They give you the least they can possibly get away with.
Sure - some small subset of employers competing for the best employees will do this. But the average employer? I'm skeptical.
Employees are literally willing to pay employers to stay at home. The middle manager who is awful at their job and so insecure they need to "see employees working" is costing the business not just in talent acquisition but when pulling in the dregs they're paying a premium for it. The center cannot hold.
The center isn't just insecure managers. Plenty of people want to work together... together. I happen to run my team remote, but to reduce a real issue to insecurity is to starve the conversation of meaningful contributions.
What makes you think upper management in public companies isn't mos interested in self-preservation also?
The idea that upper management is some benevolent and wise dictator while middle management is a different class of incompetent morons is strange.
They're cut from the same cloth.
There's only so much upper management can do to set incentives (Goodhart's law) without micromanaging the middle managers.
Indeed, middle management is the plight of modern civilization. They'll probably get replaced by AI soon enough.
How many people do you think a VP-Eng or CTO can manage and still do the rest of the job?
So, I think we'll see 5 middle managers replaced by 1 or 2 middle managers + AI. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.
Directors are often the group that is doing all the work nobody else is assigned. This goes from scheduling off-sites to preparing for audits to determining who handles unscheduled work that doesn't neatly fit into any one team. Directors are responsible for coaching engineering managers and are the backstop for problems outside the skill level of the eng manager.
They also handle project management because in smaller organizations, those positions have already been condensed.
Now, I think there's an alternative. You could hire an executive assistant that offloads some of what directors do. You could have a project manager or two handle all the projects across the portfolio for medium sized orgs - you're likely looking at 1.5 project managers for a director salary. (I think there is a place for AI there, but I actually think we have a better algorithm with Monte Carlo simulation.) You could have non-directors doing 85% of what a director does today, but you're still hiring high-skill people.
But if AI could replace a director then so could an EM. An EM can write a weekly status better than an AI and if a VP-Eng could rely on that, directors would have been replaced long ago.
I don't think people do, but the issue is that they lack the bargaining power to do anything about it.
A tech worker making 6 figures? They aren't going to pushed around as easily as someone who is living paycheck to paycheck just for rent. they can forget to empathize for those who literally are chained to a job.
And employees should take the most they can possibly get away with.
When an employee doesn't behave like that, he is acting against his own interests.
It's a big deterrent IMO especially compared to Spain where healthcare is free
The working class, low class, and middle class are all tax cattle. We have to take ostensibly dangerous commutes on highways with people too tired/too rushed/too busy to care. We have to eat inside of a certain timeframe, respond chipper no matter the circumstances, and when they're done with us they just let us go in a "right-sizing". We are subject to panopticon levels of surveillance with open offices, late nights because you don't want to appear to be the guy leaving early, etc. If you're lucky you get a few dozen hours a week with your family, maybe have some hobbies.
Cattle, imo, actually have it better because at least Farmer John drives them to work and they eat for free.
The Cxx's are always so chipper about coming into the office because they make, on average, 20x more than than the engineers doing actual work, and they can work from home/beach/yacht as they please.
Employers would be wise to treat employees with what they want. WFH is a net savings for them unless they're locked into 20 year leases. Many companies happen to get their lease through their VCs so it explains entirely why they are so keen on coming back to office. Employees will just leave to companies still offering remote. The problem for the employers who refuse to change? In a "fully" employed recession wages will not match the environment. If they cannot make up for lost wages with benefits like remote, paid healthcare, 401k match, etc they will die because without tax cattle, they are nothing.
This was simply the cattle waking up and realizing that they are the ones with the actual power. Any power a CEO claims to have is simply voodoo. The issue is employees still don't see this. Even without a union having enough people just walk out because the company doesnt respect them will crush the company. Rightly so.
This. While unionisation and labor organisation in general are a good thing for the workers, just people deciding they have had enough and finding a better employer (and maybe pulling out a couple of colleagues via referrals) is going to hurt companies.
it's a prisoner's dilemma, and the risk for a minimum wage worker walking out when it's not enough people is the worst case. they get fired, nothing changes, and it may even discourage others from trying.
You can only walk when you either have a next step or the result makes no difference. Many don't have that step and it's not QUITE so dire that food stamps are better than working. It's getting close, though.
Yup, and now that employees have had a taste of freedom from that, they are very resistant to returning to that. Why is that hard to grasp for companies?
Absolutely, but that line has shifted majorly. To the point where it won't make sense for "average" employers to even try to bring people into the office. I'm not going to sink money into gas or public transportation just to be imprisoned in a meeting room when I could just take the call at home from the porch, a treadmill, or a couch.
You're obviously not an average employee then.
I don't get where you are coming from.