I was remote during covid, then experienced mandatory return to office. The thing is, my workload had increased 250% during the remote time due to other staff leaving. I had been there 15 years and I was keeping the place going. Upon return to the office, the workload did not decrease - so I was already dealing with working very long days and most weekends, and then I had to add the 2-way commute back into my day - with no decrease in workload. I was so tired and burned out I was convinced I would have an accident or a health issue within months if not weeks. I left, got a local job 5 minutes from home and I have not looked back. I’m so much healthier and happier.
I was hired at a company that promised 100% remote, then pulled the RTO stunt. Can I prove the layoffs that came after targeted remote employees? No, but it sure didn't help.
@@victotronics Don’t know, don’t care. Haven’t - and won’t - look it up. They were big - but the numbers were declining YOY, so I assume the trend continues.
I have worked in tech for nearly 30 years. During the pandemic I realized I could learn a completely new topic, develop a POC in the cloud and implement it in days. Commute time, excessive coffee breaks, office interruptions- gone. Today I work fully remote. I never say no to a challenge and never look back 😊.
Right Dylan! I remember one of the best Developer would be asked in 2019 why he never worked in the Office (as a joke by a coworker). He was stunned: 'What do you mean?! I come only to the office for socializing, the real work happens at home. Do you think in can focus in this mess?'. Back then we took it as a smug joke of an arrogant man but after some experience --
I work almost fully remote (once in a blue moon i go to the office, mostly because im pressured to do so), and I have to agree with you. Every time I go to the office (4 hour total commute lol) I spend the day in either meetings or catching up with colleagues i dont meet with regularly on teams, I get nothing done and by the end of the day I'm totally exhausted from doing nothing. I think businesses and tech workers (the real ones, not the "day in the life of a software engineer at XYZ" proceeds to drink coffee all day and eat free snacks) have totally misaligned paths to reach a similar goal. I just want to get my work done, build cool stuff and learn. I dont want to waste time thats precious to me, in and out of work, on meaningless garbage just to keep the socialites happy and the shareholders happy to see their investment of either renting (or purchasing, but that doesnt happen much in my country) an office "return" something.
Yeah, and in the office you constantly have management people spontaneously adding and changing features. Homeoffice adds a border that ideally forces everyone to adhere to the process, write correct requirements, mockups, acceptance criteria.
I can’t think of a more distracting work environment than an open office concept which almost every company I worked for had. WFH allows me to focus on my work.
Do you remember those bleak grey bunks shown in movies from '90 as mind crushing environment (like in Matrix) ? What would you give for such luxury now, in hellscape of open office :D
I do not like working in the office. I hate greeting people in the morning, small office talk, using the public bathroom, the drive to work. Absolutely nothing I like.
I hate hearing people talk all day. I got 4 people around me that are on conference calls half the day. Makes it hard to concentrate on my work. I liked having a nice quiet home office, much more productive.
@@javaman2883 I hate people especially managers. so i resigned and started my own solo startups building plugins and website templates for shopify & word press..marketing via LinkedIn,medium ,blogs etc... Now i don't need to talk to anyone, I can do whatever i need in day time.
Working for a big tech company, i'd be happy to return to the office only if they didn't butcher office environment before. I always thought we couldn't go lower than open-spaces but i was wrong: Just before covid they replaced proper assigned desks, rooms and personalised areas by this disgusting open-space "flex office" with low end laptops just to optimise space allocation & costs: no team spirit, loss of spatial organisation, totally sterile environment each time you go there not to even see the people you're working with.
In my mind, management’s biggest fear is that by having remote teams, it will be visible that a lot of them fill bullshit positions. They just cannot have people working on their own, and not having to kiss their asses all of the time. Companies that pay for the employees time want to extract as much as they can from the workers. The fallacy is that sitting at the office for longer doesn’t make anyone more productive. It can force the opposite outcome, as people just become drained, and it doesn’t equal better outcome. If companies didn’t have to pay for imposing buildings and drag their employees across town every day, everyone would be able to conduct business far cheaper. Some people need to be around others, while others prefer to sit there alone without anyone bothering them while they work on a problem. If companies were serious about productivity, they would be taking that under consideration, not forcing a unified model down the workforce’s throat. In fact, the most productive workers are usually those who take the biggest hit by being interrupted by junior staff coming to them with what are quite often basic questions, to which they can find the answer by themselves. Performing as a top notch professional and at the same time training junior staff are to incompatible tasks if the management’s goal is to get genie level output from their elite programmers. These “creative” managing minds take forever to decide what they want, move the goal posts constantly, and can thus be the biggest factor in ruining the productivity of a team of programmers. The problem is, they don’t know any better. That’s how they were taught the world works, and they don’t seem to have either the brain of the stones to question the status quo. Even if they perceive that the system is wrong, by that time they have invested so much in that model, that they don’t want to go back to square one just to start doing things right. They want to cash in on all of the effort they put in getting this close to their goal. If all of a sudden it is perceived that teams can actually perform better without the people with the highest wages, and that worse of all, that they are not even needed, the entire game will change and they will be left looking at the butcher’s through the window. Some are competent, some aren’t, but that’s not the main point. They are happy to keep a broken model as long as it delivers what they expect out of it. Big fat pay checks for doing nothing else other than cracking the whip. A good programmer who leads a team towards results doesn’t give a shit about who is in the office or not. As long as people understand their role and deliver on time, the manager won’t give a toss about what they are doing at any given moment. Just as long as they can react to real emergencies, the rest is up to the individual. That’s why companies try to hire professionals, when they succeed they are micromanaged as if they were children, and things just tend to go south from there. The good ones end up leaving, while the ones the company should want to leave, end up staying. But, as long as management is happy…
I work in international company, where whole R&D is in one place, while the rest is elsewhere. Every single manager here, from top to bottom is also developer, experienced guys. Every time there is some meager request for office time from other part of company, its ignored thru entirety of structure - not a single one of these managers ever tried to force people into office - you described it perfectly. I mean if almost every meeting has to be online within multiple countries, its difficult to argue about office communication - but i still think the main reason is, that the useless layer of non-programmer management is missing here, thus nobody is trying to sabotage the work. Its a bliss compared to my previous experiences...
My company is 100% remote with people in different countries. When we started investors said the model won't work and they wanted us to have a US based office in some tech hub. All this does is increase expenses and decrease the available talent pool. 5 years on and we still don't have any offices, people work from where ever they choose. I get a lot more done with less people, I feel a lot better about work and our costs are lower. We use Meet for scheduled calls and slack for adhoc comms. We work different time zones so sometimes I have to work early or late to make a call but otherwise my days are mine to schedule as I like.
Coming back for what? Me and my GF work remote, when we have a child we can easily care for the child, start softly to work again. The child has a father who is there and can show him or her stuff instead of being away 10h a day. Even Non-Remote Workers benefit: Everyone who does not drives makes the streets emptier and saves resources.
I think that’s the real reason for RTO mandates. CEOs pretty much have to be extroverts. If they need to be around people to get their work done so must you.
I remember working in a office around a decade ago. I am good with it as my workday will then have a normal schedule 9-5. Come 5pm good luck reaching me until the following morning.
I used to commute 1 hr to work and 1 hr back. I never got to see my kids. They were always asleep when I got home. Tech companies don't care. They want you to live at work, your kids are your problem. This is why I draw the line at WFH. They want my soul but mine isn't for sale. I don't want to hear about your nanny, I raise my own kids, and I write better code than your "principal engineer."
It is of course not their problem, but sth. they cause. Most tech companies are in city centers where cost of living is incredibly high. Most people can’t shoot it especially when they have kids. Do you have two options, live close but with too little space to actually feel like you are living out move out a bit, but then you have to commute. Especially in tech funding an interesting job outside of city centers is rare.
My collaboration is off the chain now. I actually spoke about 3 sentences with my co-worker. It was about his recent vacation. Also some lady completely out of the blue said good morning to me. 11 months to retirement. Can't wait! Oh, and I got Covid for the first time because of RTO.
I saw this from a business insider YTer. It's a mass layoff, by forcing remote workers to either come into the office or get a new job. Layoffs look bad on a company's books, but not if their talent just leaves. Also, most companies lose money on business offices and their rent. It's a whole thing. If the office is not filled with employees, it cannot be written off on the taxes.
@@z352kdaf8324 Because people will also play the morality card and say they have no made it that X amount of "deadbeats" (as you so eloquently put it) cant provide an income anymore. However, I agree with you but I think those "deadbeats" are just posers regardless who spend their time making "day in the life" tiktoks and usually have 0 actual interest in the work but just want the benefits that come from it (from the big tech companies, not your average corporate or mom and pop shop)
Hybrid work is the ideal for me. After working from home for 3 years I began to feel disconnected from my colleagues. It also makes it easier to let someone go when you don't see them. I learned that when my team was all remote they slowly started letting our team go as we were not seen around the office and not as visible. With a hybrid you are seen and able to keep that visibility that IMHO is needed to make a difference. Out of sight out of mine. So when cuts happen it is easier to let people go you don't need to face to face every day.
This video is so jingle with the previous (Agile) video. I see the struggling of the managers during COVID: we're just do our jobs as usual without any disturbance at home, without unnecessary traveling for hours, actually more effective than in the office, but the managers are always asking us about how can they help, making meetings (even more than before). I feel they just want to prove their existence (there are many exceptions of course, but I hope you get the point).
The intent of the return to office push was mostly an attempt to increase attrition, rather than pay-out severance for lay-offs. The fact that the most capable staff - the ones with impressive work history and in-demand skills - were the ones to leave is an obvious consequence, but CEOs are rewarded for short-term improvements.
How can wasting 2 hours every day to get to and from work and being constantly interrupted by stupid conversations in the office being considered more productive?
@@AdolfoNeto From my experience, productivity is more efficient away from the office. In one company, for example, everyone got so efficient using slack and zoom, that physical meetings became much more of a pain.
The real estate costs can't be underestimated. For companies unwilling to cut off underutilized properties for various reasons (the just built/bought it, contract breaking penalties, srvices already paid for, etc), the only option left is to boost in office numbers to pre COVID levels. It's easy to say sell it off but try telling that to Tim Cook after Apple built Apple park😂
@@ciaranirvine Most of the new software startups launched since 2020 are fully remote, They can save tons of money by WFH and only need to take rental Virtual office with Post Box
Most of these CEOs likely to have a lot of their money into real estate marked. Without employees in the offices, demand on office spaces fall and price should follow. So, since they don't want to lose their personal money on that, it's likely better to rise office space demand back.
manager is a social construct as well as an actual role and its the hierarchical managers that are panicking about the decline of the office. When work went virtual the managerial status declined but managerial responsibilities remained. To adapt to the virtual environment managers need to be more transparent, build a trusting relationship with the workforce based on authenticity, vulnerability, empathy... but its easier for these hierarchical managers to go back to 'normal ' instead of building on soft skills
It’s likely more about commercial real estate valuations. Why have such an are office space if it is only being used 10%. Also, most managers are afraid they will be “found out” that they are not really needed to keep the show running…
Financial institutions own most of the offices. Their balance sheets are linked to the rents. Muni taxes are linked to the rents and valuation. The "rto" push comes from many very very powerful institutions.
If the work gets done promptly, whether they work from home or at the office should be irrelevant! It is more about power plays and ego! With all the trackers they put on their employee's equipment, it is not like they have no control! I also see how they are using this to prune and whittle down excess employees! It is always better for the company if they quit or resign!
The problem is companies have no idea what amount of work is good and what amount is people slacking off. So what happens is management says hey if I see your ass in a seat then I know you must be working. Of course this isn't true. But it makes management feel better.
The reality is that city and business centers suffer due to work from home. Less people in the office means less people eating expensive lunches at the surrounding bars and restaurants. Also means less happy hours as well. It kills the local economy. Imagine the economy of NYC with no daily commuters? We saw it during the pandemic and it was bad. That is a big reason behind the mandates. On the flip side work from home strengthens neighborhood businesses. And many saw a sharp increase during the pandemic. I think work from home is inevitable. We are maybe a couple years off from It being a cultural norm. But Pandora’s box has already been opened.
A major reason my employer cited for return-to-office was that they have long-term leases on their offices, and when the offices are empty, they somehow lose money versus when the offices are more in-use. I don't understand how the math/taxes/incentives/whatever work in this case, because they were very hand-wavy about it, but just wanted to add another excuse I've heard first hand. I'm sure some C-levels are also simply embarrassed that their big offices are ghost towns. I'm not saying any of this is reasonable justification.
My work gets better in the office, a major part of the car rental industry runs on my software. The reason I am better, and the application is better, is because I can walk over to another office and vent, brainstorm, discuss with coworkers... 25% of the time, I answer my own questions just by being able to talk outloud. - but I am a developer, not a robot coder. I dont get told to code something, I design and develop, so its a different paradigm. Sometimes I get stuck, I take a break and go help someone else to clear my head.
i designed and was a coder for 10 years at an in office setting for 10 years, i'd say if I was lucky i'd get a maximum of maybe 4 solid hours of work, the rest being distracted with useless in person meetings, people on lunch and smoke breaks prevented quick approvals, i'd say maybe 2-3 jobs finished a day... since being remote, same style jobs and coding I now average 7-10 jobs done a day an under high turn over days up to 18 projects can be accomplished, and i'm less stressed, save money on food, gas, travel time... when i was in office I was miserable person, and companies never really didnt do anything for employees coming to the office... work from home i'm in better health, production is up, and i can get more things done... companies wanting staff to come back into the office is basically a way to save middle and senior manager jobs micro managing people,
Amazon mandated 3 days a week RTO, and more recently have been moving towards 3 days in an office with the team you work with. This has lead to a lot of people changing teams within groups, some people being offered relocation, and others just being out of luck and having to find a new role.
I've always told my employees that I don't care about keeping the chairs warm. Pre-COVID, when we all had to be in the office, I'd tell them it was fine to get up and go for a walk (especially when frustrated, something about walking can spark creativity, they'd often come back with a new approach and certainly a better attitude). Being flexible about people needing to run a quick errand, or take a longer lunch, it all built morale. I only ever had one employee who took advantage and her performance was poor in other areas so easy enough to ease her out. Bottom line, treat employees like adults and you'll have adults working for you.
I've said it before. If companies want employees to return to the office to do a job which can be done remotely, they should include travel time in working hours and pay employees extra for transport costs . It's completely unfair that employees alone have to burn the extra time and costs of having to come into the office. Some people will spend several hours a day commuting and the current high petrol prices eat a huge portion of their salary.
I have been work from home for almost 10 years, literally since day 1 of my current job. Yes, it wasn't official, there was no document signoff, it just happened. My manager loved my work, so he just basically left me alone. During Covid, my manager retired. My new manager is not accepting the fact I have been work from home from day 1 and is attempting to get me to return to office now that Covid is over. I am a programmer. Programming is the type of job that can be done almost anywhere, requires little face to face interaction and isolation actually helps programmers focus. In either event, I am not going to willingly return to office or quit. I'm going to wait to be fired over it and get my severance on the way out the door.
I work way better from home because i am relaxed, i can scratch my nose, i can fart, i can eat etc....while at work you have to follow a certain conduit. When you are chill and relaxed you are more productive
if you have a reasonably repetitive job, or a predictable one, where you're simply processing documents, or responding to emails, etc., then being remote probably doesn't make that much of a difference. And since most meetings tend to be able to be an email, those meetings can't either be done on zoom or not at all. That being said, zoom isn't a replacement for in person interaction. If you get past the technical issues that people can experience, being able to have a conversation to connect with other employees and managers is increasingly difficult over the Internet. and remote workers should be very concerned about the confluence of work from home and artificial intelligence. Out of sight out of mind, if somebody doesn't think of you as a person, they are going to be far more likely to be willing to replace you with an an automated system. And if your job happens to be one of those that is predictable enough that you don't need to interact with other people very often, then there's a good chance that you're a good candidate for replacement with an automated system. Machine learning systems are not good enough yet, but they have been improving significantly recently. Thus, it is tempting to work from home as much as possible, I would advise anyone who likes the company they work for and wants to keep doing it take advantage of any opportunity to go to the office if they feel comfortable. Additionally, it's worth noting that if you can work from home, there is a good chance that somebody in China, or India, or many other countries where wages are significantly lower can do your job and do it from their home. It's not a perfect one to one replacement, having good communication skills and connectivity is a significant benefit,but working from home can make you more easily replaceable either by automation or cheaper labor. You may be able to move jobs now, but working from home convincing companies that they can get away with not having you in person. That is dangerous.
I work as a it-developer consultant myself. I followed about 10-12 teams before, during and after the pandemic. What we found was a gap in the performance in terms of ability to deliver and ability to communicate within the teams. The teams who were already considered high performance managed to keep going while I lockdown but got. Significant boost when they were able to work togheter again physically. The medium and low performing teams were struggling with communication and had a lot more friction during lockdown. After the pandemic, the high performance teams wanted to get back to the office by themselves. The medium and low performing teams seemed to be much divided, and usually had a few members that kept sitting remotely. Almost all of the medium and low performing teams used a lot more time to solve their communication and performance issues, some never did. I am not saying this is a universal case for everyone, but we were surprised to see this result at our company.
I got the RTO speech and all it did was make me so miserable commuting that I only give the company 7 hours a day and couldn’t care less what happens to it. It is only an “income stream” now. When I was remote, I worked at least 10 hours a day and cared about my role. You tell me you don’t care about me, then I don’t care about you.
Thank you for sharing these insights! I remember reading about the push to return to work but don’t remember hearing anyone talk about if that return was actually working!
Your commentary is pretty much spot on. RTO is being used as part of a bigger movement in business and not just tech and not just in the USA. On a side note, Dell is laying off large numbers 🤔.
My experience is that WFH is a mix bag that amplifies a few office trends. The bigger drawback that I experienced was a loss of informal communications. Maybe that is a problem only because communication is poor where I work, but this is hardly the only place. These informal communications help detect technical issues, train junior employees, etc. This might not be a big issue everywhere, but we maintain a large proprietary software product. New people know coding, they just don't know the code base yet. Training through Teams or Zoom is possible, but part of the context is missing and it may take longer. Training through IM is even slower. On the other hand, you can focus on short term tasks with little interruptions and you save a lot of commute time. I feel that WFH works best with well established teams, but renewing the team in the long term requires an explicit effort to integrate news hires, both on the technical and relationships levels.
I started in my current position when everything was remote. The group is extremely efficient working remote. Even hybrid RTO, most people now work the same way in the office as remote. Since the group is spread across numerous cities and so are the other groups, Zoom and slack are more efficient than being in the office. I go to a physical meeting every few weeks only for political reasons. It's actually a lot easier to train remotely because you can easily share screens and look at the software directly yourself.
A side effect of fully remote is that it makes offshore hiring easier, so competition may bring US salaries down, especially in domains where the tools are very standard, like web development. At least that seems the corner office buzz right now. I wonder if they have evaluated the risks, like IP theft (how do you sue oversee if you don't have offices there?), foreign regulations and the always pesky export rules. Have you tried shipping a Cisco switch (made in China!) from the US to Canada (of all countries..)? A lot of paperwork for something that mundane. Sharing repo access with a non-resident is legally a source code export. We will see within a few years who has really benefited, employees or employers. It will likely depend on the type of job.
@@pascalmartin1891 Are you manager or something because only managers think like this not developers. Few points: 1. Software engineers likes to brainstorm and code not small talks and informal communication. 2. All the knowledge transfer can be done easily via any collaborative software. Its easy to looks in your laptop than standing behind senior or looking into White screen in wall. 3. Developers cant simply steal all the code base , You can set permission in Git version control software for each modules, Its difficult for developer or even a team to get all the code base. There will be multiple repo for one software product itself and handled by different teams 4. In a hypothetical scenario even if someone steal it then you don't need to sue them until they start selling it in your target market base countries. 5.Regarding American jobs - Its called Capitalism. Companies will hire from Offshore anyways, With remote option now Americans can relocate to small towns or even Asia and living with American salary but still needs to pay taxes in USA so its win win for Americans and US government
I noticed after the RTO that a number of employees that come into the office come in around 9am, then leave between 2-3pm. Not exactly a full work day. I have a 78 mile commute (that's each way) so I stay longer so I don't have to log on when I get home.
Way pre-pandemic, when working in a Fortune 500 company, I would work remotely at a coffee shop at least once and often twice a week because I suffered far fewer interruptions. I had wide experience in many technical areas, and was constantly being distracted by being consulted on problems that had nothing to do with my responsibilities. Being in the office a few days a week was probably beneficial to the company, but not being in the office was definitely more beneficial to the projects I was working on. Yes, one piece of code I designed when I was working in a coffee shop is still being shipped over 20 years later. Thank goodness Zoom didn't exist.
The reality is most of these companies have also ventured too far into non-core initiatives. They can prune staff by forcing people to leave and when they shred those non-productive non-core aspirational businesses, they will still have plenty of experienced employees to devote to the core business. Those of us have been through this cycle before know that the job losses still have a long way to go and so soon enough people will start to see that leaving voluntarily is not a realistic option. How many people know colleagues on their third round of layoffs with different companies.
So glad The Algorithm suggested your channel. During the negotiations for my new gig - and the team wanted me bad - their RTO policy was a major sticking point and I held out, compromising on 2 days. As it turned out, this was apparently all driven by HR drones without my actual future manager even knowing. On my first day he pretty much told me "I don't micromanage, work from where you want". Which means there's actual sabotage of corporate policies going on down at the coalface. PS: asking why this org is so keen and adamant on RTO, I was informed sotto voce that it's because they are massively exposed in the commercial real estate market. They are panicking about the value of their portfolio and therefore want to "lead by example". That says it all!
5:23 That Nike article... "disruptive products"... 🤣 What are they doing? They produce sports shoes and sportswear. Anything in this field most likely is already invented, and to be honest: 99% of improvement is iterative step by step in small increments. There is maybe 1% of stuff that is considered disruptive. So unless you are hiring a team of "disruptive sports equipment inventors" under the condition to be on site in an office, most improvements are made by talking - and that can happen via remote.
I'm not sure about other countries, but in the UK I'm pretty sure you can't explicitly state that opportunities for advancement or changing roles is dependent on *anything*
I am so happy my company allows working from home. Me and my team are mostly working from home. We are more happy. Save time. We produce more. We have a always ongoing chat on teams and we use video call and screen sharing all the time. It is perfect. Of course I go into the office from time to time just to attend social events or other important meetings. All in all I think I work better from home. I save time. I can put on the washing machine. I can do other small things while at home, but I work better and produce more.
Covid affected peoples work ethic profoundly. We found our remote workers were disengaged and unproductive. It was a question of survival. We let go the ones who just wouldn't work, then tried to train replacements who were also disengaged, and didn't come up to speed normally. We brought everyone back in for training and were able to get things back on track. We have very granular measures of productivity, so once we get everyone productive again, we will go partially remote and see if it will work. Remote work was our company growth plan. We just need to find out how to make it work for our company.
Maybe I'm alone on this but I really like being locationally close to my co-workers and end user. It's easier to collaborate and get customer feedback.
I agree with you! In addition, Zoom and Teams meetings have increased exponentially. These needless meetings waste more time than a 5 minute in person chat.
I've mostly always worked remotely but I must say... I've just started a job with an international company with employees based in a few countries. The one thing that I wish I could be in an office for is the initial few months where I'm trying to learn their systems. Its been super tough doing it remotely with delays from time zones etc.
I predicted this 4 years ago. Forcing RTO will obviously make the best employees leave because they have lots of other options. The less talented people end up staying because they don't have a choice. So, forced RTO is a great way to trim muscle and keep the fat.
I retired from ATOS (in the TOP 10 Systems integrator s worldwide) this year as a Program director. During COVID we adapted to homeworking for 90% of employees and we got SO GOOD at it. My last project was 50+ million dollars a year. I only spent 3 days on customer site and that was because I had 3 of my Romanian team in Paris who diçdn't speak French and I wanted to look after them - they were Key players. In that project I did not spend 5 hours a day driving in heavy traffic round Paris I did it all in my bedroom office. It was brilliant and we were SO PRODUCTIVE. However, after COVID all those BIG customers reverted back to wanting people on site, bums on seats. We had pushed iIT industry ten years forwards during COVID now wanting reverse gear. The same people still using COBOL, running their companies on Lotus Notes which is 10+ years out of maintenance. I gave up and retired. Your job now.
I run five engineering teams in a 100% remote environment. We've never been more productive, and our company has never been more innovative. I just don't see the upside of RTO. Yes, remote management is different, but we're supposed to be innovators, are we not? Innovate.
My (SW) company made the decision to go 100% work-from-home long before COVID. We used Skype to talk and for me to send new program versions to test. It worked really well, especially as my colleague doing the testing lived in a different country, about 2000 kilometers away.
I do like working remotely. Fully remote - feels very silo'd you dont know whats going on around you other than in your team maybe your org. You could be developing something someone has already done and not know it. While in the office its nice to be able to learn form others and ask question in a more meaningufl manner. Something really hit me working fully remote. (If i say i was 10% more productive at remote that means im probably working 10% harder or more for the same pay so essentially i took on more work for really less money and i was blind to things that were changing around me) If a senior i asked for help from time to time left the company or changed roles and is no longer on that team. i wouldnt know because work become more detatched and it did feel more like just do list each day. That social learnings I do think is just as valuable as getting my tasks done each day. But thats just me. I dont think people should be mandated back to office each day. But we the employees also shouldnt look at our tasks as the end all be all of our job. Its a give and take for sure. Seeing and working with people in person also helps us grow as people.
I was a team lead with a stable team when lockdown came, promoted to program manager during lockdown. I found myself hugely more productive in the first job and completely disabled in the second. I think home working helps those who know what they have to do and who suffer from too many meetings. I think home working makes life harder for those who need to coach teams and manage misalignment. Return to office helps those who are trying to balance the cost of the office against its utility. They make the fallacious rationale that they have to fill up the office so that the money spent on it is not wasted. Meanwhile, going to the office twice a week I find myself most closely aligned with the people I meet there regardless of whether our jobs overlap.
Sure bud, that's exactly how people talk... no reason to think you're anything but a real person making a real comment. I also love going to the office and sitting in traffic and being around people with fake smiles who will stab you in the back in a second. It's great.
If you were promoted to file manager, sorry, program manager during lockdown and couldn't do your job, that means, you couldn't compare with being a task manager, sorry, program manager before lockdown, since you weren't one back then. Maybe it's not because of the lockdown? Maybe you just suck as a registry editor, sorry, program manager.
@@migmit it's indeed possible I would have also sucked at the job of program manager had I been able to walk the teams, hear the conversations, witness the interactions of the managers with the team leads, catch managers and team leads over coffee for quiet conversations, and see the body language shared between team members. You are to be commended not only on your ability to name system programs of obsolete windows versions but also on your logical rigor.
I have no doubt the only reason the percentage of senior people leaving aren't much higher is that opportunities aren't as easily available currently. FANG companies and large stable companies can "seemingly" get away with RTO it because they have a constant, large group of applicants. Still once the tech jobs start increasing I think companies will sing a different toon. Hybrid work models will be the compromise everyone settles on
We have hybrid system, few days in office in a month or something like that. Though I am in position with my team that atleast two have to be in office every workday. Though it is ok. But tbh. people that can work remotely, should do it. Saves time and people are usually more happy, efficient and less likely to get sick. If I'd have my own business I'd send everyone doing work at home if that is possible.
I waste too much time when in office to find a quite place to think and work. Open Space Office what I most hate and not enough meeting rooms to have all the Teams Calls with colleagues around the globe. At my home I can have all the calls I need w/o disturbing my colleagues around (or being disturbed while they do their meetings). We are requested to be 3 days in office and 2 days remote is ok. I stretch it until someone formally instruct me to go back, which is hopefully not happen.
With home office and VPN I could observe our CI/CD pipeline from 6:00 to 22:00 and react to get everything through this spring. Before Corona this wouldn't be possible, and the throughput would be 1/3 till 1/2 only. But management doesn't care. 🤷♂
I was working remotely three years before Covid. So when the pandemic hit and the entire globe had to learn how to work remotely, I wasn't affected. But one has to consider the millions and millions of dollars large companies spend on building and / or leasing office space. Those costs can't simply be overlooked while these spaces were literally abandoned overnight. This is the problem that companies face and have no solution for, even today. So they are forcing employees to return even as they understand the potential talent loss. It also very clearly demonstrates the every employee is expendable, at any time, without any care of the employer. So as an employee, NEVER commit yourself to a company. Do your job, complete your tasks, and go home. A job will NEVER be worth anything more.
I had been working remotely since 2010. Then when covid forced a lot of people to work remotely followed by the bean counters forcing everyone to come into the office shortly thereafter, I got really annoyed. The bean counters don't see innovation even after it kicks them in the arse. No I'm not coming back in and I'll take my PhD, 25 years of innovation and productivity and apply it somewhere else. We need to train AI to replace CEOs and CFOs, and probably the rest of the C-suite. Those are the jobs that are expendable from my point of view.
Sounds like return to office is a big cost saver. The most senior people would be the highest paid. This, in a time where tech companies have been reducing headcounts to lower cost.
Same way executives get golden parachutes and stock options regardless of a company's performance, same way businesses can start compensating employees for their commuting time. If you're forcing employees into the office, their commute has become an extension of the job.
Like in your very good video about AGILE methodology, the issue is not the concept itself but the way it is implemented and very often bringing side effects. During COVID pandemic a lot of companies have found remote working as a solution and usually it was the only one to maintain their activity. They did the implementation in a hurry: no deep analysis of modalities, specific tools or updates needed, no adapted management, etc... However the benefit for employees has been revealed very quickly, as they were then able to find a better balance between their job and their private life. Then it is no suprise that going reverse is an issue. But keeping "remote" or even "hybrid" options for employees is also an issue if nothing is done to preserve efficiency. Sorry to say, but not everyone is able to work efficiently in remote: it strongly depends on your personal abilities, conditions and...job ! Could you imagine a Manufacturing Quality Controller working from home ? Obvious in that case, for sure, but also applicable to several other ones. There is a need for a complete overhaul of the work organisation, from tools to management approaches and also communication if we want to keep "remote" as an integrated option. Keeping it "as is" is not better than deleting it.
I worked at Microsoft and the only time we went to the office was when we needed to meet and workshop something together. Otherwise we were working remote. So I don't know why they're saying "back to the office" when we were never there to begin with.
I work hybrid. Most my team is remote. They carry me bro. They are the ones doing most of the work uninterrupted with laser focus.These guys are working 10am to 7pm officially but 9am to 9pm unofficially. Meanwhile, I commute to work, grab a (few) coffees, join mindless meetings to look busy, make small talk and write comments on youtube like this one. I do 2, maybe 3, hours of actual work daily to hit my kpis in the office. At 7pm, I clock out and go hangout with friends or go home to play some vidya, while my remote bros are still working to justify their jobs. With that being said, when working remotely, I focus and complete tasks in a full flow state. They are the ones doing the actual work, while I coffee badge and show my face. If they get laid off for being remote (highly unlikely), I will switch out too since I don't want all our workload to fall on me. There are more than enough companies offering full remote positions, if you search with the Remote-Only option, you can separate the wheat from the chaff.
my RTO plan demands 2x a week. It is miserable. Everybody goes on different 2 days, so we are in this huge empty office. Demoralizing. There is no purpose other than headcount. My team does not meet, no "lets all go in on weds for weekly in person meeting". nothing. Also during remote era the workload changed, it increased and was more 24/7 since we all had the flexibiliyt . Now they are trying to retain the 24/7 options + mandatory in office time. No way Jose.
I would love to work in office few days a week. Drinking and chatting co workers face to face is valuable. I'm stuck at a remote job and its not fun. Before that, i was stuck to office, which was worse. Hybrid is best i think.
I undoubtably prefer working from home. At the same time, I suspect companies have stats, which I don't have access to, and I believe it tells them a different story. Example stats could be lines of code, change list (PR) rate, design docs, bug closing rate, etc. Managers, even before COVID, claimed that meeting the people you work with and sitting close to them is the source of innovation and productivity. It would be nice if you can refute this.
do be honest, comparing my remote office days to my office days, i'm much more productive at home. in the office there are more useless meetings, coffee breaks or other onterruptions
While I don't disagree with the convenience and productivity benefit of wfh, I also think collaborating especially over complex technical topics is more difficult remotely. Of course some may be better than others when it comes to remote communication but adding several layers of potential failure points between people trying to discuss a deeply technical topic cannot be more efficient than direct face to face communication. In a multilingual/multicultural team, I have found that face to face communication is more efficient and there are less misunderstandings and rephrasing involved.
In IT, anything about implementing stuff usually is collaborating in a shared programming environment, i.e. either share the screen and talk about the solution while watching the screen in an optimal setup, or use a collaborative editor with one cursor per participant. Given that any documents, specs and other texts are shared online anyways, everyone is working in front of a keyboard on a computer, being connected to the company network. Forcing them to work in a shared office may reduce the quality. Quality of work, of life, of wellbeing. It is nice to meet your coworkers once in a while in person, but that's not really happening if it requires half a day of travel and privately spending money on a hotel room just because of the distance.
Every time I commute back from a forced RTO day I feel like such a waste of productivity and if there is a competition with full homeworking I would sign up without questioning immediately.
I love that my company has no RTO mandate of any kind. I don't even see the point of returning to the office. Our team is spread all over the world. If I returned to the office I would still be in remote calls all day. I just don't see the value of that.
My own team lives in 4 different cities, and almost all our work involves dealing with internal people scattered all over the country; and with external vendors in three different countries all in different timezones. We've been remote for over eight years. Being "in the office" is completely meaningless. And yet every few months some incompetent corporate drone in some other department complains about our team's fully-remote policy!
Nobody is happy, but the management, who feel in control again. They are not in control, but does not matter, because feeling of the few is so important, that the feelings of the thousands of knowledge workers can be hurt. One company starts with a stupid notion and all others follow. The migration of the lemmings.
I am in the position where the customer does not want to get back to the office. In the beginning, this was great. No comute every day and I could spent way more time being productive. However, lately I have seen the downsides of not being in the office. First of, the productivity of the team I am part of has dropped dramatically. I will not go as far as to say that team members dont work, but it is too simple to be destracted at home. Another issue us the comunication. We have online meetings , but they are NEVER as effective and informative as when we (rearly , but sometimes) meet physically in the office. I also miss the talks arond the coffie machine. Some people call it missuse of time, but there are SO MANY great ideas and thoughts being discussed there, that are being missed when sitting at home all the time. I think the question is not if you schould go back to the office or not, but how to find the correct balance between working from home, and working in the office
Chances are it will artificially inflate profits in the short run because they are losing people and overhead costs thus boosting their stock price. Then they will take a big dip in a year or two and either the ceo will take a big bonus and leave or they will complain about there not being enough talent or ai as a scapegoat taking away profits but its ok because they are working on ai themselves to try to make the shareholders happy and stock prices stay as stable as possible.
I suspect that companies are unhappy because idle real estate (office lease contracts from years ago) "looks bad", and they have no real method for evaluating performance, and perhaps not even productivity, or profitability? Martha Stewart was adamant that everyone should return to the office. Fine, let her do IT architecture and/or development for us?!? I don't feel that spending 1 hour a day (each way) commuting into the office enhances my performance. Occasional meetings with peers in the office IS good for communications, but always forcing everyone into the office is counter-productive, IMO.
In office you have more micro breaks. And the cantina saves you time too. In home office you forget how the city looks after 3-4 years! => Both have their benefits and minuses. => If the commute time is >1 hour working 5 days/week is not longer acceptable. If it's less, you will leave your chair 2x a day at least.
With all these people leaving, I wonder if companies will start losing money because less people work for them, and more people switch to working for other companies which allow remote work.
All the companies complaining about production decreasing also laid off a bunch of people. Instead of rightly blaming themselves, they blame the remote workers who are now likely doing more work for the same amount of money to make up for all the people the companies laid off. Instead of giving them more flexibility so they can get their work done, the companies are forcing them to spend valuable time commuting, dealing with office politics, etc., time they could've spent actually getting work done. How is any of this good for business?
"That's a leadership problem - - CEOs should be the visionaries" no no no no no. Visionary CEOs are the outlier; what you want from a CEO is to understand their industry, their operations, and their people, and how they all interact with one another. Whether or not it's working, trying to get employees back into a shared physical space because you believe that's the environment that best produces creative results is exactly what the CEO should be doing.
But do you really have your entire team in a single location tho? If half is in one city, a quarter in another and the other quarter in another how is going to the office work? My team is split even further than that. Also it's noisy at the office. Besides, when your opinion is irrelevant, its a sign that a syndicate is needed.
Such beliefs are demonstrably wrong, at least in tech. Engineers are a notoriously introverted lot. If a tech CEO actually believes that he hasn’t met many engineers. It is almost certain he doesn’t work with any on a regular basis.
I often had difficulty getting people that worked at home and communication is sometimes difficult and delayed. Meetings are necessary for developing products because of the necessary back and forth, showing at what point a product is in during development, seeing directly what point people are not getting, seeing who is completely lost, being able to see people’s positive and negative reactions. There is also resentment and lack of full participation from people who are not used to being in the office regularly. That’s just my years of experience leading projects and trying to get things done.
If those meetings require developers to join in constantly then whatever structure is going on isnt efficient. Pulling them out of work to give status updates to others outside of the PM (whos job it is to then relay this to the rest) means the PM is essentially valueless.
That's exactly what I do not like about the office. People studying my behavior, all this extra nonsense. I prefer remote work with cameras off so I can do the work. But everyone is different. Some people like body language jargon and chatter that comes with office life.
It is all a Power Game. Recently I looked for a new 100% remote job. The people could not fathom that I as employee would rejects them (the great company). All these Recruiter talking endlessly about all the stuff they have, they are like a family... More than once I had almost said: So like everyone else. I found a job and will sign the contract next week.
If you work cooperatively in a team, or its difficult to measure progress/success there may be value. That isn't most IT jobs. I would far rather contribute the commute time to work than do the commute. Commuting itself is exhausting and I'm done by the end of it. It also ensures clock-watching because I might be hungry before I get home if I stay late. Demanding three hours of travel per day, from which nobody benefits, burns good will and makes management look terrible.
One of the big pushes for back to office is from the hedge funds that own.. the properties the companies Rent or lease... to protect their investments many of these funds and others... are infact buying shares or interests in the various tech companies.... IE you have to go back to the office as Entity X owns part of your company ... and has parasitic relationship
"Do you want to return to a loud office full of sick people, terrible air that makes you sneeze constantly, and a 45 minute drive?" No thanks "But it will improve productivity" HOW? Do I work harder when I can't focus, when I have to hide in the bathroom for a quiet moment, when I am constantly sick?
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
I was remote during covid, then experienced mandatory return to office.
The thing is, my workload had increased 250% during the remote time due to other staff leaving. I had been there 15 years and I was keeping the place going.
Upon return to the office, the workload did not decrease - so I was already dealing with working very long days and most weekends, and then I had to add the 2-way commute back into my day - with no decrease in workload.
I was so tired and burned out I was convinced I would have an accident or a health issue within months if not weeks.
I left, got a local job 5 minutes from home and I have not looked back. I’m so much healthier and happier.
I was hired at a company that promised 100% remote, then pulled the RTO stunt. Can I prove the layoffs that came after targeted remote employees? No, but it sure didn't help.
So glad you found your place. it's often overlooked this scenario and the effect it has.
We need more people like you. The more people that say no and quit the job then the less employers will do this crap.
How did the company you left do after you left?
@@victotronics Don’t know, don’t care. Haven’t - and won’t - look it up. They were big - but the numbers were declining YOY, so I assume the trend continues.
I have worked in tech for nearly 30 years. During the pandemic I realized I could learn a completely new topic, develop a POC in the cloud and implement it in days. Commute time, excessive coffee breaks, office interruptions- gone.
Today I work fully remote. I never say no to a challenge and never look back 😊.
Right Dylan! I remember one of the best Developer would be asked in 2019 why he never worked in the Office (as a joke by a coworker). He was stunned: 'What do you mean?! I come only to the office for socializing, the real work happens at home. Do you think in can focus in this mess?'. Back then we took it as a smug joke of an arrogant man but after some experience --
I work almost fully remote (once in a blue moon i go to the office, mostly because im pressured to do so), and I have to agree with you. Every time I go to the office (4 hour total commute lol) I spend the day in either meetings or catching up with colleagues i dont meet with regularly on teams, I get nothing done and by the end of the day I'm totally exhausted from doing nothing.
I think businesses and tech workers (the real ones, not the "day in the life of a software engineer at XYZ" proceeds to drink coffee all day and eat free snacks) have totally misaligned paths to reach a similar goal. I just want to get my work done, build cool stuff and learn. I dont want to waste time thats precious to me, in and out of work, on meaningless garbage just to keep the socialites happy and the shareholders happy to see their investment of either renting (or purchasing, but that doesnt happen much in my country) an office "return" something.
You are an exception!
Yeah, and in the office you constantly have management people spontaneously adding and changing features.
Homeoffice adds a border that ideally forces everyone to adhere to the process, write correct requirements, mockups, acceptance criteria.
I can’t think of a more distracting work environment than an open office concept which almost every company I worked for had. WFH allows me to focus on my work.
Exactly why I liked having a nice quiet home office, I was much more productive.
Do you remember those bleak grey bunks shown in movies from '90 as mind crushing environment (like in Matrix) ?
What would you give for such luxury now, in hellscape of open office :D
I do not like working in the office. I hate greeting people in the morning, small office talk, using the public bathroom, the drive to work. Absolutely nothing I like.
100% this.
I hate hearing people talk all day. I got 4 people around me that are on conference calls half the day. Makes it hard to concentrate on my work.
I liked having a nice quiet home office, much more productive.
@@javaman2883 I hate people especially managers. so i resigned and started my own solo startups building plugins and website templates for shopify & word press..marketing via LinkedIn,medium ,blogs etc... Now i don't need to talk to anyone, I can do whatever i need in day time.
100% agree. I'll add this: if someone at the office is sick, and you're cooped up with them in there, the odds of you getting sick go up.
Working for a big tech company, i'd be happy to return to the office only if they didn't butcher office environment before.
I always thought we couldn't go lower than open-spaces but i was wrong:
Just before covid they replaced proper assigned desks, rooms and personalised areas by this disgusting open-space "flex office" with low end laptops just to optimise space allocation & costs: no team spirit, loss of spatial organisation, totally sterile environment each time you go there not to even see the people you're working with.
I've experienced the same thing, except for the low end laptop problem.
That's horrible. People need quiet to be productive, unless its a small group working session.
In my mind, management’s biggest fear is that by having remote teams, it will be visible that a lot of them fill bullshit positions. They just cannot have people working on their own, and not having to kiss their asses all of the time. Companies that pay for the employees time want to extract as much as they can from the workers. The fallacy is that sitting at the office for longer doesn’t make anyone more productive. It can force the opposite outcome, as people just become drained, and it doesn’t equal better outcome. If companies didn’t have to pay for imposing buildings and drag their employees across town every day, everyone would be able to conduct business far cheaper. Some people need to be around others, while others prefer to sit there alone without anyone bothering them while they work on a problem. If companies were serious about productivity, they would be taking that under consideration, not forcing a unified model down the workforce’s throat.
In fact, the most productive workers are usually those who take the biggest hit by being interrupted by junior staff coming to them with what are quite often basic questions, to which they can find the answer by themselves. Performing as a top notch professional and at the same time training junior staff are to incompatible tasks if the management’s goal is to get genie level output from their elite programmers.
These “creative” managing minds take forever to decide what they want, move the goal posts constantly, and can thus be the biggest factor in ruining the productivity of a team of programmers. The problem is, they don’t know any better. That’s how they were taught the world works, and they don’t seem to have either the brain of the stones to question the status quo. Even if they perceive that the system is wrong, by that time they have invested so much in that model, that they don’t want to go back to square one just to start doing things right. They want to cash in on all of the effort they put in getting this close to their goal. If all of a sudden it is perceived that teams can actually perform better without the people with the highest wages, and that worse of all, that they are not even needed, the entire game will change and they will be left looking at the butcher’s through the window.
Some are competent, some aren’t, but that’s not the main point. They are happy to keep a broken model as long as it delivers what they expect out of it. Big fat pay checks for doing nothing else other than cracking the whip. A good programmer who leads a team towards results doesn’t give a shit about who is in the office or not. As long as people understand their role and deliver on time, the manager won’t give a toss about what they are doing at any given moment. Just as long as they can react to real emergencies, the rest is up to the individual. That’s why companies try to hire professionals, when they succeed they are micromanaged as if they were children, and things just tend to go south from there. The good ones end up leaving, while the ones the company should want to leave, end up staying. But, as long as management is happy…
I work in international company, where whole R&D is in one place, while the rest is elsewhere. Every single manager here, from top to bottom is also developer, experienced guys. Every time there is some meager request for office time from other part of company, its ignored thru entirety of structure - not a single one of these managers ever tried to force people into office - you described it perfectly. I mean if almost every meeting has to be online within multiple countries, its difficult to argue about office communication - but i still think the main reason is, that the useless layer of non-programmer management is missing here, thus nobody is trying to sabotage the work. Its a bliss compared to my previous experiences...
My company is 100% remote with people in different countries. When we started investors said the model won't work and they wanted us to have a US based office in some tech hub. All this does is increase expenses and decrease the available talent pool.
5 years on and we still don't have any offices, people work from where ever they choose. I get a lot more done with less people, I feel a lot better about work and our costs are lower.
We use Meet for scheduled calls and slack for adhoc comms. We work different time zones so sometimes I have to work early or late to make a call but otherwise my days are mine to schedule as I like.
Coming back for what? Me and my GF work remote, when we have a child we can easily care for the child, start softly to work again. The child has a father who is there and can show him or her stuff instead of being away 10h a day. Even Non-Remote Workers benefit: Everyone who does not drives makes the streets emptier and saves resources.
Beware the extrovert manager, danger with a smile
I think that’s the real reason for RTO mandates. CEOs pretty much have to be extroverts. If they need to be around people to get their work done so must you.
It was always naive to think that managers would give up control
I remember working in a office around a decade ago. I am good with it as my workday will then have a normal schedule 9-5. Come 5pm good luck reaching me until the following morning.
I used to commute 1 hr to work and 1 hr back. I never got to see my kids. They were always asleep when I got home. Tech companies don't care. They want you to live at work, your kids are your problem. This is why I draw the line at WFH. They want my soul but mine isn't for sale. I don't want to hear about your nanny, I raise my own kids, and I write better code than your "principal engineer."
why you do live so far away? not their problem.
It is of course not their problem, but sth. they cause. Most tech companies are in city centers where cost of living is incredibly high. Most people can’t shoot it especially when they have kids.
Do you have two options, live close but with too little space to actually feel like you are living out move out a bit, but then you have to commute. Especially in tech funding an interesting job outside of city centers is rare.
@@z352kdaf8324 Pretending work-life balance isn't an issue of the employer is also lying to yourself
@@z352kdaf8324 Have you ever lived in or near a big city? Distance is not always the problem.
Principal engineers arent really supposed to write code anymore.
My collaboration is off the chain now. I actually spoke about 3 sentences with my co-worker. It was about his recent vacation. Also some lady completely out of the blue said good morning to me. 11 months to retirement. Can't wait! Oh, and I got Covid for the first time because of RTO.
I saw this from a business insider YTer. It's a mass layoff, by forcing remote workers to either come into the office or get a new job. Layoffs look bad on a company's books, but not if their talent just leaves.
Also, most companies lose money on business offices and their rent. It's a whole thing. If the office is not filled with employees, it cannot be written off on the taxes.
The stealth layoffs idea makes sense. I hope those who do this lose mostly their good talent and disable their organisations.
Why do layoffs look bad on a company's books? Increasing profits and getting rid of deadbeats is the way to go!!!!
@@z352kdaf8324 Because people will also play the morality card and say they have no made it that X amount of "deadbeats" (as you so eloquently put it) cant provide an income anymore.
However, I agree with you but I think those "deadbeats" are just posers regardless who spend their time making "day in the life" tiktoks and usually have 0 actual interest in the work but just want the benefits that come from it (from the big tech companies, not your average corporate or mom and pop shop)
@@z352kdaf8324 As noted, it isn’t the deadbeats they’re getting rid of.
@@z352kdaf8324not necessarily, finance folks also learned and increasingly don’t honour mass layoffs with rising stocks.
Hybrid work is the ideal for me. After working from home for 3 years I began to feel disconnected from my colleagues. It also makes it easier to let someone go when you don't see them. I learned that when my team was all remote they slowly started letting our team go as we were not seen around the office and not as visible. With a hybrid you are seen and able to keep that visibility that IMHO is needed to make a difference. Out of sight out of mine. So when cuts happen it is easier to let people go you don't need to face to face every day.
This video is so jingle with the previous (Agile) video. I see the struggling of the managers during COVID: we're just do our jobs as usual without any disturbance at home, without unnecessary traveling for hours, actually more effective than in the office, but the managers are always asking us about how can they help, making meetings (even more than before). I feel they just want to prove their existence (there are many exceptions of course, but I hope you get the point).
The intent of the return to office push was mostly an attempt to increase attrition, rather than pay-out severance for lay-offs. The fact that the most capable staff - the ones with impressive work history and in-demand skills - were the ones to leave is an obvious consequence, but CEOs are rewarded for short-term improvements.
How can wasting 2 hours every day to get to and from work and being constantly interrupted by stupid conversations in the office being considered more productive?
Well said!
Well, if those 6 hours at work are more productive than 8 hours at home
That’s one way companies are trying to be disruptive 😂
@@AdolfoNeto From my experience, productivity is more efficient away from the office. In one company, for example, everyone got so efficient using slack and zoom, that physical meetings became much more of a pain.
@@AdolfoNetothat is the thing, I don’t get a god damn single thing done in the office
The real estate costs can't be underestimated. For companies unwilling to cut off underutilized properties for various reasons (the just built/bought it, contract breaking penalties, srvices already paid for, etc), the only option left is to boost in office numbers to pre COVID levels.
It's easy to say sell it off but try telling that to Tim Cook after Apple built Apple park😂
Yeah commercial property values are a huge - and often unspoken - component of all this RTO nonsense.
@@ciaranirvine Most of the new software startups launched since 2020 are fully remote, They can save tons of money by WFH and only need to take rental Virtual office with Post Box
Most of these CEOs likely to have a lot of their money into real estate marked. Without employees in the offices, demand on office spaces fall and price should follow.
So, since they don't want to lose their personal money on that, it's likely better to rise office space demand back.
manager is a social construct as well as an actual role and its the hierarchical managers that are panicking about the decline of the office. When work went virtual the managerial status declined but managerial responsibilities remained. To adapt to the virtual environment managers need to be more transparent, build a trusting relationship with the workforce based on authenticity, vulnerability, empathy... but its easier for these hierarchical managers to go back to 'normal ' instead of building on soft skills
there's an element of control. some managers just get a kick of having there minions around them- playing boss just aint as fun over zoom or teams.
It’s likely more about commercial real estate valuations. Why have such an are office space if it is only being used 10%. Also, most managers are afraid they will be “found out” that they are not really needed to keep the show running…
It's mostly about control. They are paying you, so you do as they say. You don't call the shots.
Financial institutions own most of the offices. Their balance sheets are linked to the rents. Muni taxes are linked to the rents and valuation. The "rto" push comes from many very very powerful institutions.
If the work gets done promptly, whether they work from home or at the office should be irrelevant! It is more about power plays and ego! With all the trackers they put on their employee's equipment, it is not like they have no control! I also see how they are using this to prune and whittle down excess employees! It is always better for the company if they quit or resign!
The problem is companies have no idea what amount of work is good and what amount is people slacking off. So what happens is management says hey if I see your ass in a seat then I know you must be working. Of course this isn't true. But it makes management feel better.
@@aaronbono4688exactly. The problem is usually management. The bigger a company gets the more managers are hired and the worse everything gets.
Like the presence of a boss behind your back would make you work better! LOL!
The reality is that city and business centers suffer due to work from home. Less people in the office means less people eating expensive lunches at the surrounding bars and restaurants. Also means less happy hours as well. It kills the local economy.
Imagine the economy of NYC with no daily commuters? We saw it during the pandemic and it was bad. That is a big reason behind the mandates.
On the flip side work from home strengthens neighborhood businesses. And many saw a sharp increase during the pandemic.
I think work from home is inevitable. We are maybe a couple years off from
It being a cultural norm. But Pandora’s box has already been opened.
A major reason my employer cited for return-to-office was that they have long-term leases on their offices, and when the offices are empty, they somehow lose money versus when the offices are more in-use. I don't understand how the math/taxes/incentives/whatever work in this case, because they were very hand-wavy about it, but just wanted to add another excuse I've heard first hand. I'm sure some C-levels are also simply embarrassed that their big offices are ghost towns. I'm not saying any of this is reasonable justification.
My work gets better in the office, a major part of the car rental industry runs on my software. The reason I am better, and the application is better, is because I can walk over to another office and vent, brainstorm, discuss with coworkers... 25% of the time, I answer my own questions just by being able to talk outloud. - but I am a developer, not a robot coder. I dont get told to code something, I design and develop, so its a different paradigm. Sometimes I get stuck, I take a break and go help someone else to clear my head.
i designed and was a coder for 10 years at an in office setting for 10 years, i'd say if I was lucky i'd get a maximum of maybe 4 solid hours of work, the rest being distracted with useless in person meetings, people on lunch and smoke breaks prevented quick approvals, i'd say maybe 2-3 jobs finished a day... since being remote, same style jobs and coding I now average 7-10 jobs done a day an under high turn over days up to 18 projects can be accomplished, and i'm less stressed, save money on food, gas, travel time... when i was in office I was miserable person, and companies never really didnt do anything for employees coming to the office... work from home i'm in better health, production is up, and i can get more things done... companies wanting staff to come back into the office is basically a way to save middle and senior manager jobs micro managing people,
Amazon mandated 3 days a week RTO, and more recently have been moving towards 3 days in an office with the team you work with. This has lead to a lot of people changing teams within groups, some people being offered relocation, and others just being out of luck and having to find a new role.
I've always told my employees that I don't care about keeping the chairs warm. Pre-COVID, when we all had to be in the office, I'd tell them it was fine to get up and go for a walk (especially when frustrated, something about walking can spark creativity, they'd often come back with a new approach and certainly a better attitude). Being flexible about people needing to run a quick errand, or take a longer lunch, it all built morale. I only ever had one employee who took advantage and her performance was poor in other areas so easy enough to ease her out. Bottom line, treat employees like adults and you'll have adults working for you.
I've said it before. If companies want employees to return to the office to do a job which can be done remotely, they should include travel time in working hours and pay employees extra for transport costs . It's completely unfair that employees alone have to burn the extra time and costs of having to come into the office. Some people will spend several hours a day commuting and the current high petrol prices eat a huge portion of their salary.
^ this 💯
Next client who wants me in, I'll state I'll bill travel time and inconvenience.
I have been work from home for almost 10 years, literally since day 1 of my current job. Yes, it wasn't official, there was no document signoff, it just happened. My manager loved my work, so he just basically left me alone. During Covid, my manager retired. My new manager is not accepting the fact I have been work from home from day 1 and is attempting to get me to return to office now that Covid is over. I am a programmer. Programming is the type of job that can be done almost anywhere, requires little face to face interaction and isolation actually helps programmers focus. In either event, I am not going to willingly return to office or quit. I'm going to wait to be fired over it and get my severance on the way out the door.
I work way better from home because i am relaxed, i can scratch my nose, i can fart, i can eat etc....while at work you have to follow a certain conduit. When you are chill and relaxed you are more productive
if you have a reasonably repetitive job, or a predictable one, where you're simply processing documents, or responding to emails, etc., then being remote probably doesn't make that much of a difference. And since most meetings tend to be able to be an email, those meetings can't either be done on zoom or not at all.
That being said, zoom isn't a replacement for in person interaction. If you get past the technical issues that people can experience, being able to have a conversation to connect with other employees and managers is increasingly difficult over the Internet. and remote workers should be very concerned about the confluence of work from home and artificial intelligence.
Out of sight out of mind, if somebody doesn't think of you as a person, they are going to be far more likely to be willing to replace you with an an automated system. And if your job happens to be one of those that is predictable enough that you don't need to interact with other people very often, then there's a good chance that you're a good candidate for replacement with an automated system.
Machine learning systems are not good enough yet, but they have been improving significantly recently.
Thus, it is tempting to work from home as much as possible, I would advise anyone who likes the company they work for and wants to keep doing it take advantage of any opportunity to go to the office if they feel comfortable.
Additionally, it's worth noting that if you can work from home, there is a good chance that somebody in China, or India, or many other countries where wages are significantly lower can do your job and do it from their home. It's not a perfect one to one replacement, having good communication skills and connectivity is a significant benefit,but working from home can make you more easily replaceable either by automation or cheaper labor.
You may be able to move jobs now, but working from home convincing companies that they can get away with not having you in person. That is dangerous.
I work as a it-developer consultant myself. I followed about 10-12 teams before, during and after the pandemic. What we found was a gap in the performance in terms of ability to deliver and ability to communicate within the teams. The teams who were already considered high performance managed to keep going while I lockdown but got. Significant boost when they were able to work togheter again physically. The medium and low performing teams were struggling with communication and had a lot more friction during lockdown. After the pandemic, the high performance teams wanted to get back to the office by themselves. The medium and low performing teams seemed to be much divided, and usually had a few members that kept sitting remotely. Almost all of the medium and low performing teams used a lot more time to solve their communication and performance issues, some never did.
I am not saying this is a universal case for everyone, but we were surprised to see this result at our company.
I got the RTO speech and all it did was make me so miserable commuting that I only give the company 7 hours a day and couldn’t care less what happens to it. It is only an “income stream” now.
When I was remote, I worked at least 10 hours a day and cared about my role.
You tell me you don’t care about me, then I don’t care about you.
Thank you for sharing these insights! I remember reading about the push to return to work but don’t remember hearing anyone talk about if that return was actually working!
Your commentary is pretty much spot on. RTO is being used as part of a bigger movement in business and not just tech and not just in the USA. On a side note, Dell is laying off large numbers 🤔.
I needed to hear this, especially the part about the vision for hybrid work. Thank you
My experience is that WFH is a mix bag that amplifies a few office trends.
The bigger drawback that I experienced was a loss of informal communications. Maybe that is a problem only because communication is poor where I work, but this is hardly the only place. These informal communications help detect technical issues, train junior employees, etc.
This might not be a big issue everywhere, but we maintain a large proprietary software product. New people know coding, they just don't know the code base yet. Training through Teams or Zoom is possible, but part of the context is missing and it may take longer. Training through IM is even slower.
On the other hand, you can focus on short term tasks with little interruptions and you save a lot of commute time. I feel that WFH works best with well established teams, but renewing the team in the long term requires an explicit effort to integrate news hires, both on the technical and relationships levels.
I started in my current position when everything was remote. The group is extremely efficient working remote. Even hybrid RTO, most people now work the same way in the office as remote. Since the group is spread across numerous cities and so are the other groups, Zoom and slack are more efficient than being in the office. I go to a physical meeting every few weeks only for political reasons. It's actually a lot easier to train remotely because you can easily share screens and look at the software directly yourself.
Integrating new hires always requires effort, whether it's remote or in office.
@@tschorsch because it take sone significant effort, making it even more difficult is not good for the business.
A side effect of fully remote is that it makes offshore hiring easier, so competition may bring US salaries down, especially in domains where the tools are very standard, like web development. At least that seems the corner office buzz right now. I wonder if they have evaluated the risks, like IP theft (how do you sue oversee if you don't have offices there?), foreign regulations and the always pesky export rules. Have you tried shipping a Cisco switch (made in China!) from the US to Canada (of all countries..)? A lot of paperwork for something that mundane. Sharing repo access with a non-resident is legally a source code export.
We will see within a few years who has really benefited, employees or employers. It will likely depend on the type of job.
@@pascalmartin1891 Are you manager or something because only managers think like this not developers.
Few points:
1. Software engineers likes to brainstorm and code not small talks and informal communication.
2. All the knowledge transfer can be done easily via any collaborative software. Its easy to looks in your laptop than standing behind senior or looking into White screen in wall.
3. Developers cant simply steal all the code base , You can set permission in Git version control software for each modules, Its difficult for developer or even a team to get all the code base. There will be multiple repo for one software product itself and handled by different teams
4. In a hypothetical scenario even if someone steal it then you don't need to sue them until they start selling it in your target market base countries.
5.Regarding American jobs - Its called Capitalism. Companies will hire from Offshore anyways, With remote option now Americans can relocate to small towns or even Asia and living with American salary but still needs to pay taxes in USA so its win win for Americans and US government
I noticed after the RTO that a number of employees that come into the office come in around 9am, then leave between 2-3pm. Not exactly a full work day. I have a 78 mile commute (that's each way) so I stay longer so I don't have to log on when I get home.
Way pre-pandemic, when working in a Fortune 500 company, I would work remotely at a coffee shop at least once and often twice a week because I suffered far fewer interruptions. I had wide experience in many technical areas, and was constantly being distracted by being consulted on problems that had nothing to do with my responsibilities.
Being in the office a few days a week was probably beneficial to the company, but not being in the office was definitely more beneficial to the projects I was working on.
Yes, one piece of code I designed when I was working in a coffee shop is still being shipped over 20 years later.
Thank goodness Zoom didn't exist.
The reality is most of these companies have also ventured too far into non-core initiatives. They can prune staff by forcing people to leave and when they shred those non-productive non-core aspirational businesses, they will still have plenty of experienced employees to devote to the core business. Those of us have been through this cycle before know that the job losses still have a long way to go and so soon enough people will start to see that leaving voluntarily is not a realistic option. How many people know colleagues on their third round of layoffs with different companies.
Remote works really well for the tech industry. That said, coming into the office to hang out is great too. Occasionally.
Your videos are really good!
So glad The Algorithm suggested your channel. During the negotiations for my new gig - and the team wanted me bad - their RTO policy was a major sticking point and I held out, compromising on 2 days. As it turned out, this was apparently all driven by HR drones without my actual future manager even knowing. On my first day he pretty much told me "I don't micromanage, work from where you want". Which means there's actual sabotage of corporate policies going on down at the coalface.
PS: asking why this org is so keen and adamant on RTO, I was informed sotto voce that it's because they are massively exposed in the commercial real estate market. They are panicking about the value of their portfolio and therefore want to "lead by example". That says it all!
3:50 Pittsborough? Is that in the Danelaw somewhere?
5:23 That Nike article... "disruptive products"... 🤣 What are they doing? They produce sports shoes and sportswear. Anything in this field most likely is already invented, and to be honest: 99% of improvement is iterative step by step in small increments. There is maybe 1% of stuff that is considered disruptive. So unless you are hiring a team of "disruptive sports equipment inventors" under the condition to be on site in an office, most improvements are made by talking - and that can happen via remote.
I'm not sure about other countries, but in the UK I'm pretty sure you can't explicitly state that opportunities for advancement or changing roles is dependent on *anything*
I am so happy my company allows working from home. Me and my team are mostly working from home. We are more happy. Save time. We produce more. We have a always ongoing chat on teams and we use video call and screen sharing all the time. It is perfect. Of course I go into the office from time to time just to attend social events or other important meetings. All in all I think I work better from home. I save time. I can put on the washing machine. I can do other small things while at home, but I work better and produce more.
Covid affected peoples work ethic profoundly. We found our remote workers were disengaged and unproductive. It was a question of survival. We let go the ones who just wouldn't work, then tried to train replacements who were also disengaged, and didn't come up to speed normally. We brought everyone back in for training and were able to get things back on track. We have very granular measures of productivity, so once we get everyone productive again, we will go partially remote and see if it will work. Remote work was our company growth plan. We just need to find out how to make it work for our company.
Maybe I'm alone on this but I really like being locationally close to my co-workers and end user. It's easier to collaborate and get customer feedback.
I agree with you! In addition, Zoom and Teams meetings have increased exponentially. These needless meetings waste more time than a 5 minute in person chat.
I've mostly always worked remotely but I must say... I've just started a job with an international company with employees based in a few countries. The one thing that I wish I could be in an office for is the initial few months where I'm trying to learn their systems. Its been super tough doing it remotely with delays from time zones etc.
I predicted this 4 years ago. Forcing RTO will obviously make the best employees leave because they have lots of other options. The less talented people end up staying because they don't have a choice. So, forced RTO is a great way to trim muscle and keep the fat.
I retired from ATOS (in the TOP 10 Systems integrator s worldwide) this year as a Program director. During COVID we adapted to homeworking for 90% of employees and we got SO GOOD at it. My last project was 50+ million dollars a year. I only spent 3 days on customer site and that was because I had 3 of my Romanian team in Paris who diçdn't speak French and I wanted to look after them - they were Key players. In that project I did not spend 5 hours a day driving in heavy traffic round Paris I did it all in my bedroom office. It was brilliant and we were SO PRODUCTIVE. However, after COVID all those BIG customers reverted back to wanting people on site, bums on seats. We had pushed iIT industry ten years forwards during COVID now wanting reverse gear. The same people still using COBOL, running their companies on Lotus Notes which is 10+ years out of maintenance. I gave up and retired. Your job now.
I run five engineering teams in a 100% remote environment. We've never been more productive, and our company has never been more innovative. I just don't see the upside of RTO. Yes, remote management is different, but we're supposed to be innovators, are we not? Innovate.
My (SW) company made the decision to go 100% work-from-home long before COVID. We used Skype to talk and for me to send new program versions to test. It worked really well, especially as my colleague doing the testing lived in a different country, about 2000 kilometers away.
Thanks!
I do like working remotely. Fully remote - feels very silo'd you dont know whats going on around you other than in your team maybe your org. You could be developing something someone has already done and not know it. While in the office its nice to be able to learn form others and ask question in a more meaningufl manner.
Something really hit me working fully remote. (If i say i was 10% more productive at remote that means im probably working 10% harder or more for the same pay so essentially i took on more work for really less money and i was blind to things that were changing around me) If a senior i asked for help from time to time left the company or changed roles and is no longer on that team. i wouldnt know because work become more detatched and it did feel more like just do list each day. That social learnings I do think is just as valuable as getting my tasks done each day.
But thats just me. I dont think people should be mandated back to office each day. But we the employees also shouldnt look at our tasks as the end all be all of our job. Its a give and take for sure. Seeing and working with people in person also helps us grow as people.
I was a team lead with a stable team when lockdown came, promoted to program manager during lockdown. I found myself hugely more productive in the first job and completely disabled in the second. I think home working helps those who know what they have to do and who suffer from too many meetings. I think home working makes life harder for those who need to coach teams and manage misalignment.
Return to office helps those who are trying to balance the cost of the office against its utility. They make the fallacious rationale that they have to fill up the office so that the money spent on it is not wasted.
Meanwhile, going to the office twice a week I find myself most closely aligned with the people I meet there regardless of whether our jobs overlap.
Sure bud, that's exactly how people talk... no reason to think you're anything but a real person making a real comment. I also love going to the office and sitting in traffic and being around people with fake smiles who will stab you in the back in a second. It's great.
If you were promoted to file manager, sorry, program manager during lockdown and couldn't do your job, that means, you couldn't compare with being a task manager, sorry, program manager before lockdown, since you weren't one back then. Maybe it's not because of the lockdown? Maybe you just suck as a registry editor, sorry, program manager.
@@migmit it's indeed possible I would have also sucked at the job of program manager had I been able to walk the teams, hear the conversations, witness the interactions of the managers with the team leads, catch managers and team leads over coffee for quiet conversations, and see the body language shared between team members. You are to be commended not only on your ability to name system programs of obsolete windows versions but also on your logical rigor.
@@BillClinton228 your comment has an aggressive tone and makes no sense. Would you like to try again? [y/N]?
@@stevecarter8810 I'm sorry I can't give you more than a like.
I have no doubt the only reason the percentage of senior people leaving aren't much higher is that opportunities aren't as easily available currently.
FANG companies and large stable companies can "seemingly" get away with RTO it because they have a constant, large group of applicants. Still once the tech jobs start increasing I think companies will sing a different toon.
Hybrid work models will be the compromise everyone settles on
We have hybrid system, few days in office in a month or something like that. Though I am in position with my team that atleast two have to be in office every workday. Though it is ok. But tbh. people that can work remotely, should do it. Saves time and people are usually more happy, efficient and less likely to get sick. If I'd have my own business I'd send everyone doing work at home if that is possible.
I waste too much time when in office to find a quite place to think and work. Open Space Office what I most hate and not enough meeting rooms to have all the Teams Calls with colleagues around the globe. At my home I can have all the calls I need w/o disturbing my colleagues around (or being disturbed while they do their meetings). We are requested to be 3 days in office and 2 days remote is ok. I stretch it until someone formally instruct me to go back, which is hopefully not happen.
With home office and VPN I could observe our CI/CD pipeline from 6:00 to 22:00 and react to get everything through this spring. Before Corona this wouldn't be possible, and the throughput would be 1/3 till 1/2 only. But management doesn't care. 🤷♂
Thank you for doing this video. It's given me a lot of perspective on the reasons or false reasons why RTO has been enacted.
I was working remotely three years before Covid. So when the pandemic hit and the entire globe had to learn how to work remotely, I wasn't affected. But one has to consider the millions and millions of dollars large companies spend on building and / or leasing office space. Those costs can't simply be overlooked while these spaces were literally abandoned overnight. This is the problem that companies face and have no solution for, even today. So they are forcing employees to return even as they understand the potential talent loss. It also very clearly demonstrates the every employee is expendable, at any time, without any care of the employer. So as an employee, NEVER commit yourself to a company. Do your job, complete your tasks, and go home. A job will NEVER be worth anything more.
I had been working remotely since 2010. Then when covid forced a lot of people to work remotely followed by the bean counters forcing everyone to come into the office shortly thereafter, I got really annoyed. The bean counters don't see innovation even after it kicks them in the arse. No I'm not coming back in and I'll take my PhD, 25 years of innovation and productivity and apply it somewhere else.
We need to train AI to replace CEOs and CFOs, and probably the rest of the C-suite. Those are the jobs that are expendable from my point of view.
Sounds like return to office is a big cost saver.
The most senior people would be the highest paid. This, in a time where tech companies have been reducing headcounts to lower cost.
It's not a cost saver. Over the long-term, they end up spending vastly more money while inexperienced employees are learning the system.
@@tschorsch Headline payroll numbers drop when seniority leaves.
And it's a tough market for most IT now.
Same way executives get golden parachutes and stock options regardless of a company's performance, same way businesses can start compensating employees for their commuting time. If you're forcing employees into the office, their commute has become an extension of the job.
Like in your very good video about AGILE methodology, the issue is not the concept itself but the way it is implemented and very often bringing side effects. During COVID pandemic a lot of companies have found remote working as a solution and usually it was the only one to maintain their activity. They did the implementation in a hurry: no deep analysis of modalities, specific tools or updates needed, no adapted management, etc... However the benefit for employees has been revealed very quickly, as they were then able to find a better balance between their job and their private life. Then it is no suprise that going reverse is an issue. But keeping "remote" or even "hybrid" options for employees is also an issue if nothing is done to preserve efficiency. Sorry to say, but not everyone is able to work efficiently in remote: it strongly depends on your personal abilities, conditions and...job ! Could you imagine a Manufacturing Quality Controller working from home ? Obvious in that case, for sure, but also applicable to several other ones. There is a need for a complete overhaul of the work organisation, from tools to management approaches and also communication if we want to keep "remote" as an integrated option. Keeping it "as is" is not better than deleting it.
I worked at Microsoft and the only time we went to the office was when we needed to meet and workshop something together. Otherwise we were working remote. So I don't know why they're saying "back to the office" when we were never there to begin with.
I work hybrid. Most my team is remote. They carry me bro. They are the ones doing most of the work uninterrupted with laser focus.These guys are working 10am to 7pm officially but 9am to 9pm unofficially.
Meanwhile, I commute to work, grab a (few) coffees, join mindless meetings to look busy, make small talk and write comments on youtube like this one. I do 2, maybe 3, hours of actual work daily to hit my kpis in the office. At 7pm, I clock out and go hangout with friends or go home to play some vidya, while my remote bros are still working to justify their jobs. With that being said, when working remotely, I focus and complete tasks in a full flow state.
They are the ones doing the actual work, while I coffee badge and show my face. If they get laid off for being remote (highly unlikely), I will switch out too since I don't want all our workload to fall on me.
There are more than enough companies offering full remote positions, if you search with the Remote-Only option, you can separate the wheat from the chaff.
I work hybrid with 2 days a week … sometimes Teams and email is not an replacement for interaction face to face
2 days per week at home or 2 days per week in the office?
my RTO plan demands 2x a week. It is miserable. Everybody goes on different 2 days, so we are in this huge empty office. Demoralizing. There is no purpose other than headcount. My team does not meet, no "lets all go in on weds for weekly in person meeting". nothing. Also during remote era the workload changed, it increased and was more 24/7 since we all had the flexibiliyt . Now they are trying to retain the 24/7 options + mandatory in office time. No way Jose.
I have no idea what that article is talking about because Microsoft definitely does not have any return to office mandate
I would love to work in office few days a week. Drinking and chatting co workers face to face is valuable. I'm stuck at a remote job and its not fun. Before that, i was stuck to office, which was worse. Hybrid is best i think.
I undoubtably prefer working from home.
At the same time, I suspect companies have stats, which I don't have access to, and I believe it tells them a different story.
Example stats could be lines of code, change list (PR) rate, design docs, bug closing rate, etc.
Managers, even before COVID, claimed that meeting the people you work with and sitting close to them is the source of innovation and productivity.
It would be nice if you can refute this.
do be honest, comparing my remote office days to my office days, i'm much more productive at home.
in the office there are more useless meetings, coffee breaks or other onterruptions
While I don't disagree with the convenience and productivity benefit of wfh, I also think collaborating especially over complex technical topics is more difficult remotely. Of course some may be better than others when it comes to remote communication but adding several layers of potential failure points between people trying to discuss a deeply technical topic cannot be more efficient than direct face to face communication. In a multilingual/multicultural team, I have found that face to face communication is more efficient and there are less misunderstandings and rephrasing involved.
In IT, anything about implementing stuff usually is collaborating in a shared programming environment, i.e. either share the screen and talk about the solution while watching the screen in an optimal setup, or use a collaborative editor with one cursor per participant.
Given that any documents, specs and other texts are shared online anyways, everyone is working in front of a keyboard on a computer, being connected to the company network. Forcing them to work in a shared office may reduce the quality. Quality of work, of life, of wellbeing.
It is nice to meet your coworkers once in a while in person, but that's not really happening if it requires half a day of travel and privately spending money on a hotel room just because of the distance.
Every time I commute back from a forced RTO day I feel like such a waste of productivity and if there is a competition with full homeworking I would sign up without questioning immediately.
This generation is different. It hates face to face conversations, likes to work alone. And that doesnt mean they are more productive 😊
I love that my company has no RTO mandate of any kind. I don't even see the point of returning to the office. Our team is spread all over the world. If I returned to the office I would still be in remote calls all day. I just don't see the value of that.
My own team lives in 4 different cities, and almost all our work involves dealing with internal people scattered all over the country; and with external vendors in three different countries all in different timezones. We've been remote for over eight years. Being "in the office" is completely meaningless. And yet every few months some incompetent corporate drone in some other department complains about our team's fully-remote policy!
Nobody is happy, but the management, who feel in control again. They are not in control, but does not matter, because feeling of the few is so important, that the feelings of the thousands of knowledge workers can be hurt.
One company starts with a stupid notion and all others follow. The migration of the lemmings.
I am in the position where the customer does not want to get back to the office. In the beginning, this was great. No comute every day and I could spent way more time being productive. However, lately I have seen the downsides of not being in the office. First of, the productivity of the team I am part of has dropped dramatically. I will not go as far as to say that team members dont work, but it is too simple to be destracted at home. Another issue us the comunication. We have online meetings , but they are NEVER as effective and informative as when we (rearly , but sometimes) meet physically in the office. I also miss the talks arond the coffie machine. Some people call it missuse of time, but there are SO MANY great ideas and thoughts being discussed there, that are being missed when sitting at home all the time. I think the question is not if you schould go back to the office or not, but how to find the correct balance between working from home, and working in the office
Who is winning this war? The managers who get to show people who is boss. It satisfies them.
Chances are it will artificially inflate profits in the short run because they are losing people and overhead costs thus boosting their stock price. Then they will take a big dip in a year or two and either the ceo will take a big bonus and leave or they will complain about there not being enough talent or ai as a scapegoat taking away profits but its ok because they are working on ai themselves to try to make the shareholders happy and stock prices stay as stable as possible.
I suspect that companies are unhappy because idle real estate (office lease contracts from years ago) "looks bad", and they have no real method for evaluating performance, and perhaps not even productivity, or profitability? Martha Stewart was adamant that everyone should return to the office. Fine, let her do IT architecture and/or development for us?!? I don't feel that spending 1 hour a day (each way) commuting into the office enhances my performance. Occasional meetings with peers in the office IS good for communications, but always forcing everyone into the office is counter-productive, IMO.
The companies still offering remote work are winning because they’re getting the talent.
In office you have more micro breaks. And the cantina saves you time too.
In home office you forget how the city looks after 3-4 years!
=> Both have their benefits and minuses.
=> If the commute time is >1 hour working 5 days/week is not longer acceptable. If it's less, you will leave your chair 2x a day at least.
I literally cannot work effectively in the office on the one day I go in as the WiFi actively blocks me from running the azure cli!
With all these people leaving, I wonder if companies will start losing money because less people work for them, and more people switch to working for other companies which allow remote work.
I would think it’s easier to get rid of things you don’t see. Really just become numbers and more efficient to say bye too.
All the companies complaining about production decreasing also laid off a bunch of people. Instead of rightly blaming themselves, they blame the remote workers who are now likely doing more work for the same amount of money to make up for all the people the companies laid off. Instead of giving them more flexibility so they can get their work done, the companies are forcing them to spend valuable time commuting, dealing with office politics, etc., time they could've spent actually getting work done. How is any of this good for business?
"That's a leadership problem - - CEOs should be the visionaries" no no no no no. Visionary CEOs are the outlier; what you want from a CEO is to understand their industry, their operations, and their people, and how they all interact with one another.
Whether or not it's working, trying to get employees back into a shared physical space because you believe that's the environment that best produces creative results is exactly what the CEO should be doing.
But do you really have your entire team in a single location tho? If half is in one city, a quarter in another and the other quarter in another how is going to the office work? My team is split even further than that. Also it's noisy at the office. Besides, when your opinion is irrelevant, its a sign that a syndicate is needed.
the problem i have with this is that creativity hardly ever rewarded monetarily. it has stopped me from being too creative. the CEO profits the most
Such beliefs are demonstrably wrong, at least in tech. Engineers are a notoriously introverted lot. If a tech CEO actually believes that he hasn’t met many engineers. It is almost certain he doesn’t work with any on a regular basis.
I often had difficulty getting people that worked at home and communication is sometimes difficult and delayed. Meetings are necessary for developing products because of the necessary back and forth, showing at what point a product is in during development, seeing directly what point people are not getting, seeing who is completely lost, being able to see people’s positive and negative reactions. There is also resentment and lack of full participation from people who are not used to being in the office regularly. That’s just my years of experience leading projects and trying to get things done.
If those meetings require developers to join in constantly then whatever structure is going on isnt efficient. Pulling them out of work to give status updates to others outside of the PM (whos job it is to then relay this to the rest) means the PM is essentially valueless.
That's exactly what I do not like about the office. People studying my behavior, all this extra nonsense. I prefer remote work with cameras off so I can do the work. But everyone is different. Some people like body language jargon and chatter that comes with office life.
It is all a Power Game. Recently I looked for a new 100% remote job. The people could not fathom that I as employee would rejects them (the great company). All these Recruiter talking endlessly about all the stuff they have, they are like a family... More than once I had almost said: So like everyone else. I found a job and will sign the contract next week.
If you work cooperatively in a team, or its difficult to measure progress/success there may be value. That isn't most IT jobs.
I would far rather contribute the commute time to work than do the commute. Commuting itself is exhausting and I'm done by the end of it. It also ensures clock-watching because I might be hungry before I get home if I stay late. Demanding three hours of travel per day, from which nobody benefits, burns good will and makes management look terrible.
One of the big pushes for back to office is from the hedge funds that own.. the properties the companies Rent or lease... to protect their investments many of these funds and others... are infact buying shares or interests in the various tech companies.... IE you have to go back to the office as Entity X owns part of your company ... and has parasitic relationship
"Do you want to return to a loud office full of sick people, terrible air that makes you sneeze constantly, and a 45 minute drive?"
No thanks
"But it will improve productivity"
HOW? Do I work harder when I can't focus, when I have to hide in the bathroom for a quiet moment, when I am constantly sick?