) make demands of them that they almost universally disapprove of.
I don't see why there is so much uproar about going into the office. If you were hired with the expectation that you go in, it's not unreasonable for your employer to ask you to return, regardless of productivity gain/loss.
Have a talk with your manager, and if it doesn't go the way you want it to, stay and commute or quit.
- Elon Musk basically says that he does not trust his employees enough to let them work from home (which may or may not be justified, I don't know them).
- You get one or more days off.
And your conclusion is:
- Your company may be preparing to end remote work.
I don't understand why?
I'd personally draw the conclusion that you apparently work for a company that is doing well at the moment. Nice!