It Is Time to End the War on Remote Work
usnews.com
usnews.com
1. Real Estate Loss: These companies have leased a lot of real estate. They can renege and save a lot of money long term. But in short term, they have to pay severance price ---> Less profits ---> Shares drop ---> CEO under pressure.
2. Bosses love Office: If you have a job with corner office, job is ordering people and want to show off your new porsche (since you're richer), can't do it at home.
3. RTO triggered attrition: Market is in a bad shape, companies need to fire people. But layoffs generally signal the market that the company is no longer growing. RTO acts as a proxy for layoffs.
4. Incentive based compensation: if you put "Employee of the month" on a wall , you can get away with paying x% less to the same employee. Similar effect doesn't occur with over-the-internet recognition.
5. Locking People in: A remote employee can jump companies in a matter of few clicks. For office based companies, you have to move house/cities and deal with a new commute.
GBH is 1/2 way through a podcast about Boston's Big Dig, which started while Tip was Speaker, and resulted in an enormous tunnel named after the man who shepherded its funding through Congress. It's a great listen, and, so far, is abundant evidence that all politics is, indeed, local. Thanks for the tip, Tip!
I can switch companies and basically get same or higher pay. For the company that I leave, they have to invest in hiring and retrain some other developer, that won't be as productive as me in the first few months.
So basically, me switching jobs costs me nothing. For the company that loses me, and the company that gains me, they both have an associated cost.
Why do I have this power? Well, at least in Europe there is a huge shortage on software developers, so that puts us in a very strong position.
Don't wrongly assume that an employer is always in the stronger position.
If you're in US and want to move closer to a system as we have in EU, I get that.
It just seems to me that a lot of times, people get stuck in this boss vs servant mentality. That companies are these groups of people that control everything. I find it a very wrong view of the world. In the western world it's so easy to become your own boss, and even employ people if you wish. All of a sudden you are part of this group that "controls everything".
Plenty of people are not 'school smart' like software developers, but still start some contracting business and make nice money.
It's not quite that simple (it never is). That will crash the real estate market, which will affect the value of lots of investments, like, say, the savings of all of the employees of the company (and of course the other investments of the stakeholders of the company).
I have definitely seen companies cut their losses before. If you remove all these points and only keep 1, most companies would shift to remote regardless of their real estate.
- for a general perspective remote work means we have no tangible reasons anymore to live in dense areas, where services reign, that's means braking the push toward "you'll own nothing" because people rediscover the value of owning a home, tools etc instead of live to work just to pay services;
- in-office means being geographically bound, having some friends and so on, so being a bit more tied to a company than a remote worker, who is actually like an external contractors. If you work from remote switching from a company to another means no "office" or "physical" change, you just change few URLs, projects but the rest will be the same.
These two are IMVHO the most tangible and generally ignored things. Did you imaging an Uber service in a vast spread are where anyone have a car and a garage, no parking problems at all? Did you imaging Just Eat in such are? Public transportation? Ready-made food? MOST of such business became meaningless. People living at home love to have a nice home, party at home, not much going to the new shopping center, going in nature (witch is so far free) instead of going spending some money downtown and so on. This economical model it's not much different than the classic Keynes joke about digging a hole now, fill it tomorrow, re-dig it tomorrow after BUT for those who profit from such business means big money.
Instead I suspect that there's immense political pressure to bring warm bodies to offices because the waste of resources is load bearing for the macro economy. It's a paradox of thrift situation: if we actually become efficient then a lot of people are going to need to take a substantial writedown. These people aren't going to take that writedown without putting up a fight.
But on top of that, going into the office and talking to real people and building relationships is going to result in you wanting to stay with the company for longer. This is what I like about going into the office. I don’t know if I work any more effectively, but I do like getting lunch with people and just hanging out, and I do feel a greater attachment to the team as a result. If I were totally remote, I surely would just be working for the highest bidder.
Avoid IRL meetings, even if the other person is sitting 5 meters away, why? because productivity measuring software gets no data points if you meet IRL, you are instead measured as AFK. If you VC, the productivity software measures your attendance, how much time you spent talking versus others, is your video on, your adherence to the calls schedule, and depending on the VC software, it can even analyze the transcript and decide if your input / the entire meeting was valuable. Managers can get an aggregate roll up of all this data and great insights into which departments, team members an individual most interacted with... it goes on and on.
At most mega corps you may not be informed yet, but you are already living in a corporate Orwellian dystopia.
In all your corporate comms, on chat or on VC, Make no jokes, speak no niceties reduce small talk, use positive words but not too much, since the machine is bad at understanding, humor, cynicism or sarcasm. Don't ramble, the machine is good at boiling down emotional or spirited ramblings about directions are very bad, they are boiled down to, "not a fit".
This is a major reason employees are dissatisfied with employers: current employees aren't paid market rates.
Are you saying the market isn't paying market rates?
> Are you saying the market isn't paying market rates?
You have to keep re-entering the market to get market rates.
My SO employer made survey and most employees answered they would leave if RTO is implemented.
They cannot afford loosing experienced people and it is medium size company like up to 500 people.
There isn't good data in either direction, and I doubt there will be, ever - but that's a poor reason to not be opinionated about something. There's limited and conflicting data on whether static vs. dynamic programming languages are more productive, but plenty of people on this site have very strong opinions on that. Remote work is no different.
It is time to stop complaining one way or the other and let people and markets vote with their feet and dollars.
I’m working 2 days per week from home for focus time. But nothing beats the bandwidth of face 2 face communication.
The hybrid option works well for me. But I’m glad we have days that most people are in the office.
It also depends. Im working at a startup. That’s a different environment that a multinational org.
Same discussion as with dynamic vs static: it depends.
The word "control" comes from "controlling confounding factors except for the factor being studied", which is definitely not the case when comparing COVID era work to pre COVID work.
It really is a shame. I'm seeing longtime high-performing coworkers leave because we've returned to the office, and they don't want to spend 2 hours commuting for 3 days of the week...
plus
> Many in the C-suite are frustrated that their office space is underused
plus
> Most leaders achieved their position while working in an office and therefore want to maintain the playing field on which they succeeded
all of which might be true to varying degrees. But what is the role of institutional owners who also have massive investments in downtown office spaces and commercial properties, investments that are now slowly eroded because of remote? I would assume they are applying some pressure through the boards?
I have no proof ATM though. But it would be expected. But futile in the long run, the shift to remote has taken place already.
The problem is, I think the conviction to do this is relatively weak. They’re fine to do it with existing leased or bought office space because it’s mostly a sunk cost and just a matter of prodding their workers into compliance (in an employers’ market, thanks Fed), but most aren’t really willing to scoop these 60-70% discounted empty office spaces off the market. So we may end up with a banking crisis anyway, as word on the street is these huge losses in valuation threaten to blow up a lot of regional banks.
Global central bank balance sheets since 2008 already tells the direction that it, when an crisis eventually unfolds, will go...
Heaven forbid any of these workers in these contested rto corps have exposure to non central/private bank monetary systems... going to make that "war" more complicated for them...
Hard to say if it's true and to what degree but these guys need to adapt. There is enormous demand for more buildings - but they do not necessarily have to be offices. Most funds prefer commercial real estate because it's easier to deal with but I don't think they have any chance against the market, they will have to adapt.
At the same time we don't have budget for me to regularly meet the team in person, so here we are with RTO making us more productive.
Before RTO I'd head in regularly for meetings or just to catch up, but the 2-3 days at home really meant I could get work done in peace and spend less for transport, food, etc. and get other things done without rushing.
I'm quite sure we'll see companies with a more reasonable approach both get more talent and make them more productive.
Policies like this aren’t good for productivity or retention though and I don’t see this being the long-term path for successful companies.
So in the end, you have as much of a say in it as the companies that try to hire and retain people.
I never enjoyed going into an office especially once they converted our floor to be more open.
I also think hybrid could be an option for those who like going to an office each day. But, it shouldn't be mandatory. Businesses mandating RTO are waging a losing battle.
Great post, OP!
I am not happy about it, but I will come into work when you make me. Just do not pretend it is about making me more productive. I am an IC, my job is to keep my head down and think. I do that best when I have walls and silence.
Going from an open office to a private office was really life changing for me. All of a sudden I had energy and focus left over after work to do things like exercise, develop friendships, learn new skills, etc. Perhaps with offices less full, more people will experience this.
Now if you can force them to come to the office, then you might give some of them a treat of working from home say one day a week. They will have to try to please you or you might take such privilege away.
It sounds crazy but I assume based on some experience that there are many people who simply enjoy being able to boss other people around, to make others please you.
Many managers simply desire power over others because it gives them a real or perceived benefit. It may not be good for the company, but it can be good for the boss.
From another perspective, you only have your job because remote work makes it possible. You need some separate social interaction to fill a felt gap.
I work remote from the rest of my team, but in my case it's just living in a different European country. The time zone is the same. I feel connected with them just fine.
Usually when talking about very specific scenarios, reasonable people on both sides will agree on the same solution. For one side it will be "obviously" while for the other - "a special case".
This pattern is present in so many topics.
You are not important unless there is an audience.
This is my current theory.
A lot of work, even as a programmer, is about collaboration. Between different engineers, designers, product people, etc. Doing that over a call sucks and is emotionally draining. Doing that with 3 people in a room feels much better. If I'm working I want to do my best work. That doesn't just mean writing good code and keeping services online. It means knowing what everyone on the team thinks.
Maybe this comes down to how you view work. Is it just a way to get paid? If so - getting together in person needlessly complicates your life. For me work is an opportunity to hone my skills and produce something worth using.
Remote can be a huge asset to some companies. I interviewed with render.com for example - and they're mostly remote. Keeping a PaaS online with customers around the world requires you to have good time zone coverage. You can't do that with everyone in a San Francisco office.
Edit: This is very reminiscent of being back in school. I, mostly, liked going to school. I'm not going to force myself into nearly as many learning opportunities when given free time. Sure I'll occasionally pick up a small project, a new hobby, but the amount I get into my brain is far less. And I do have lots of free time. Even when I was in school, even when employed. But working forces me into a better state (not the global max by any means, but more optimal for sure). I feel well paid, live comfortably, and don't work too hard or for too many hours. 30-35 per week is ideal.