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Comment by Loughla | Hacker News Reader

>The issue is that from a management standpoint, you can't make certain people come in while letting others who can easily do work from home stay with WFH.

I do not understand this. That was the reasoning given by my previous employer as to why folks had to come back to the office as well, and it just doesn't hold up to close scrutiny.

Delineation of duties and clear expectations is sort of step 1 of managing people. Some people have jobs that can be effectively done off-site, and some do not. It's just a matter of sitting down with folks and outlining what and why.

If they disagree, you provide an avenue for evaluating the business case they have, other than 'I just prefer it'. If there is a compelling case to be made, let them make it and quantify its positive impact on the business.

I just don't get that statement, at all. I didn't three years ago, and I don't now.

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In my experience, it's less about the job and more about the person.

Some people just can't handle working from home. A lot of people, actually. Heavy-handed management can somewhat keep them in line, but then you're tying up extra manager time just to get certain employees to do their job.

That's not to say people can't slack off in the office, too. The problem is that someone prone to getting distracted has 10X more distractions at home and feels 1/10th the peer pressure to work like everyone else in the office.

But if you start picking and choosing who has to come back and who gets to stay home, it's a disaster. The people forced to come back to the office will resent the people who get to stay home, creating more divisions in the team.

The real issue, IMO, is that companies hired way too many people who couldn't handle remote work. At this point it's not an option to apply more management pressure or lay them off because they make up large parts of the employee base. It's not exactly fair to people who can WFH, but at some point bringing everyone into the office starts to look like the only practical solution to addressing widespread problems.

I get what you're saying, but I believe that a flat policy either yes or not, is a sign of piss-poor management, or too many employees with nebulous work that isn't being measured. Further, if I was a productive employee at one of those companies, I would stand up and say so.

It's not about the people. It's about the position (unless the person identifies that they should not do X because they are easily distractible, but then, that's where the business case comes in). If a position is deemed able to be WFH, then the position is WFH. If a position is not, then it is not. Based on duties and expectations.

Management is about setting expectations and measuring outcomes while providing appropriate support for staff. If the expectation is that you can work from home and produce at a consistently acceptable level, then that's great. And when the easily distractable person falls behind, you either develop them, or get rid of them.

That's not heavy handed management. It's just management. If it's too heavy handed to measure how productive people are in some fashion, then what even is the point of management?

The thing you said just seems like avoiding measuring someone's output and avoiding confrontation. It sounds toxic.

> If a position is deemed able to be WFH, then the position is WFH

Even for Software engineers, I see very few positions which can be fully WFH. If you are newbie, it's better to come to office. If you are a tech-lead of a big team or above, it's better to come to office. Only the independent junior engineer role seems to be a good fit for a fully remote setup.

Fully remote setups only work if they are truly fully remote, and if the seniors have the decency to research how to better handle the thing.

Onboarding can be done remote, but the best is to schedule extensive meetings / pair programming, or even just a virtual room where the newbie can work independently but ask the senior "as in the office". Or even very clear directions on when to reach out if nothing else is possible.

What happens instead that the newbie is expected to handle all the responsibility of reaching out, and when that inevitably fails the conclusion that's reached is that wfh is not for onboarding.

> if the seniors have the decency to research how to better handle the thing.

Seniors typically are already overloaded with keeping the product running and backfilling for the departed colleagues (who are being replaced by the new employees). So using words like "decency" is sure to piss them off even more.

Which also points to a management problem

Why stop at management? I mean, by definition, any corporate problem is a shareholder problem since shareholders elect board, which appoints the CEO, who hires the management team who hires rest of the org...

I assume things will just go back to the pre-covid norm (maybe norm is to strong, but it was common). The policy is of course you go to work every day. The reality is you can do whatever you want until you're missed. Reliable folks aren't questioned, trouble cases get the stick.

I can work from home, usually. I did so effectively before covid and I had tons of fun and productivity. My former company, though, was horrible in their handling or WFH, a terrible combination of strict daily meetings but with zero follow-up/help and negative socialization (as in the interactions were all strictly work related and tended on the negative side, with one employer constantly talking badly about somebody else). Apparently I thrive in socialization, and that difference between good interactions in my first remote job and negative in the second made it night and day on my productivity. I had to change job because it was severely affecting my health. Just to say that sometimes the cause is not strictly "not being able to handle wfh".

> The real issue, IMO, is that companies hired way too many people who couldn't handle remote work. At this point it's not an option to apply more management pressure or lay them off because they make up large parts of the employee base.

I'm not sure why this would be a different experience than normal performance review. My manager can set my expectations, and if I'm unable to meet those expectations while working remote, we can work out a different arrangement or I can get fired for not meeting expectations.

I really don't see the dilemma here -- the same exact thing could apply for workers who don't know how to work in an office. The solution would be the exact same: set the expectations, and if they're not met then switch things up or let the employee go.

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