Elon canceled WFH for a multitude of reasons. Mainly to encourage willing employees to leave and those that remained to work harder.
They spend time commuting. They suffer constant distractions. They deal with physically relocating in the office multiple times per day. They experience physical discomfort in an environment they cannot control.
What in office employees don’t do is deliver more value per minute to the company because they waste energy just trying to exist in an office.
> What in office employees don’t do is deliver more value per minute
Isn’t this contextual?
> They spend time commuting
Also this. Commute can be productive especially in cities where people can safely cycle to the office.
> They suffer constant distractions.
Lots of the folks I meet in the office currently, have more distractions at home.
> They experience physical discomfort in an environment they cannot control.
“home” is not the opposite for many people.
WFH is productive only if you are single. Or have single like benefits. Like kids who are off to school and a spouse who doesn't talk to your for hours.
Other wise you are better off working at office. At home you get peppered by spouse/kids/chores tasks during your working hours.
1. the leadership and most important employees meet at the office 3 to 4 days a week.
2. less important employees are allowed to work from home
The workers in group 2 are in direct competition with outsourcing firms in India, Vietnam, Brazil, etc. If you are just an average frontend programmer, and allowed to work from home, there is a good chance that your work can be sent overseas. So workers in this group are seeing more downward pressure on their wages, and have a more precarious position.
This is absolutely unhealthy behavior, but my WFH problems have never been because I'm slacking off since I'm at home.
People with integrity will work. People without integrity will find ways of avoiding work. Location doesn't matter. Hire or work with the former; avoid the latter.
- Apple: https://www.fastcompany.com/90781330/apple-return-to-office-...
- Amazon: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/17/amazon-employees-asked-to-be...
- Microsoft: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/technology/microsoft-rto....
Why should your anecdote be stronger than this?
To be clear, I'm showing up to be seen and available.
Building stronger ties with teammates is part of work. Progressive companies encourage this, and this is why some progressive companies have pushed people to return to the office.
Don't be a reactionary. Think about things more and you'll be right more often than you are now.
This has been my experience as well. Also, not every company is the same. When COVID hit, I started working remote, and the company was very poorly equipped to deal with work from home. Communication disappeared and culture died out. I stopped being interested in my work and left the team, and later, the company.
Fast forward to my new company. It’s remote-first. More than half the workforce is remote and it saves the company what I’d imagine to be a pretty sum in office supplies, rent, etc. I’m hybrid now, but 90% of the time is remote. I’m much happier now than in my old remote experience. I don’t have to commute and I haven’t missed out on any of the perks of an office because of the company structure and techniques, and a few other decisions by myself.
The things I think are game changers:
- Slack, or similar. My old company used Teams. It was slow and buggy and I disliked it. Having channels is a game changer for remote work! Being able to have channels with many people creates a place for banter and common, shared experiences. That makes a remote team feel much more personal.
- Having a good home office. My first stint with remote work, I was ill prepared. I had no desk and was working at the dining room table. I had no good peripherals, no good chair, etc. Not a good environment. Now I have a standing desk, a mouse and keyboard I enjoy, nice monitors, a good chair, a separate area of the house dedicated to work. This has made a huge difference in my mindset. I’m “at work” by being in an area of my home I reserved exclusively for work, and I’m comfortable in it. I dread going into the office where the water doesn’t taste as good, the air is stale, there’s little natural light, I have limited control over my environment. I’m now much more productive at home. As a bonus, I get back an hour (or more, depending on traffic) of my day, and save myself all the accompanying stress of commuting.
For older more mature people who have families it’s an amazing gift to be able to work from home, for some it absolutely isn’t. The point is that you can decide how to run things in your company and try to be flexible.
I've worked for a company who had to go full remote due to covid and productivity increase a lot because people were not being bothered by senseless interruptions and calls.
When asked why move back to the office in a meeting where people could ask "anything", the CEO just said he doesn't believe in working from home and he does not want that for the company but provided zero reasons for his beliefs. :/
Also commuting is such a pain that it makes me feel depressed. I took about 2h each leg and sometimes it was even worse. I usually get so much earlier in the office to avoid not being late and I had to simply not do anything as I could never leaver earlier too :(
Also, think about those on an H-1B. Their options are limited.