The issue is that the employees that do love hybrid/on-site also have to force everyone else to become hybrid - otherwise, their hybrid days become "video meetings but in a different building".
Its not the screens during meetings that bother the extraverted ones, it's the lack of people nearby which sets the temperature of their workday.
This is what bothers me, why should I lose an hour+ of MY day because some people like the feeling of others around them. I don't get that time back, I don't get the money for the wear and tear on my vehicle, all so someone feels warm and cozy, unrelated to the actual productivity of the work.
Employers love to treat employees as numbers, but when employees say "Hey I'm a number, look at my productivity, don't make me participate in these rituals", people act like its childish.
I don't owe anything to my employer, because they don't owe me anything except the legal compensation for the work.
If professional managers with the power of economic incentives behind them can't match that with a remote team, holy fuck, they're terrible at their jobs, literally providing negative value.
There are clearly preferences for both styles. Choose the style you want and work at a place that can accommodate. No need to force everything to be one way or another. Why is that such a hard concept?
In an office probably works fine too, sure, but I don't think remote needs to prove anything, in the software world. It's proven. It's very proven. Managers that can't do better than some developers self-organizing online, with the same or better tools and a budget, must be pretty bad at what they do. I'm not making the point that some of them evidently find that incredibly difficult and even impossible, they are, which seems to me like telling on themselves. Guess they're bad at their job, should let a developer do it. It's pretty clearly not rocket science or something that requires some kind of expert, since it keeps being done over and over by people who aren't professional managers. Seems to just require someone halfway competent.
So if a company says, "we prefer a hybrid work model", then shouting out "but look fully remote projects can work as is evidenced by all these successful ones" simply doesn't matter.
My comment (that you were responding to) was explaining that apparently there are leaders who have seen a difference in product quality, velocity, collaboration, team morale, what have you, between fully remote and pre-covid in-office work styles. Presumably they believe that bringing people together is best for their company/product/team. You simply can't argue with that, at least not generally, since it's a valid viewpoint.
Rhetorically the existence of anecdotes to the contrary does not invalidate an argument/position/viewpoint.
There are valid anecdotes from people being more productive working remote. And there are valid anecdotes from people feeling like remote work has take a toll on their mental health and productivity and ability to collaboratively solve problems. And there are valid anecdotes from people who feel like a balanced hybrid model is exactly what they need. And there's even data that shows hybrid and remote work does improve productivity.
The only opinion I've state as fact is the observation that there does not seem to be one perfect solution for every person and situation and team out there. The only opinion I've truly state is that people should consider compromising on their work requirements because it's silly to rehash an unresolvable argument about which work style is the ultimate global best, ad nauseam.
If I were in charge of this topic at a large company, I do believe this is one of those "every scenario is a bit different" situations and I'd advise managers to work with their teams to make the right call. But I'm not so who cares.
Arguably you do, but there’s evidently a disagreement on the value.
The places that I and my friends worked at pre-pandemic were already like this. Meetings were held via videoconferencing even though everyone was in the office, people mostly interacted with each via chat and email, etc.
The only thing 1 day a week RTO kills is the “work from Bozeman” camp, which affords zero to people who want to collab in person.
You missed the "to live wherever the fuck I want" part that it absolutely kills...
No I didn't. That's called a remote job not WFH. If work from wherever the fuck I want is important to you then go work for a remote company or convince the one you work at that your roll can be performed remote, from wherever the fuck you want. Nobody is arguing against that.
That's the thing, it shouldn't be left up to the companies to be remote or not.
It should be a conversation between you and your company. Employment is a two way street.
It should be an available option enforced by law.
Did you think my suggestion meant that e.g. waiters and sailors would also work from home?
>You clearly haven't given a fraction of a second’s thought to this topic
Oh, the irony!
Anyway... you're deeply gravely missing the entire nuance: management/leadership at Google is arguing that "the job" of a general employee expected to be a collaborative team member can't be done completely remotely to a quality level or at a velocity that is acceptable for their business. Sure there are exceptions that the business decides are okay, like that ops guy working 3rd shift from Seychelles who isn't building product and closes all his incidents in an acceptable time window that meets SLAs, he's allowed. But they are exceptions, not the rule.
The law doesn't just handle objectively measurable things. It's not a computer algorithm, and it has to apply to society, where things are not always black and white. So, the law has differentiated such things since the dawn of man, it's nothing new. Examples of such cases would be obscenity laws, defamation laws, fair use judgements, personal/psychological damage compensation, etc, where there are general legal guidelines and court/jury judgment if further required. There are tons of other such examples in all legal domains.
>You've got to be kidding me if you think the law can tell a business whether an employee can perform their duties remotely or not... LOL I'm trying to even imagine the wording... please provide some example prose.
The juvenile "LOL" approach isn't very conducive to proper conversation. Just saying.
In any case, the law could give general guidelines, and also list some unambiguous remote-capable job roles, and the rest could be left to per industry evaluation, and, if it comes to that, case law.
"In order to promote workplace flexibility and adaptability in the modern economy, this law establishes a distinction between remote-capable jobs and location-dependent jobs. Remote-capable jobs are those positions that can be performed effectively and efficiently without the physical presence of the employee at a specific worksite. Such jobs may include roles in software development, content creation, customer service, and other knowledge-based occupations. On the other hand, location-dependent jobs are those roles that necessitate the employee's physical presence at a designated workplace due to the nature of the tasks involved, such as healthcare professionals, emergency responders, construction workers, and other hands-on occupations. Employers shall assess job functions and determine the suitability of remote work based on factors such as operational requirements, employee productivity, and the preservation of essential services. This law aims to facilitate remote work opportunities while ensuring that critical functions requiring local presence are duly addressed."
>management/leadership at Google is arguing that "the job" of a general employee expected to be a collaborative team member can't be done completely remotely to a quality level or at a velocity that is acceptable for their business.
They can argue whatever they want.
If employers were left on their own devices they'd also argue that people should work 12 hours a day, that paid overtime is detrimental to their business, that child labour is fine, that their business don't need to provide safety standards and work accidents should be pinned into the workers being "careless", that they don't need to hire women in executive roles because they're less competent and have impaired judgment "once a month", and a whole lot more.
In fact, they have argued, and practiced all of the above, before labour laws (that they fought against vehemently), had them begrudgingly accept them.
What is "acceptable for their business", based on their own judgement, shouldn't constrain what is accetaptable or even best practice for society, the environment, and so on.