What if it becomes clear across the industry that remote workers are first in line for convenience layoffs? Beyond reduced pay and benefit scenarios, I'm curious if reduced job security will be a price workers are willng to pay for WFH.
Amazon just got rid of a 29 acre property that they paid $123m for, why wouldn’t other companies recognize savings from remote workers?
The lavish amenities of big tech were put there for a reason -- to get people to work more. Maybe secondarily for retention.
If you think that companies are going to look at declining productivity and think "hm, that's an acceptable tradeoff, since I'm paying less for office space!", then I'll take that bet.
Isn't this begging the question? I've never been as productive in an office as WFH. I know that's not everyone but I also know I'm not the only one.
Parent is asserting that even in a world where companies want employees in the office (i.e. the current world), they're going to cave on the matter because of the money they're saving on office stuff.
I guess I missed the decision that an in-office workforce is more productive than fully remote (I personally think that hybrid is bad for productivity, and companies should pick one or the other). There is certainly a lot of evidence and debate on both sides but no real proof one way or another.
And of course I am talking about knowledge workers, not surgeons or assembly line workers.
> What if it becomes clear across the industry that remote workers are first in line for convenience layoffs? Beyond reduced pay and benefit scenarios, I'm curious if reduced job security will be a price workers are willing to pay for WFH.
I grant you that it's not explicitly stated, but it's reasonable to assume that companies aren't just laying off productive workers out of sheer pettiness. Replying to GP with the premise reversed (as you did) implies that the cost/benefit equation is reversed as well.
The premise was that remote workers might be first in line for layoffs, no mention of productivity, and as you said, companies wouldn’t lay off more productive workers out of pettiness. So it’s fair to assume that the list of workers that are candidates to be laid off are already at the same level of productivity.
My comment was asking what if the opposite was true and if when it came time for layoffs, workers in the office were first in line because laying off office workers saves money in office space.
At no point did I say or imply that productivity would be ignored.
Right, and followed with a fairly archaic assumption that remote workers are inherently less productive.
I used to believe it too, so I get it.
But a lot of the resistance is less about productivity and more about sunk costs and not fully understanding a relatively new world. Work was done in the office exclusively for so long that it will be hard to change the way some people think about it.
Guess not.
This is really what you're going with?
You know it'd be perfectly fine if you just said "it's my opinion." It's certainly a whole lot less eye rolling than this story you're selling.
But you're clearly just blowing a lot of smoke. You don't have that data.
Not supplying any actual support was a tip-off, but there's little doubt once you started with snark "Real life is not Reddit, sometimes you need to use your brain to figure things out and get ahead" (real quote, not made up) and then trying to project it onto me.
Like I said, I don't care if your answer is "it's just my opinion that WFH is less productive" or "I've heard about data" but you don't have anything to support what you're claiming.
And doing the "you're mad" thing is the last refuge for a broken argument. Do better.
I do think this is something that is identified in aggregate, however. Maybe you can't attribute the loss in productivity to individual employees, but you definitely notice if projects start taking a lot longer than they used to.
From the article:
"The Bay Area’s office market has been hit hard over the past two years, as companies pivoted to remote work and gave up real estate to cut costs."
It looks like remote work is not being singled out. In fact, it's pointed out as a cost saver.
What makes you believe that remote workers are first in line for convenience layoffs?
After all, we're in a thread about Amazon selling an Office to save money.