- cross-posted to:
- nottheonion@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- nottheonion@lemmy.world
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Yeah but we wanted to work from home not hybrid bullshit. This story is pandering like we won but they are still forcing me to go to an office every week for no good reason. This is just propaganda. The whole conversation in the thread has even shifted from talking about working at home full time to hybrid being ok. Insane
I don’t know why you think that’s all propaganda, i personally like hybrid work a lot more as well. I like my office, i like being able to go for a coffee with my colleagues and so on. I do like working from home as well - but i’m totally okay with being 1-2 days in the office. However, we do have people working 90% from home - they have to come in to the office though for various things they have to do. Printing large format plans, etc, etc. You can’t just assume 100% home full time works for everyone and shift the goalpost.
I think it should be a choice not 100% at all. I’m personally upset because I was told it was ok to be fully remote so I adjusted my life then once it wasn’t convenient for my company anymore they changed the rules on me and everyone else and gaslighted us all about the real reason.
Going to the office once a week is one thing the Indian guys can’t do. Love it don’t fight it, unless you have a workable solution to end capitalism or globalism.
Going to the office once a week is one thing the Indian guys can’t do. Love it don’t fight it, unless you have a workable solution to end capitalism or globalism.
Going to the office once a week is one thing the Indian guys can’t do. Love it don’t fight it, unless you have a workable solution to end capitalism or globalism.
I offered to work from home yesterday because I have bronchitis and no voice, so I told my manager it was that or I go off sick and stay there until I deem I feel better, that half a loaf was better than none, and she said “well I don’t want to set a precedent”, so I told her that I was sick then and won’t be back until I feel better. I’m the only one who can do my job, so she’s right fucked. She’s like an alien wearing a skin suit trying to pretend to human.
I’ve had a personal policy of not working from home when I’m sick, even before the pan. I want solid recovery time because experience has taught me that doing anything else just keeps me sick longer. Take all the time you need, even if you only need it a little bit but could otherwise power through. She put herself and you in this situation. Reap all the recovery time needed to return at 100%.
She has understaffed us to a criminal degree all because she gets a bonus if she comes in under budget. You are correct, I will take all the time I need. I had to go to urgent care last night for a nebulizer so I’m definitely still not well, it’s actually resolving pneumonia it turns out.
Seems like she did set a precedent anyways haha just a worse one than before
The manager doesn’t get to make the decision. She’s probably going to have to go argue with her manager that also likely has no control. Stand your ground, they don’t want to fight on this hill. -source, a people manager of hybrid teams at a company that insisted on on-site.
“I don’t want anyone to realize they can work just as effectively from home. Sure it saves them gas and commute time, but it just doesn’t pump my ego if I cannot micromanage in person.”
Precisely. So she shot herself in the foot and I had a day to recover. I might call off Monday too.
You should
I’m at urgent care right now actually to try to get some better puffers or a nebulizer or something. I might just.
In other news…
“we lied and tried to force RTO because we wanted people to quit so we could avoid the bad-press of layoffs. They didn’t quit, we had to do layoffs to keep the stock price up because as a ceo I’m paid in shares. We’re done the layoffs for now and we enjoy skipping out on rent for office space.”
There are a lot of great ones in here, but there’s another perspective I think should be added. For a long time, employees have been commoditized. We’re resources. Interchangeable. And that gives companies tremendous power.
WFH puts us on more even footing. There are entire cities supported by a single industry or even company. Now we aren’t limited geographically in who we can work for. If you’re toxic to work for, we can leave. It saps the power of the leadership to say “my way or the highway.”
I don’t think this is the secret underlying reason. I agree it’s real estate values that are mainly driving it, but I think this is absolutely part of it. Toxic leaders (and every company has them) are finding people are less willing to tolerate their bullshit because they aren’t over a barrel to the same degree. Still need universal healthcare to really break their back.
Yeah for quite some time I have been saying labor is priced artificially low. All of the barriers to finding a new job while working. All the risks of even short-term unemployment. Workers are already fucked by the power imbalance but without any liquidity in the labor market it’s so much worse. WFH adds liquidity, they hate it.
ITT people with drastically different ideas of what hybrid is.
Why do I feel like the next phase of this is changing the expectations of hybrid to be more like “9 in the office, 1 day from home”
There’s always a push, we just need to push back harder.
It seems like they pushed and there was nothing there to push because everyone had left. This is a case where the worker had options and it’s nice to see them use that to their advantage and encourage changes.
the place I work has tried RTO policies several times now - with very limited success. well over 90% of all white collar jobs can be done from wherever you can get internet so your VPN software will function. the customer facing part of the business has to be there 100% of the time, they dont have a choice, that’s how the business model is designed. I go in a few days a week but honestly dont ever actually need to be there. maybe 2 days a month, tops, is my presence absolutely required.
the really interesting bit, which the article didnt touch on (not much of an article to begin with) is that there is a commercial real-estate bubble. the big buildings in the downtown business district/cores of most cities, that real-estate isnt worth much if there’s no one renting the space. businesses that used to rent the space no longer need to because all of their employees work from home now. the people who invested in those big buildings are not seeing a return on their investments - and they are unhappy. that is, imho, a big driver behind the RTO movement.
the people who invested in those big buildings are not seeing a return on their investments - and they are unhappy. that is, imho, a big driver behind the RTO movement.
And those people are largely of the same class as the corporate executives and shareholders pushing RTO policies which ties a nice little bow on top of the whole situation. Rich people are losing money when employees work from home and so WFH has to go.
Given the housing crisis, it only makes sense to convert that real estate into residential units.
Those two are not as related as they at first seem.
For one, the plumbing required is different, as in literally offices don’t tend to have bathrooms with toilets and showers inside every office space. Also the lighting would be cut off for all the inside units. Communal bathrooms and no windows works for work but not as good for home.
For another, a lot of the varying housing crises (there are multiple types) relate to affordability bc of being bought up by corporate interests. Another type relates to weird zoning laws of what types of homes are allowed to be built in certain areas - and for these at least, there’s nothing stopping good homes from being made except again profits.
So it’s not impossible, but there are challenges. Mainly, how can already rich people find a way to make even moar monay? Oh yeah and something something the poors get whatever too.
Those residential units will be worthless too if all the offices close. Why live in the big city and pay huge rents if you work remote? Just move to a cheap area and buy a nice house.
Those huge rents exist because demand exceeds supply (amongst other reasons). People want to live in walkable neighborhoods and not suburbs where you have to drive everywhere to survive.
Our company is doing the opposite and forcing everyone to RTW 5-days a week. Can’t wait for the exodus and the “I told you so”
I worked hybrid 18 at home, 22 at the office and it sucked.
It showed me three things:
• It showed me that I was far more productive when I was at home and I was comfortable and not distracted.
• It showed me that I was coming into the office for absolutely no logical reason (even while there, all discussion was via Slack and Zoom).
• It showed me that the company’s leadership was incompetent.
This wasn’t even a ‘we paid for the space, we have to use it’ issue. This was an office job at a light industrial facility where no one had to be in the office. If they didn’t have us come in, they could have knocked down the office area and put in another line or two. Just incompetence.
My wife works in a large suburban office park off a major highway. The company designs hardware so obviously they have people in the workshop on-site etc, but you could remove three of their office buildings and keep those people at home. She also flies out from the east coast to the west coast twice a year just to sit in a conference room for two days straight… it’s like no one has ever heard of Zoom.
I’ve been working from home for nearly a decade and a half now. It has enabled me to keep my job after moving halfway across the country. I have dinner ready when the wife and kids get home, the laundry done, and can go for a jog at the local park for a few laps when I want to and yet I still get shit done and do a great job.
It just absolutely baffles me that CEOs aren’t chomping at the bit to downsize their office space footprints, get off those leases or sell off their properties, and let everyone work from home.
Defeated? Wasn’t the aim full WFH?
Hybrid is a compromise that makes no sense to either party. The company still has to maintain an expensive office while being limited to the talent pool within commutable distance. The employee still has to waste countless (albeit fewer) hours travelling while being limited to job opportunities within ~20 miles of their residence.
Hybrid is always worse than either fully remote or fully in office. You end up with people coming into the office and sitting on Zoom or posting on Slack, and people at home missing out on conversations that don’t happen there. So you have to do twice as much work to keep everybody on the same page.
For perspective, I was 100% WFH for about 10 years. A couple of years ago I got a new job (huge compensation boost, and massive perks boost).
Lucky for me, which was one of the reasons I looked into it, my work is a 15 minute bike from where I live, they offer free breakfast and lunch every day, and a gym. So there are plenty of personal incentives for me to go into the office.
But what I find so surprising is that virtually everyone in my office thinks that hybrid is the best for productivity. Literally every person I’ve talked to about this agrees (quietly, of course, they don’t want to lose it) that the spontaneous meetings, the overhearing what other people are talking about (and jumping in with your own knowledge), the ability to quickly turn around and chat with another person, makes collaboration, and by extension productivity, way higher.
My biggest thing is that, as a senior software dev, the junior devs come to me for help quite frequently. When we’re in the office, I would say the average is about 3 times a day. When one or both of us is WFH, it probably doesn’t even average to one. There is something about sending a message or an email or requesting a zoom meeting that seems to be enough of a hurdle to ask what is a simple question. So they end up spinning their wheels a lot longer.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I get that WFH is a huge benefit to the employee. Which is why I did it for so long, with two young kids it was a god send to be home all the time if they needed to come because they were sick or if I needed to run out to the doctors with them. And, of course, commuting just absolutely blows (I think that’s the biggest drawback of any non-FWFH schedule). So I do support it.
However, I think we need to be realistic about its benefits. Companies want people back in the office because, generally speaking, people are more productive.
You realize that you’re experiencing massive selection bias right?
A) it’s not very socially acceptable to talk about how much you’d rather be at home with your cat than here talking with this colleague.
B) everyone you work with chose a hybrid job.
i.e. “People who choose to work a hybrid job think hybrid is better”
Or in your case, “people who get to go into a big tech office with free meals and gyms and laundry think it’s better to go into the office”.
Try working a hybrid job where you commute 45min each way, and still have to cook yourself three meals a day and then come back and tell us whether you think hybrid is really more productive. I spent a year at a MAANG firm as a contractor and got to go to their head campus near SF and thought ‘damn, if this was what working was like, I could more easily see myself going into the office’, then I returned to my home city and went to their office their and saw the stale muffins that were breakfast and remembered the whole rest of my career and what companies are like and returned to the real world.
Yes, I understand the hurdle in asking people questions, but quite frankly that is addressable through numerous ways from zoom office hours, to better team rituals and culture, to slack bots, occasional meetups, or just plain old fashioned pair programming… all methods that cost far less and cause far less disruption to people’s lives then forcing in them into an office 3 days a week.
And you know what else is more productive for a company? Having everyone working 60 hour weeks in the office all the time. Who. the. fuck. cares. We live in a world with literal billionaires. Working more doesn’t make the world a better place it enriches assholes who never learned how to share or be happy with what they have.
We have hybrid and it actually really works. We hire countrywide and if you don’t live near an office you are fully remote. But if you do live near an office you can go in anytime. I don’t like going to the office, but if I need to print or ship, or need to meet a client or coworker it’s nice to have the option. Also anytime I have an issue, I can pop in the office to check out new hardware, or work if my home is unsuitable due to whatever ( power outage, noisy maintenance, over 90 degrees since we don’t have AC, sick kid). However, I think hybrid only works if there is no minimum requirement on time in office. If it is at the teams discretion the home office becomes an amenity. We also downsized from something like 200 cubes to around sixty, so that helps too.
I think hybrid only works if there is no minimum requirement on time in office.
Then it’s not really hybrid, it’s actually fully WFH with the option to come in. Hybrid forces you to come in.
As someone who has WFH for the last 10 years, I do wish I could go into the office occasionally to have face to face meetings for large projects. Those are actually very useful for faster communication and effective for full understanding between groups in a way that video calls just can’t do. We are, after all, social animals and there is something about breathing the same air that can’t be beat.
I’ve worked from home for the past 10 years as well, and the face to face meetings don’t do anything for me, personally. With a job done entirely on a computer, I can’t think of anything that works better in person.
Can i ask what job/position you have? Im trying to learn more about people who dont see the need for in person meetings. Was wondering if it maybe had to do with their job or how they approach a problem
I’m a programmer.
Would you believe me if i said that it makes perfect sense in my head then? I’m a team lead/tech coach and senior dev. Ive seen people develop better at home because otherwise they get distracted by god knows what at the office and for them id tell them to wfh as much as they want, for al long as they need.
Personally, i have too much distractions at home to prevent me from developing and at the office i feel some mental force making me focus at work.
Both are a-ok though!As for things that work better in person : as a team lead i try to read body and room language during some meetings with my team ( most i dont, just a few ) and that is easier in person for me. But that shouldnt stop anyone unless its like, once in a blue moon. As soon as its not that rare, its hybrid with limitations and people like yourself are no longer as comfortable as they could be!
Hybrid does make sense. There are people who work better in an office ( like myself ) and there are people who are better working from home ( like my coworker ). The company i work for believes hybrid is the way to go so that you can supply an office for people like me, but also hire people who work remotely. However, nobody is saying you need to have an office that can house 100% of you employees. 60% is good enough as not everyone will be in the office at the same time. Money saved!
That said, some meetings are better to have in person so once in a while a required in person meeting is needed.
I believe in the words of my company : everyone, everywhere. And that includes an office or, which has happened, from working from spain, germany or thailand which are all remote locations in no way connected with the company. These were people who legit lived abroad or were looking after a vacation home of a friend
You mention 60% minimum, the second there’s a minimum then you can’t hire employees living far from an office or if you do you create two classes of employees.
Why should I RTO 60% of the time if they are ready to let others with the same job RTO 0% if the time? Just because I got unlucky and they happen to have an office less than X km away from where I live? How come I’m not allowed to move somewhere further away and get the same exemption then?
We call that discrimination and I’m not even getting into how it impacts women and POC more than white guys to have to RTO.
Re-read that post. They didn’t say 60% of the time they said office capacity should be 60% of the workforce at minimum.
You can make more coherent arguments arguing the actual words the other guy said.
Last time im going to comment at this, This will have no use to explain to you but hey, im going to try anyway.
No, the minimum is not set to force people to go the office. Its so people like myself, who work better in an office, to have a spot when needed. You are reading what you want, not what im saying.
Congratulations you just cut your available employee pool down to…local access again. Hybrid is pointless and a waste of space and resources for less.
No meetings require in person. Get a white board and a camera if you can’t do in person meetings. It’s 2024, not 1975.
No i didnt. You seem to have missed the spot where i said we hired and had people work remotely from completely different countries. I may have not mentioned the in person meetings are preferred in person, but can be done remotely was well by those that want to work remotely and not be in the office. However, some meetings have gravitas to them and are preferred in person. And im not talking about once a week or w/e. It all depends on the team workflow, type of job etc etc.
Ive worked on projects that were 100% remote that ended well, but was working on a project recently that was going so bad that a (preferred) in person meeting was requested because a full day of body language reading while discussions were ongoing, was required. If a person lived far away ( which wasnt the case here ) then that wouldve been totally fine ! They couldve attended the meeting remotely ! I planned the meeting as a teams meeting incase somebody wanted to work from home, and had planned a small meeting room for those that didnt.
I didnt shoot myself in the foot, im saying a hybrid workfloor is all about being flexible to anyone’s needs and every situation because nobody is the same and not everyone wants to be at the office 100%.
This is what i also believe. To quote the company’s slogan again : “everyone, everywhere”The issue with this is that most hybrid work plans end up being RTOs. They get used by the C levels to push for getting everyone back into the office. The majority of us work just fine remotely, the rest that can’t seem to get it, sure have an office, but it’ll eventually push to full remote. There’s to many positives for remote work that these companies are seeing now.
I can understand that frustration, and in those cases the c-suite is wrong and shouldnt push hybrid in an attempt to go back on wfh. Hell, those c-suite people should gtfo. I believe hybrid is the way but not for those reasons. I believe that because it benefits everyone and can get the best out of both, not because i want to kill wfh. Wfh is here to stay and should be encouraged if thats the way you work best!
Did we actually believe any of them at the time? I think they already knew that remote work was going to continue, and they were trying to get as much money out of the transition as possible.
One problem was that they had wasted real estate, and they had to justify it to shareholders. So they pretended that they were going to bring everyone back to the office.
If you think about it from a medium run perspective, of course employers are going to want more remote work because then they don’t have to pay for utilities or parking or rent or buildings. Of course this depends on the exact setup, but for many businesses it was clear from the beginning of the pandemic where things were going to go. And if we want to get even more cynical, we can point out that when your labor pool spans the country or even the world, you have a greater ability to underpay employees.
They want remote work so they can get the cheapest labor. Be on guard for average salaries to start dropping.
If you can do your job from home and your job can be taught under 5 years. Then 5 indians guys can do it together for 10 times less total than you cost. And that will be the case until what happenned to China happens to India, which should take roughly 40 years.
We found this to be NOT true. Half, at best. But wait.
So it’s 1/10 in its heyday, but when you pay someone 1/10th salary in a land of 1/50th salary, that person becomes a target. They look comparatively rich, their house gets repaired, their kids show the signs of an economic bump, etc. So now your guy can get robbed or kidnapped, so you need a driver and protection. And the kids need to go to a different school with a gate. And the spouse needs to get back and forth safely. And then a better house, moving to a gated community or apartment, with more guards. And suddenly you’re paying for company housing, schooling, cars, drivers, tutors, guards, cameras/surveillance, cooks, maids, deliveries, and even extended family is moving in for safety.
So it’s still a bargain on paper, but then it’s just half. They don’t mention this because it’s hard to sell an idea when 80% of it is eroded.
Your employee or team now works on the other side of the world, with a different culture and management style from what you’re used to with Americans, different communications and workflow, and everything’s still around the world so it’s a day’s delay for everything.
The culture and work environment has trained some regions to NEVER admit they don’t know something; just nod, smile, and try to figure it out with confidence. Dunning-kruger be damned, sometimes that’s not a good way to do something in my field, which is incredibly technical. We can’t even educate the locals on risks of bad supply chains (curl|sh anyone? Flatpacks and CPAN and NPM and composer? Find out why these are risks) and doing so with the different “never say you don’t understand or you’re fired” environment is an added challenge. “Did you check for compliance?” will only ever get a “Yes”, even if you don’t mention which standard.
So your management - especially in offshores - needs an entirely different mindset and workflow, and you need to have people to check on the compliance and readiness and completeness who will say when it’s not ready because they’re not gonna be fired for it. This kind of thing surprised us and it will surprise the "I just wanna save money and this guy said 1/10th! " crowd. It’s not “you get what you pay for”, so don’t misunderstand; it’s just different. And if you can cope with all the differences and don’t freak out that you’re not saving so much for same-same work, it’s … an idea. In my case, the offshored staff slowly shrunk until we moved the offshoring to Poland.
defeated broke millennial more disaffected for not being able to get past article paywall :(
btw, this here is a very nice extension called web archives
As it should be. Hybrid is the correct answer. Not full time RTO, not full time at home, Hybrid. The negotiation is in how hybrid should look, and will vary from situation to situation
I have a real problem with hybrid for roles that don’t require an in-office presence because it arbitrarily region locks a role.
Hybrid is the worst of both worlds, you don’t meet your collegues when you’re at the office because they choose to be in on a different day, and you can’t live where ever in a similar timezone because you still need to be able to get to the office in a reasonable time.
There’s no one single “correct answer.” There are plenty of jobs where full time at home is just fine.
Hybrid is the worst of both worlds. You have to maintain an at-home office AND the office that is largely empty.
