A company that achieved success due to people having to WFH are now forcing staff back in to the office

  • @[email protected]
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    1151 year ago

    Somebody should tell them about that software you can use for video teleconferences in case that opens up options for remote work. Can’t remember what it’s called though.

    • @[email protected]
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      691 year ago

      It’s been proven over and over remote work retains top talent and makes people better at their work. And the “productivity loss” is covered by the fact that people maybe get less done in eight hours, but work longer to make up for the productivity they lost to taking more breaks.

      But American capitalism has to remind the workers that their misery is part of the point.

      • Solivine
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        341 year ago

        I’m not sure there is any productivity loss, I work way more efficiently at home

        • @[email protected]
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          211 year ago

          Same. Guy that sits behind me in the office has an average speaking volume of 78 decibels. Yes, I pulled out a sound meter one day because he is so goddamn loud. And I’m stuck in an open floor plan with him.

        • WalrusDragonOnABike
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          211 year ago

          If you had kids, pets, etc, you might find yourself taking more breaks. But breaks are probably good for productivity too…

          • @[email protected]
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            161 year ago

            My kids are less distracting than the folks who walk into my office to chat while I’m in a working session. “Are you in a meeting? Yes? Oh well, You should have seen…”

          • Riskable
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            111 year ago

            A quiet desk with your dog next to you or… soul-crushing commute and a noisy office?

            Gee, I wonder why people are generally more productive at home?

            • @Juvyn00b
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              51 year ago

              Especially with the expansion of the open office… Ugh. I’ve avoided it for most of my career and I hope to never go back to an official office unless it has a door on it.

          • Domriso
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            51 year ago

            Plus there’s a multitude of studies showing that people work far less than 8 hours a day, even if they are physically present at the job. I doubt productivity actually drops at all.

            • Jaytreeman
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              21 year ago

              I worked in a government office that supported a very seasonal industry.
              My coworker had an 8:30 start and would be done her work by 9.
              Other times we wouldn’t have time in the day to finish, but the slow season was hell.

      • SokathHisEyesOpen
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        71 year ago

        The productivity loss takes place at the office. You go from being able to solve problems all day to having Susie Homemaker and Joe Blob wanting to talk to you about the sportsball event when you’re in the middle of super complicated logic. You go from being able to use the restroom 30 seconds from your desk to walking 10 minutes to get to the closest one at the office. You go from making a quick sandwich and then getting back to work, to driving miles away to find something decent to eat. Every engineer I know is more productive at home.

    • @[email protected]
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      481 year ago

      More likely, they’ve reached critical mass and are now using this as a downsizing move. They know a % will quit. Will reduce the number they have to float until eventual layoffs.

      • Foreigner
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        271 year ago

        Aren’t they risking losing their most talented workers doing that? I assume they can more easily find jobs providing the flexibility they’re looking for.

        • @[email protected]
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          411 year ago

          I work in tech, at one of the big tech companies (the Rainforest one).

          The dirty little secret of tech is that you don’t need the best engineers. You just need people that are “good enough”, and that bar varies wildly across all of tech. I’ve worked with senior engineers from Google that absolutely crumbled outside of building Python web apps, and recent grads in LCOL areas that are better in all areas.

          Alongside this, many tier 1 services in big tech are propped up by mid-level engineers. Depending on the company and org, you’d be shocked at how little coding some software engineers actually do, because they’re attending WBR’s, building review decks, running all scrum ceremonies, even responsible for multimillion dollar team budgets. Again, many of these people aren’t particularly talented compared to your standard engineer.

          You’re absolutely right, but I doubt any big tech company cares. They want to reduce human cost as much as possible, and if that means letting everyone that knows how shit works go, and hiring new grads to keep your systems alive, so be it.

            • @[email protected]
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              91 year ago

              Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a fucking stupid approach, as do ~90% of IC’s at these companies.

              Someone at Amazon put it nicely when they’ve said that there’s a rise in “belief-driven” leadership in tech right now. Instead of following the data and asking people what they want, we’re seeing tech leaders position themselves as visionaries, and making market-changing decisions on gut feeling. It’s absolutely a series a short-term decisions, and all they care about is what they think, and how it’ll save their skin for the next 3-6 months.

              • @[email protected]
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                61 year ago

                Oh man thank you for that phrase. “belief driven leadership” is exactly what’s happening there right now. Spot on. I’m so close to finding somewhere else to work but my immediate leadership thinks the RTO is bullshit as well. However I know they can’t hold off forever.

            • @[email protected]
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              41 year ago

              I have never seen an MSP with top-notch engineers. I worked for a fairly nice one and we were pretty average.

          • Alien Nathan Edward
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            161 year ago

            Thing is, us “good enough” engineers want to wfh too, and we’re willing to walk because of it

          • SokathHisEyesOpen
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            11 year ago

            That’s very shortsighted though. One great engineer is worth 10 mediocre engineers, especially when you factor in the time required to manage them. But I’ve never built a trillion dollar company before, so I’m probably not qualified to say that my ideas are better.

    • thehatfox
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      101 year ago

      Yeah, you would think a company that would promote remote working would be company that creates tools for remote working.

      • ZILtoid1991
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        61 year ago

        These people only care about the supposed “productivity loss” that is supposedly introduced from remote work.

        • @[email protected]
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          51 year ago

          Studies have literally done nothing but show that people are just as or more productive wfh than in office

          • @[email protected]
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            41 year ago

            Absolutely, but that’s the myth they’re pushing. Really what is going on here is, if remote work became the norm, suddenly all these companies would have huge empty offices that nobody wants to buy because everyone would be trying to offload their unnecessary office space. In the short term, a small productivity hit is nothing compared to multi-million dollar real estate instantly having its value slashed in half.

            It’s incredibly short sighted decision making only if you assume the leadership actually cares about the company. When you have a golden parachute guaranteeing you escape the companies implosion unharmed, there’s no reason to think about the long term, you can just keep stacking short term profit shit up and glide away safely when it finally collapses.

  • @[email protected]
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    291 year ago

    This is on top of the changes to their Terms of Service that enables them to use anything on your calls to train their AI and scrap any customer data.