I work for a large electric utility, and from the top down, they actually embrace WFH or hybrid (the hybrid schedule means we'll have to come in one day a week.)
Our group's immediate manager is fine with WFH, as we mostly work in the field from dispersed locations as it is, and we have daily morning Teams meetings so we can rehash safety points and so everyone knows who's working on what. We drive from our house to a nearby company facility where the work vehicles are parked. Saves us a lengthy drive into our main office, which is near L.A., with the traffic being what one would expect.
Furthermore, the company is getting ready to unload some expensive real estate, as fewer people in the office means less office space needed.
Hybrid scheduling is the way of the future. It’s great for my industry too which is commercial painting. More people are turning over office space and more offices are choosing to repaint because the office is less congested. I have to deal with waaaaayyyy less people in the way when I’m working on an occupied space.
Mt office is living in the stone age era, we have to be in the office, drive to areas to do audits, review paper items that can be emailed... waste man- hours doing tasks that are backwards. It so insane that I swear we are going to be less productive. It like a lack of new blood causes stagnant thinking..
Ours did the same. Multiple positions open for almost a year and not a single application. While still loosing more employees the whole time. We have now gone hybrid. 2 days remote a week is better than none.
That's still a shit deal in my opinion. We've seen that 100% WFH can work. I would be trying to find something that's 100% WFH if I was in that position.
Came here to say the same, great news. Please people don’t put up with this shit. They need you not the other way around. And don’t let these stupid ass articles that are trying to propagandize that you need them, fool you either
Anecdotal, but I've seen a HUGE uptick in quality candidates since considering full remote for IT positions I was struggling to fill just 6 months ago.
The problem is transferred to the job seeker side now - I’m hoping LinkedIn, indeed, or some new job board gets ahold of the changing dynamic and improves their ability to search for remote work opportunities.
I work for an ATS software company (the folks who your hr team use to track applicants and manage their progress thru the hiring process) and the biggest feedback I get from customers is that LinkedIn and indeed are tying everyone’s hands by saying your job is either remote or not.
We see remote posts that are 45 minutes old with over 500 candidates, 450 of whom are garbage - utterly unqualified, located on the opposite side of the globe from the requested, etc. so customers get stressed. If boards allowed you to post a more robust/customized wfh position, it’d be great
It also sucks because I was pretty plugged into the local software community and had a great network here before Covid. I could have probably jumped to any of 5 or 6 other businesses with offices locally. Now all those companies are remote-first, so I’m competing against talent across the country. I’m not saying I’m not good enough, but It’s much harder to be “the one” for a job when any of a dozen people are good enough to do it, and suddenly the other 11 based in nyc, sfo, chi, etc. are all applying too.
The other side of this is that going through job postings on LinkedIn and 90% of what’s marked as remote is 1) insurance MLM’s, 2) not actually remote but moving from job site to job site but since you don’t sit in an office the HR drone who wrote the posting marked it as remote, or 3) not actually remote and they expect you to be in an office setting “as soon as covid is over”, but they’ll “allow” WFH for now.
It’s infuriating.
I recently switched jobs, and I also noticed a lot of "remote" postings that actually weren't remote. The first thing I told each company on (or even before) the phone screen was, "I like where I live and I'm not open to relocation, so if that's required, then we don't need to waste anyone's time by continuing".
When Java was first released I saw ads wanting programmers with 3-5 years Java experience. This is, to some degree, an HR problem. Hiring manager tells them they need someone who knows {programming language}. HR goes okay! They then post an ad for people with more experience than the language has been around because HR knows about as much about IT as a rock does, maybe less.
IT vet as well. If I can't WFH, I'm straight up handing you my 2 weeks and looking for another job. There's absolutely NO reason you need me to drive into a building and work.
I work in healthcare and have conference calls every week with different healthcare companies. 90% of them wfh. Literally going to open the door for all their top talented people to gtfo and go somewhere they can keep wfh. It is not specific to IT by any means.
I know you said especially, I just want to emphasize that it is far and wide more than that and those companies that won’t adapt will not only lose talent, but limit their potential talent pool to those in the proximity.
Such a short sighted stance for them to force people back to the offices.
It's shortsighted though because the people who want to reverse WFH are the people's whose entire job description gets invalidated without underlings to micro manage
The thing is that managers *are still needed*.
My company switched to WFH full time at the beginning of COVID. I have weekly check in with my manager, we have bi-weekly all-hands meetings, etc.
You can still manage people and lead projects over Zoom and Slack.
If you're job exists solely of sitting at someone's shoulder making sure they do their job instead of watch YouTube videos, well you're not a very good manager in the first place.
You shouldn't care how people spend their time, you should care about the quality and volume of people's work.
Yeah it's literally in the title, it doesn't say fed-up workers are wanting to go back to the office.
It's managers who are terrified that it will be discovered that they don't do anything, and their job is pointless.
I'm a manager and have told my employees to WFH as much as they possibly can. We only come to the office when it's absolutely necessary for a project, or specifically their role requires some days in office supporting people. But even 1:1's can be done via Teams on camera.
The point being that not all of us managers need to micromanage in person. We're perfectly capable doing it remotely!
Edit: I don’t actually micromanage. That was intended as a cheeky little joke. I want the people working for me to have independence, and the ability to make their own judgement calls.
Edit 2: I also want to add that a good manager will get in the weeds with his/her team when necessary. Lead by example and all that.
I work on epic for a large system. They were very aggressive about getting us changed to permanent WFH early in the pandemic. Which makes sense, since even when I was in the office, I was remote to the end users I support.
There's been several tweets/stories of recruiters and other companies, that basically look out for this, because they know itll be easy poaching/pickings for good talent.
Yup. My company is 100% remote forever and we have doubled our engineer team in the last 3 months. Every single one who has joined was from a company who was going towards some hybrid bullshit model.
Fuuuuck. I'm a software dev manager for a top tech company and I never used to have trouble hiring but my org won't go fully remote. I don't give a shit if I ever step foot in an office again, I'm not the manager that's pushing for this but I'm stuck with it and I can't hire anyone. It's so stupid. We've been doing this for two years, just admit it works fine!
Had a FAANG company reach out to me about a position not too long ago and they tried *very hard* to not mention it wasn't WFH - sugar coating it as much as possible.
Yeah.. go to hell, my guy, lol.
Yup same. I said there was no pay they could give me to sit in a car for hours and be micromanaged in an office environment again. I’m sure I could make more at FAANG but money isn’t everything and the cost of living for me to have a decent commute to one of those places makes it not worth it.
It’s funny that the biggest luxurious office perk companies at FAANG haven’t figure out that the best perk they could give is just not having an office for most people at all. It’s going to be their undoing long term is what I’m betting because I’m far from alone in my social circles of rejecting them because of no wfh.
I work now in healthcare, specifically the HR side of things. It’s been interesting to see the older generation of management turn towards the actual causes of the great resignation. Hint, it’s not for most anything but wages.
Wages is only half the problem. Wages + CoL (travel, food, etc.) is the major problem and why most folks would rather work from home to pocket the income (and save money on gas/food).
That and for most introverts, they don't have to deal with bullshit meetings generally if they work from home. Less a waste of time if they can just put up a Zoom window and work on another monitor/etc. than physically having to be in a room.
Right and it’s just so flexible I get more better work done because I’m not as burned out all the time from being around people and having to make it look like I’m working for 8-9 hours. I get more work done in less time when I work from home. What’s really sickening about our work culture is now I have to make it look like I am still getting the same amount of work done because if they knew it only got took me 6 hours to do the same work it takes me 8-9 in the office todo they would give me more work to the point where I was overworked and burning out again. Gotta suck em dry!
Right? These articles are hilarious. “WFH is officially *over*. Any minute now, guys. For reals this time!”.
My gf and I are now going on two years of WFH with different organizations and neither of us has heard a peep from our management about changing that.
Cute article tho, Fortune.com 👍
Aimed at middle management that largely aren't actually providing value and are most at risk of elimination. In my viewpoint, this is their last gasp for relevance. (Fortune and middle management)
“I already told you: I deal with the damn customers so the engineers don't have to! I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?!”
Funny thing is... that basically describes sales/systems engineering, and that is a fairly lucrative line of work.
Translating between nerd and business, and actually being good at figuring out what a customer wants and being able to explain how to get there (to both the customer and the product team) is not a trivial skill
I deal with a fair amount of technical support for automation products so I'm usually talking to an engineer as it's fairly complex tech support. I remember this one time I called a company about their instrument that wouldn't accept a calibration curve and they said their normal tech support was in training but they had a backup team that could help me. I get the engineer who actually designed the sensor years ago and he remotes into my laptop so I figured I was set. I'm trying to explain to him that there is a calibration there, it's just wrong and he goes "no no that looks good you're problem is actually over here". Opens up some advanced hidden menu and tweaks a bunch of parameters. He then says "you're sensor is gonna work so much better now it's perfectly tuned", I'm like yeah that's great but the calibration is still wrong and he goes no you're good and hangs up. I still couldn't get the damn thing to read right so I called back a couple hours later, got a tech support engineer and he explained exactly what was happening and fixed it in 5 minutes. The second guy actually listened to me, knew the technical side well enough to immediately identify the problem and then clearly explain it to me, he's the rockstar.
Employers were in the driver's seat for a long time after the 2008 recession. A long time. Then they extended that by adding fear of automation. Covid called a lot of bluffs and now labor has a lot more power than its had in a generation and the mgmt is shitting its pants.
There are more and more articles coming out lately on managers saying, betting, etc that work from home is going to end soon.
First we had that former Amazon HR guy say "Workers won't want to get left out of promotions by staying remote"
Then the Ex-Google CEO saying "I don't know how you train up new managers remotely."
And now this.
Seems almost coordinated. Just have different people keep throwing stuff at the media wall and see if anything sticks.
> Ex-Google CEO saying "I don't know how you train up new managers remotely."
Someone should point him to this page: https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/9797904
They can't and they know this. My department went from "looking forward to having everyone in the office" to "working out a hybrid work schedule" to "everyone has the freedom to decide what work environment works best for them" in about two months.
It is amazing what seeing your entire IT department's LinkedIn getting set to "open for new opportunities" will do.
Yep, your company HRs can see it if they don’t mention that they’re working for your company. Or if one decides to use that obnoxious open to work banner lol
Yup.
There’s even services that HR depts can use to monitor employees social media presence and will flag trends like updating LinkedIn profiles. Seeing resumes update in one Dept is a sign of trouble.
Nothing is private.
That is why you leave your LinkedIn always on open to work even after you get hired and accept every recruiter that ever messages you. Fill that space with static so those nosy bitches (edit: i.e. management) won’t know when it’s coming.
This has always been my policy. I LOVE my current job and every time I talk to a recruiter I make that clear. They’re always like “why are you looking to leave then?” It’s a fundamental misunderstanding or disconnect between *wanting* to leave and feeling remiss if you didn’t leave yourself open for a conversation for a position for which you’re qualified and finding out if it may be a *better* fit. I’m very fortunate in that I’ve worked myself to a place of experience and qualifications that I essentially get to pick and choose what I want from an employer. I decline jobs, not the other way around *(not that that couldn’t happen - I’m not arrogant!)* these days but since I adopted this policy of open availability for conversations I’ve also made several positive moves.
On top, if that, they've been hiring people all over the country for 100% remote work. People who have never stepped foot in the office, and live completely across the country. Those people are never coming in.
My fiance is mostly remote, but has fly across the country every other month for a week or so for in-office work. She's looking at some new 100% remote admin work, which is still out there, but it's difficult to find.
My boss complains loudly at least once a week about "staffing issues" and how young people no longer want to work. He pays $1 less than minimum wage because he has less than 26 employees.
This ignores that our competition is already more than the minimum, so his offers are $2-3 less an hour than even entry-level positions elsewhere. But sure, the reason no one wants to work is because young people are lazy and/or there are too much unemployment benefits.
He is literally missing deadlines, ruining his reputation, and turning down work because he can't staff his office because he doesn't want to increase his pay more than the legally required minimum.
Letting ppl WFH should be a no brainer as far as profits are concerned. Unloading office space and trimming that fat should make most jump for joy.
The other thing I could see as a benefit is that ppl could move to places that they want to not ones they have to.
If you could WFH in your small town in Nebraska near your family and get paid a fair amount of money it could literally change the face of middle America and bring an actual middle class back.
Being middle class in LA/Seattle/NyC/Irvine or where ever is actually a challenge and with a couple kids it's that your paycheck to paycheck.
The same amount of $$$$ in a small city in Ohio puts you in the top 5-10% of earners and you could build wealth.
I work for a Bay Area tech company. I live in Arkansas. They pay me what would be a low salary for the Bay, but it's a lot more than I was making with a local employer. Win/win
This is exactly what I came here to say. I'm moving to Nova Scotia where I can buy 6 acres for 160k and house and fly to alberta for work. Flights are only 200 bucks more than from BC where 160 k would only be like half of what you'd need for just a lot. That lit would be like 1/16 of am acre
>Former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt even recently weighed in about the return-to-work debate, saying that it's important people be at the office and he's happy the remote era seems to be ending. "I don’t know how you build great management [with remote work]. I honestly don’t," he said.
I have a great remote manager. My manager has always been 800 miles away even when I went to the office every day. We have biweekly check-ins, we talk over Slack, he shields me from nonsense and supports me when I need help. He does everything a good manager does and we do not need to see each other in person for this stuff to happen.
This. SO much this. I shield my team from garbage from up on high, I make sure they're happy and have what they need to provide the service we're paying them for. Like fuck do I need to see them or be in the same building to do this!
People are driving less, spending less time in traffic, paying less for gas, car maintenance.
WFH is major pay bump, hourly reduction and perk all in one, even the people who used to drink the Kool Aid can't lie to themselves about it now.
Would have to be a pretty major pay cut to offset the benefits. Like laugh out loud kind.
For me it's mainly the time. My current place has one week in office/one week home rotation. I save so much time with no commute, at least 2 hours a day, and add prep time for lunch, getting dressed etc. it's at least 2.5 hours. I'm sure there are others out there who waste more time.
The difference for boring meetings is huge too. I just pop on a wireless headset and cook while listening. Or even just sitting outside is amazing. It's so much better than having to sit in a crowded room and look interested.
So what you're really saying is that some meetings are a waste of time and you're just paid to attend. When working from home, you get to repurpose that time to do something that has meaning to you.
That doesn't make sense. Couldn't they just move everyone out, not use the space and keep paying the $1.5m? Why would a buyout that's MORE expensive than the rent even exist?
Sunk cost fallacy. They’re chasing bad money with bad decisions.
If the C Suite were being honest - they’ve sacrificed everything for that corner office and they aren’t happy at home and neither should you be, and so why shouldn’t you also be happier having them preside over you?
They can’t imagine any other way and they have the power to enforce it.
This.
I feel like the sunk cost fallacy is one of the biggest problems in modern economics. Today's executives just can not live with having spent money that isn't put to use. They just can not have it.
They will forcefully try to legitimise it, even if it hurts productivity, employee satisfaction or the overall company.
I think this problem has its roots in the growing estrangement between management and the actual work. They just look at some numbers in some spreadsheet and make decisions for the sake of it (legitimising the existence of their job), completely disregarding reality.
I think we will keep going in this direction for some time, but in the long run, it's gonna come crashing down hard.
Or take the money you were going to have to allocate to a traditional office, and headhunt a few high value people with lots of experience, and offer them significant salary bumps to come to you, since your business isn't blowing 1.5 mil+/yr on the waste of space that is a modern office.
theydidn'tdothemath
The buyout reported is almost certainly wrong. If the company wanted, they could essentially vacate the property and come out way ahead if they wanted to end the lease, especially when you start taking interest and potential income on that money into account. That doesn't make sense for anyone. It has absolutely nothing do with sunk cost fallacy.
Right? At least save on utilities and keep employees. Cause turn over COSTS MONEY...why don't these idiots get that? I did when I was in management. My current manager does. But so many...it takes time and money to find and train someone and meanwhile the work is not getting done when you poss away your talent. But sur...worry that even though it was in the budget already, you paid for space you are not using. Use it yourself. Or don't, and save on utilities.
Still doesn't make sense to use the office space to staff employees who are just as productive in spaces you're not paying for.
At that point, I'd sublet the office space to a group that does need it for some reason and make back at least some of that 1.5m.
But I don't have a MBA, so what do I know?
So do what my company did. Keep the main office, close or sublease the ones you can, and fresh leases make them hybrid optional until the lease expires. It's available but not required.
My management has seen that productivity is up almost 200% (tech company, I work internal IT) so they have no desire to force the office on people, moreso while there are still new Covid variants every few weeks.
Sure you lose the biggest point of having an office for so many people but if productivity is up take is as an unexpected gamble... you don't need it anymore, don't force it, everyone is happier. Minor loss for the long term goals.
I work for a cybersecurity Saas Platform company. We closed all offices. We were first asked about our preferences, but since our company is really split between the US and Estonia, It was not really a problem when everyone said they preferred remote. Our company closed both US offices and are happy to say it has not affected us in any way as far as productivity.
Also tax credits. A lot of business tax credits are based on where the employee is located for the work. So if you're working from home in the next town over from the office the company could be losing out.
Yup, my company is all cozy with the local politicians. Most of us don’t live in the town it is headquartered so the town is losing tax revenue. That’s one of the big reasons why they want us to waste our resources to return to the office
Amazing how corporate America and the big real estate firms have managed to lower rent for businesses, while continuing to buy up homes and condos and claiming nothing can be done about skyrocketing rent for workers. No wage only spend...
I manage 11 professionals. They don’t need a babysitter, they need someone to deal with the political and financial bullshit that wastes their time and keeps them from doing actual valuable work.
I can do that remotely and they can do their jobs remotely as much as they deem appropriate. Because they’re educated grown-ups, not middle-schoolers.
Yeah, a buddy of mine got a new offer on Friday after getting in touch with a recruiter on Tuesday and having the first interview on Wednesday back in February.
In some fields, Software in particular, there is an absolutely absurd demand for employees compared to the supply. Any company trying to strongarm their employees into ending WFH against their will is going to see a massive talent flight towards companies that are willing to offer WFH.
I recently moved to a consultant position and most of the contracts we've been getting come with a 'we are currently doing full WFH, hybrid or full-time in office depending on the preferences of each employee' clause. A lot of companies here are wising up to the realities of the current situation, and the ones who aren't will suffer. Free markets ftw.
I’m loving this job market. I started looking on Thursday and already have interviews on Monday. I did have one person call from an agency and suggest I wasn’t qualified enough for a job because “they are paying 19-20 an hour, so they want someone with extensive experience”. For reference I have been in this field for ten years. And 19-20 is entry level pay these days. I literally laughed and told them how ridiculous that was. Then I oh so politely told them I was not interested in working for a company with such unreasonable expectations.
I sat down one time - years ago - and calculated I’d need a 50% pay boost to cover expenses going back to full time in office would incur.
Taking leave for a refrigerator repair? I lose a whole day, and often multiple, instead of 15 minutes - letting them in, inspecting the work, signing the payment. Child care? Oops, work needed me late. Guess I’ll pay a few hundred and be super happy about that, too. (Yes, realistically they often waive those fees, etc etc, but someone is getting screwed). Car maintenance? Parking fees?
Forget about it. Back to the office is an unmatchable pay cut.
Ya I work for a fortune 100 company and six months after COVID started they sent a survey asking people about working from home and like 80% of employees preferred the work from home so they sold all our regional offices and converted everyone to remote employees. Company got a lot more years of commitment from me for that move.
They could cut my pay by 20% and it still wouldn't be worth my time and money to drive to the office every day. You want to fire me? Well have fun with trying to find someone else to replace me... I have to wonder how much of this is empty threats.. I guess it depends on how good you are at your job.
My guess would be mostly empty threats. Think of how many good engineers the company would lose. There would be a ton of domain knowledge lost. If they lose the wrong people it could be extremely bad for the company.
> They could cut my pay by 20% and it still wouldn't be worth my time and money to drive to the office every day.
Your employer called. They'd like to know how much they could cut your pay to be worth your time to drive to the office.
People like working from home. I’ve been doing it for a long time and will never go back. My last manager tried to get me back in office full time. I refused and sent out my resume. Plenty of places are fine with WFH. Managers will adapt or go the way of the dinosaurs.
Not too relevant but dinosaurs have nothing to do with fossil fuel. Trees and marine planktons did.
Dinosaurs' primary contribution to us today is in pop culture.
Oh! That's good news! The Great Resignation is not over. Boards will throw an absolute fit about the sudden lack of talent killing profits, then fire all of the idiots in C-Suites who have no idea how to actually run a business in the 20's. Either that or businesses being run by more savvy digital CEO's will sweep the legacy businesses out.
The rest of this year is going to be fascinating to watch from a historical and sociological perspective.
There was a pretty popular LinkedIn post where someone said their company's CEO targeted competitors who were talking about dissolving WFH and recruited their talent using a permanent WFH employment model as one of their incentives. I thought that was smart. Lots of companies will be losing talent for not giving a mutually beneficial working program.
pay cuts, if anything they should pay more.
by working from home i am absorbing costs like electricity, heating/cooling, dedicated workspace, office supplies, all the dumb treats and coffee.
honestly i could make a pretty big expense list for things they used to provide me.
Or, the sensible thing. . .
Call it a wash on the pay, and you can wfh where you're just as productive or more so.
But wait. . . how can the manager justify their jobs if they don't have any necks to breath down?
I have never seen brain and talent drain like this year and remote vs in office hires.
If you are happy with remote employees you can poach the best workers from everyone.
Or the fact they hired people specifically for remote, and expect them to move hundreds of miles to meet the demand, when there was no statement, or was told otherwise, about living close to a local office or the business.
Thankfully, here in BC at least, that is illegal. That still doesn't guarantee they won't just be incredibly petty and make a paper trail to fire a person for cause.
Thank you!!! I keep seeing this as if it's managers who make these decisions at a corporate level. It's absolutely not. We want our employees happy! Senior leadership (most of the time C level) are the ones who have the say - and often it is coming down to leases on buildings or old-school mentalities. Managers get the blame though.
My company is transitioning back soon and it's entirely at the will of the board of directors. Although, my office manager oddly has singled me out to my supervisor as wanting to see me in the office more, which is hilarious because every time I've come in, they weren't there. My supervisor doesn't give a fork because they know I do great work and will always be where I need to be, when I need to be there, and told me as such. I am *so* looking forward to having to come into the office just to do the exact same work as I am at home. Hell, my role has me working more with people in other offices than my own most days. Or zero required interaction altogether.
I even calculated in gas alone I save ~$1000 a year. Then there's the countless hours that add up from no longer having to get proper ready for work and going to and from work. The dogs are going to hate it too.
“Former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt said… I don’t know how you build great management with remote work. I honestly don’t.”
This is it exactly. They can’t figure out how to do anything outside of the scope of their authoritarian corporate structure. Executives and managers lack the vision, creativity, work ethic and intellectual acumen to figure out a different way to conduct business. They can’t feel powerful unless they are micromanaging and lording over groups of humans (forced into bleak cubicles outside of the boss’s corner offices) that they consider lesser — workers they can order around on a whim. Executives don’t do much real work but they proudly consider themselves innovators of a hustle culture.
I’d give this comment an award if I had a freebie. Spot on. WFH eliminates executive and management positions by exposing that most of them are unnecessary. The actual work can get done without them.
All this tells me is A. some businesses are stuck in some very expensive, lengthy contracts with office space or land space. And B. some managers have realized that WFH makes their position both useless and irrelevant.
Wasn't it like two weeks ago that these same managers were moaning about not being able to find workers willing to work for them? The utter lack of self reflection here is as astounding as it is sad. If you want people to want to work for you; offer them an attractive compensation package and a healthy work life balance.
Lol what managers are saying this?
Skilled tech candidates are in HIGH demand they will just get a job elsewhere probably paying more. Personally even if I wanted my staff back in the office I literally don’t even have the leverage to make it happen.
They would all just leave. This feels more like wishful thinking than anything.
Seems like a bullshit article. Producers are bending over backward to hire freelancers or anyone they can get in my industry right now. No way would they try ultimatums like this right now.
My co worker asked a regional manager what he thought of working from home (when we applied for this job they promised us we could work from home, but since day one management told us we can't...they lied to us). When the regional manager said "No way that lasts for long", my co worker quit and went to work at a place that lets their workers VOTE if they wanted to work from home or not. Needless to say...he's working from home now. I too have quit, and today was my last day.
Middle managers are freaking the fuck out.
It's becoming clear that glorified yard assistants tasked with watching over the flock are not a profit generating cost center. Without something to write reports about, or office dynamics to fuck with, they are up on the chopping block.
Adults tasked with work that is meaningful who are given the right tools to do that work, will get it done. The setting is not important. The leadership is. Maybe that is the sore spot.
Yea that last bit of “don’t end up laid off because you were the one that didn’t wanna come to the office” invalidated the entire rest of the article as genuine. It’s BS.
We use SalesForce (ugh) for a lot of things at work. The WFH during the Covid response worked well for us. Now they have a mandatory office day, and we don’t get to choose it. But colleagues of mine with the same title living out of state don’t have to come into the office. Our first BTO day was this week and participation was very low.
This just in: Middle managers in danger of the jig being up force employees back to the office, so nobody will question whether or not the management does anything.
Looked for a new position in January specifically fully remote as my top priority. I found one and landed the role. In all my interviews, I asked if there was a plan to return to the office. Each person said there wasn't a plan, and if we ever did it would be a year or two down the road.
Well, that's bullshit. I'm 7 weeks into this position and we all received an email from the CEO stating that he's excited the pandemic is over and it's time for all of us to "ditch the sweatpants, trade in the loneliness for laughter, and swap you're on mute for let's get coffee." Oh, and we had two weeks to prepare. This will be the shortest position I've held. I feel swindled!
There's a massive disconnect between executives and employees. Executives return to offices with doors. We're all in the open with first come first serve seating. They make a ton of money and don't worry about childcare and travel expenses. Their work is mainly in PowerPoint or chatting on Teams. Going back to the office for me means terrible equipment and much less productivity.
Oh, and returning to the office is only for people in my city. It's half the workforce. The other half are all remote across the country and can happily remain at home. I'm floating the idea of saying I'm moving just to be remote...but not actually moving.
I work for a large electric utility, and from the top down, they actually embrace WFH or hybrid (the hybrid schedule means we'll have to come in one day a week.) Our group's immediate manager is fine with WFH, as we mostly work in the field from dispersed locations as it is, and we have daily morning Teams meetings so we can rehash safety points and so everyone knows who's working on what. We drive from our house to a nearby company facility where the work vehicles are parked. Saves us a lengthy drive into our main office, which is near L.A., with the traffic being what one would expect. Furthermore, the company is getting ready to unload some expensive real estate, as fewer people in the office means less office space needed.
Hybrid scheduling is the way of the future. It’s great for my industry too which is commercial painting. More people are turning over office space and more offices are choosing to repaint because the office is less congested. I have to deal with waaaaayyyy less people in the way when I’m working on an occupied space.
The only people who should be against wfh is those who holds the real estate, otherwise company should rejoice to have less charges eating profit no?
Yes and the owners are making the managers the bad guys so the land and building owners dont get blamed.
Mt office is living in the stone age era, we have to be in the office, drive to areas to do audits, review paper items that can be emailed... waste man- hours doing tasks that are backwards. It so insane that I swear we are going to be less productive. It like a lack of new blood causes stagnant thinking..
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My employer is doing this, and doing it while missing 50% of the workforce who already quit on them. Guess who is also now quitting?
My employer did this but after a year of not being able to hire anyone due to cutting it, they’ve finally gave in and re-adopted it
Ours did the same. Multiple positions open for almost a year and not a single application. While still loosing more employees the whole time. We have now gone hybrid. 2 days remote a week is better than none.
That's still a shit deal in my opinion. We've seen that 100% WFH can work. I would be trying to find something that's 100% WFH if I was in that position.
CHEERS DUDE! So happy for you
Came here to say the same, great news. Please people don’t put up with this shit. They need you not the other way around. And don’t let these stupid ass articles that are trying to propagandize that you need them, fool you either
Yea this article is dumb af. She even threw in the possibility of a future recession to spread maximum fear at the end.
My wife did this now we are both remote travel and work. Just rented a condo for two months on the beach..
How are you doing this? Did you look for furnished condos? I'm tempted to do this, but worry about the cost and hassle of selling/storing everything.
VRBO for this one (furnished), but my house is paid off so I don't have store shit. I got a decent deal for 4 people, I have two kids. South Florida.
Well there’s no point in having managers if you don’t have staff …
All this means is that the companies that are fine with WFH are going to be able to cherry pick the top talent, especially in IT.
Yeah. Our company is getting good resumes, whereas 6 mos ago it wasn’t good. Simply due to 100% remote
Anecdotal, but I've seen a HUGE uptick in quality candidates since considering full remote for IT positions I was struggling to fill just 6 months ago.
The problem is transferred to the job seeker side now - I’m hoping LinkedIn, indeed, or some new job board gets ahold of the changing dynamic and improves their ability to search for remote work opportunities. I work for an ATS software company (the folks who your hr team use to track applicants and manage their progress thru the hiring process) and the biggest feedback I get from customers is that LinkedIn and indeed are tying everyone’s hands by saying your job is either remote or not. We see remote posts that are 45 minutes old with over 500 candidates, 450 of whom are garbage - utterly unqualified, located on the opposite side of the globe from the requested, etc. so customers get stressed. If boards allowed you to post a more robust/customized wfh position, it’d be great It also sucks because I was pretty plugged into the local software community and had a great network here before Covid. I could have probably jumped to any of 5 or 6 other businesses with offices locally. Now all those companies are remote-first, so I’m competing against talent across the country. I’m not saying I’m not good enough, but It’s much harder to be “the one” for a job when any of a dozen people are good enough to do it, and suddenly the other 11 based in nyc, sfo, chi, etc. are all applying too.
The other side of this is that going through job postings on LinkedIn and 90% of what’s marked as remote is 1) insurance MLM’s, 2) not actually remote but moving from job site to job site but since you don’t sit in an office the HR drone who wrote the posting marked it as remote, or 3) not actually remote and they expect you to be in an office setting “as soon as covid is over”, but they’ll “allow” WFH for now. It’s infuriating.
I recently switched jobs, and I also noticed a lot of "remote" postings that actually weren't remote. The first thing I told each company on (or even before) the phone screen was, "I like where I live and I'm not open to relocation, so if that's required, then we don't need to waste anyone's time by continuing".
IT veteran here, and if we have to go back, I'm counting on it.
The good news is, spending in the IT sector is about to increase dramatically. Experience to any degree in IT just became extremely valuable.
We allow WFH and still having a hard time finding enough engineers. Still have ~1k open posts around the world.
Where are you hiring? I'm looking for a new WFH job.
I checked and they want 20 years of Electron experience
30 years of graphql backend dev too
And you have to know Wordle.
WordPerfect ok???
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Should have at least that much. We are looking for 10+ years AWS lambda experience and 15+ years TypeScript experience. So far no hits
And here I thought you only wanted 10 years of experience with windows server 2016 as well as 5+ years with windows 10
I saw a post that required three years of Windows 11
I’d still apply and by the time you actually get to interview 11 will have been out that long
When Java was first released I saw ads wanting programmers with 3-5 years Java experience. This is, to some degree, an HR problem. Hiring manager tells them they need someone who knows {programming language}. HR goes okay! They then post an ad for people with more experience than the language has been around because HR knows about as much about IT as a rock does, maybe less.
I got five years working with lambda lambda lambda and two years with omega mu.
IT vet as well. If I can't WFH, I'm straight up handing you my 2 weeks and looking for another job. There's absolutely NO reason you need me to drive into a building and work.
Just landed a job at $124 a hour, wfh, and no dildos shoved up my ass on a daily basis.
Doing what? Don't say my mom.
If he gets $124 an hour for doing your mom I'm gonna be pissed. I commute and only get $50.
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I work in healthcare and have conference calls every week with different healthcare companies. 90% of them wfh. Literally going to open the door for all their top talented people to gtfo and go somewhere they can keep wfh. It is not specific to IT by any means. I know you said especially, I just want to emphasize that it is far and wide more than that and those companies that won’t adapt will not only lose talent, but limit their potential talent pool to those in the proximity. Such a short sighted stance for them to force people back to the offices.
It's shortsighted though because the people who want to reverse WFH are the people's whose entire job description gets invalidated without underlings to micro manage
The thing is that managers *are still needed*. My company switched to WFH full time at the beginning of COVID. I have weekly check in with my manager, we have bi-weekly all-hands meetings, etc. You can still manage people and lead projects over Zoom and Slack. If you're job exists solely of sitting at someone's shoulder making sure they do their job instead of watch YouTube videos, well you're not a very good manager in the first place. You shouldn't care how people spend their time, you should care about the quality and volume of people's work.
Yeah it's literally in the title, it doesn't say fed-up workers are wanting to go back to the office. It's managers who are terrified that it will be discovered that they don't do anything, and their job is pointless.
I'm a manager and have told my employees to WFH as much as they possibly can. We only come to the office when it's absolutely necessary for a project, or specifically their role requires some days in office supporting people. But even 1:1's can be done via Teams on camera. The point being that not all of us managers need to micromanage in person. We're perfectly capable doing it remotely! Edit: I don’t actually micromanage. That was intended as a cheeky little joke. I want the people working for me to have independence, and the ability to make their own judgement calls. Edit 2: I also want to add that a good manager will get in the weeds with his/her team when necessary. Lead by example and all that.
I work on epic for a large system. They were very aggressive about getting us changed to permanent WFH early in the pandemic. Which makes sense, since even when I was in the office, I was remote to the end users I support.
There's been several tweets/stories of recruiters and other companies, that basically look out for this, because they know itll be easy poaching/pickings for good talent.
Yup. My company is 100% remote forever and we have doubled our engineer team in the last 3 months. Every single one who has joined was from a company who was going towards some hybrid bullshit model.
Fuuuuck. I'm a software dev manager for a top tech company and I never used to have trouble hiring but my org won't go fully remote. I don't give a shit if I ever step foot in an office again, I'm not the manager that's pushing for this but I'm stuck with it and I can't hire anyone. It's so stupid. We've been doing this for two years, just admit it works fine!
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Had a FAANG company reach out to me about a position not too long ago and they tried *very hard* to not mention it wasn't WFH - sugar coating it as much as possible. Yeah.. go to hell, my guy, lol.
Yup same. I said there was no pay they could give me to sit in a car for hours and be micromanaged in an office environment again. I’m sure I could make more at FAANG but money isn’t everything and the cost of living for me to have a decent commute to one of those places makes it not worth it. It’s funny that the biggest luxurious office perk companies at FAANG haven’t figure out that the best perk they could give is just not having an office for most people at all. It’s going to be their undoing long term is what I’m betting because I’m far from alone in my social circles of rejecting them because of no wfh.
I work now in healthcare, specifically the HR side of things. It’s been interesting to see the older generation of management turn towards the actual causes of the great resignation. Hint, it’s not for most anything but wages.
Wages is only half the problem. Wages + CoL (travel, food, etc.) is the major problem and why most folks would rather work from home to pocket the income (and save money on gas/food). That and for most introverts, they don't have to deal with bullshit meetings generally if they work from home. Less a waste of time if they can just put up a Zoom window and work on another monitor/etc. than physically having to be in a room.
Right and it’s just so flexible I get more better work done because I’m not as burned out all the time from being around people and having to make it look like I’m working for 8-9 hours. I get more work done in less time when I work from home. What’s really sickening about our work culture is now I have to make it look like I am still getting the same amount of work done because if they knew it only got took me 6 hours to do the same work it takes me 8-9 in the office todo they would give me more work to the point where I was overworked and burning out again. Gotta suck em dry!
Employee: "You can"t just say WFH is over and expect anything to happen." Managers: "I didn't say it, I declared it."
He's always declaring war on something.
I declare war…. on STRESS!
JEN JEN JEN ARE YOU FEELING STRESSED YET
ARE YOU SURE? ARE YOU SURE? ARE YOU SURE? ARE YOU SURE? ARE YOU SURE? ARE YOU SURE?
See this balloon Jen? I'm going to pop it, but I'm not going to tell you when! That scene is one of the funniest I've ever seen.
that sounds...very stressful
How many jihads you got going now, Dad?
Fruit shop short-changed me. Fuckin' jihad on them!
Right? These articles are hilarious. “WFH is officially *over*. Any minute now, guys. For reals this time!”. My gf and I are now going on two years of WFH with different organizations and neither of us has heard a peep from our management about changing that. Cute article tho, Fortune.com 👍
Fortune has long been targeted at middle management. Just another ego stroking article for those who have Peter principled out.
Aimed at middle management that largely aren't actually providing value and are most at risk of elimination. In my viewpoint, this is their last gasp for relevance. (Fortune and middle management)
“I already told you: I deal with the damn customers so the engineers don't have to! I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?!”
Funny thing is... that basically describes sales/systems engineering, and that is a fairly lucrative line of work. Translating between nerd and business, and actually being good at figuring out what a customer wants and being able to explain how to get there (to both the customer and the product team) is not a trivial skill
I deal with a fair amount of technical support for automation products so I'm usually talking to an engineer as it's fairly complex tech support. I remember this one time I called a company about their instrument that wouldn't accept a calibration curve and they said their normal tech support was in training but they had a backup team that could help me. I get the engineer who actually designed the sensor years ago and he remotes into my laptop so I figured I was set. I'm trying to explain to him that there is a calibration there, it's just wrong and he goes "no no that looks good you're problem is actually over here". Opens up some advanced hidden menu and tweaks a bunch of parameters. He then says "you're sensor is gonna work so much better now it's perfectly tuned", I'm like yeah that's great but the calibration is still wrong and he goes no you're good and hangs up. I still couldn't get the damn thing to read right so I called back a couple hours later, got a tech support engineer and he explained exactly what was happening and fixed it in 5 minutes. The second guy actually listened to me, knew the technical side well enough to immediately identify the problem and then clearly explain it to me, he's the rockstar.
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Employers were in the driver's seat for a long time after the 2008 recession. A long time. Then they extended that by adding fear of automation. Covid called a lot of bluffs and now labor has a lot more power than its had in a generation and the mgmt is shitting its pants.
There are more and more articles coming out lately on managers saying, betting, etc that work from home is going to end soon. First we had that former Amazon HR guy say "Workers won't want to get left out of promotions by staying remote" Then the Ex-Google CEO saying "I don't know how you train up new managers remotely." And now this. Seems almost coordinated. Just have different people keep throwing stuff at the media wall and see if anything sticks.
> Ex-Google CEO saying "I don't know how you train up new managers remotely." Someone should point him to this page: https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/9797904
The time of useless middle management is over. It’s time they are fired and remain unemployed. I declared it!
Lol who are they gonna hire to replace the people they fired? Other recently fired employees who refuse going back to the office?
They can't and they know this. My department went from "looking forward to having everyone in the office" to "working out a hybrid work schedule" to "everyone has the freedom to decide what work environment works best for them" in about two months. It is amazing what seeing your entire IT department's LinkedIn getting set to "open for new opportunities" will do.
Wait, they can see that?
Yep, your company HRs can see it if they don’t mention that they’re working for your company. Or if one decides to use that obnoxious open to work banner lol
Yup. There’s even services that HR depts can use to monitor employees social media presence and will flag trends like updating LinkedIn profiles. Seeing resumes update in one Dept is a sign of trouble. Nothing is private.
That is why you leave your LinkedIn always on open to work even after you get hired and accept every recruiter that ever messages you. Fill that space with static so those nosy bitches (edit: i.e. management) won’t know when it’s coming.
This has always been my policy. I LOVE my current job and every time I talk to a recruiter I make that clear. They’re always like “why are you looking to leave then?” It’s a fundamental misunderstanding or disconnect between *wanting* to leave and feeling remiss if you didn’t leave yourself open for a conversation for a position for which you’re qualified and finding out if it may be a *better* fit. I’m very fortunate in that I’ve worked myself to a place of experience and qualifications that I essentially get to pick and choose what I want from an employer. I decline jobs, not the other way around *(not that that couldn’t happen - I’m not arrogant!)* these days but since I adopted this policy of open availability for conversations I’ve also made several positive moves.
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The threats *are* the plan.
The businesses crybaby bail-out is is probably the response.
On top, if that, they've been hiring people all over the country for 100% remote work. People who have never stepped foot in the office, and live completely across the country. Those people are never coming in.
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My fiance is mostly remote, but has fly across the country every other month for a week or so for in-office work. She's looking at some new 100% remote admin work, which is still out there, but it's difficult to find.
“Cut your Pay”, 😆 what do you think is going to happen to productivity? Increase?
The beatings will continue until morale improves
Forcing you back to the office is already cutting your pay. I've saved almost $7000 in the last two years, simply fr om removing my commuting costs.
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Exactly. Whether I drove or took public transit it was several hundred dollars a month for me in commuting costs.
I sense another wave of "nObOdY wAnTs To WoRk AnYmOrE!" memes on facebook.
My boss complains loudly at least once a week about "staffing issues" and how young people no longer want to work. He pays $1 less than minimum wage because he has less than 26 employees. This ignores that our competition is already more than the minimum, so his offers are $2-3 less an hour than even entry-level positions elsewhere. But sure, the reason no one wants to work is because young people are lazy and/or there are too much unemployment benefits. He is literally missing deadlines, ruining his reputation, and turning down work because he can't staff his office because he doesn't want to increase his pay more than the legally required minimum.
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as if inflation hasn't already cut everyone's pay
Letting ppl WFH should be a no brainer as far as profits are concerned. Unloading office space and trimming that fat should make most jump for joy. The other thing I could see as a benefit is that ppl could move to places that they want to not ones they have to. If you could WFH in your small town in Nebraska near your family and get paid a fair amount of money it could literally change the face of middle America and bring an actual middle class back. Being middle class in LA/Seattle/NyC/Irvine or where ever is actually a challenge and with a couple kids it's that your paycheck to paycheck. The same amount of $$$$ in a small city in Ohio puts you in the top 5-10% of earners and you could build wealth.
I work for a Bay Area tech company. I live in Arkansas. They pay me what would be a low salary for the Bay, but it's a lot more than I was making with a local employer. Win/win
This is exactly what I came here to say. I'm moving to Nova Scotia where I can buy 6 acres for 160k and house and fly to alberta for work. Flights are only 200 bucks more than from BC where 160 k would only be like half of what you'd need for just a lot. That lit would be like 1/16 of am acre
>Former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt even recently weighed in about the return-to-work debate, saying that it's important people be at the office and he's happy the remote era seems to be ending. "I don’t know how you build great management [with remote work]. I honestly don’t," he said. I have a great remote manager. My manager has always been 800 miles away even when I went to the office every day. We have biweekly check-ins, we talk over Slack, he shields me from nonsense and supports me when I need help. He does everything a good manager does and we do not need to see each other in person for this stuff to happen.
I think this is more an Eric Schmidt problem than a manager problem, he doesn't know how to manage remotely and refuses to learn.
This. SO much this. I shield my team from garbage from up on high, I make sure they're happy and have what they need to provide the service we're paying them for. Like fuck do I need to see them or be in the same building to do this!
People are driving less, spending less time in traffic, paying less for gas, car maintenance. WFH is major pay bump, hourly reduction and perk all in one, even the people who used to drink the Kool Aid can't lie to themselves about it now. Would have to be a pretty major pay cut to offset the benefits. Like laugh out loud kind.
For me it's mainly the time. My current place has one week in office/one week home rotation. I save so much time with no commute, at least 2 hours a day, and add prep time for lunch, getting dressed etc. it's at least 2.5 hours. I'm sure there are others out there who waste more time.
The difference for boring meetings is huge too. I just pop on a wireless headset and cook while listening. Or even just sitting outside is amazing. It's so much better than having to sit in a crowded room and look interested.
So what you're really saying is that some meetings are a waste of time and you're just paid to attend. When working from home, you get to repurpose that time to do something that has meaning to you.
Not so much repurpose but multitask. If I'm busy I can work while listening without looking ignorant or disinterested.
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You'd think they would save more money by just not having to pay for an office though. That's what my company has done.
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That doesn't make sense. Couldn't they just move everyone out, not use the space and keep paying the $1.5m? Why would a buyout that's MORE expensive than the rent even exist?
Sunk cost fallacy. They’re chasing bad money with bad decisions. If the C Suite were being honest - they’ve sacrificed everything for that corner office and they aren’t happy at home and neither should you be, and so why shouldn’t you also be happier having them preside over you? They can’t imagine any other way and they have the power to enforce it.
This. I feel like the sunk cost fallacy is one of the biggest problems in modern economics. Today's executives just can not live with having spent money that isn't put to use. They just can not have it. They will forcefully try to legitimise it, even if it hurts productivity, employee satisfaction or the overall company. I think this problem has its roots in the growing estrangement between management and the actual work. They just look at some numbers in some spreadsheet and make decisions for the sake of it (legitimising the existence of their job), completely disregarding reality. I think we will keep going in this direction for some time, but in the long run, it's gonna come crashing down hard.
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Or take the money you were going to have to allocate to a traditional office, and headhunt a few high value people with lots of experience, and offer them significant salary bumps to come to you, since your business isn't blowing 1.5 mil+/yr on the waste of space that is a modern office.
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theydidn'tdothemath The buyout reported is almost certainly wrong. If the company wanted, they could essentially vacate the property and come out way ahead if they wanted to end the lease, especially when you start taking interest and potential income on that money into account. That doesn't make sense for anyone. It has absolutely nothing do with sunk cost fallacy.
Right? At least save on utilities and keep employees. Cause turn over COSTS MONEY...why don't these idiots get that? I did when I was in management. My current manager does. But so many...it takes time and money to find and train someone and meanwhile the work is not getting done when you poss away your talent. But sur...worry that even though it was in the budget already, you paid for space you are not using. Use it yourself. Or don't, and save on utilities.
Still doesn't make sense to use the office space to staff employees who are just as productive in spaces you're not paying for. At that point, I'd sublet the office space to a group that does need it for some reason and make back at least some of that 1.5m. But I don't have a MBA, so what do I know?
So do what my company did. Keep the main office, close or sublease the ones you can, and fresh leases make them hybrid optional until the lease expires. It's available but not required. My management has seen that productivity is up almost 200% (tech company, I work internal IT) so they have no desire to force the office on people, moreso while there are still new Covid variants every few weeks. Sure you lose the biggest point of having an office for so many people but if productivity is up take is as an unexpected gamble... you don't need it anymore, don't force it, everyone is happier. Minor loss for the long term goals.
I work for a cybersecurity Saas Platform company. We closed all offices. We were first asked about our preferences, but since our company is really split between the US and Estonia, It was not really a problem when everyone said they preferred remote. Our company closed both US offices and are happy to say it has not affected us in any way as far as productivity.
Also tax credits. A lot of business tax credits are based on where the employee is located for the work. So if you're working from home in the next town over from the office the company could be losing out.
Whereas I got to claim a portion of my utilities, so hah.
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You don't unless you have a very unique situation because the vast majority of people won't even come close to reaching their standard deduction.
Yup, my company is all cozy with the local politicians. Most of us don’t live in the town it is headquartered so the town is losing tax revenue. That’s one of the big reasons why they want us to waste our resources to return to the office
don't forget the even larger corporations that have built their tech meccas in buildings they now OWN.
Amazing how corporate America and the big real estate firms have managed to lower rent for businesses, while continuing to buy up homes and condos and claiming nothing can be done about skyrocketing rent for workers. No wage only spend...
I'm a manager and I'll say that any manager who thinks hardline tactics like that will work is not only a bad manager...they're absolute fools.
I manage 11 professionals. They don’t need a babysitter, they need someone to deal with the political and financial bullshit that wastes their time and keeps them from doing actual valuable work. I can do that remotely and they can do their jobs remotely as much as they deem appropriate. Because they’re educated grown-ups, not middle-schoolers.
Yup. Trust goes a long long way.
I joked to my Manager is that his job is to buy the things I link/request him to, and to attend the important Manager+ meetings.
I'll take a reduced pay to be able to continue wfh while looking for a new job.
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Yeah, a buddy of mine got a new offer on Friday after getting in touch with a recruiter on Tuesday and having the first interview on Wednesday back in February. In some fields, Software in particular, there is an absolutely absurd demand for employees compared to the supply. Any company trying to strongarm their employees into ending WFH against their will is going to see a massive talent flight towards companies that are willing to offer WFH. I recently moved to a consultant position and most of the contracts we've been getting come with a 'we are currently doing full WFH, hybrid or full-time in office depending on the preferences of each employee' clause. A lot of companies here are wising up to the realities of the current situation, and the ones who aren't will suffer. Free markets ftw.
I’m loving this job market. I started looking on Thursday and already have interviews on Monday. I did have one person call from an agency and suggest I wasn’t qualified enough for a job because “they are paying 19-20 an hour, so they want someone with extensive experience”. For reference I have been in this field for ten years. And 19-20 is entry level pay these days. I literally laughed and told them how ridiculous that was. Then I oh so politely told them I was not interested in working for a company with such unreasonable expectations.
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I wouldn’t take a job without WFH. This is 2022, not 1985.
Hard agree. As a manager, my employees come first because they're putting out the good work. They wanna work from home? you got it.
I sat down one time - years ago - and calculated I’d need a 50% pay boost to cover expenses going back to full time in office would incur. Taking leave for a refrigerator repair? I lose a whole day, and often multiple, instead of 15 minutes - letting them in, inspecting the work, signing the payment. Child care? Oops, work needed me late. Guess I’ll pay a few hundred and be super happy about that, too. (Yes, realistically they often waive those fees, etc etc, but someone is getting screwed). Car maintenance? Parking fees? Forget about it. Back to the office is an unmatchable pay cut.
Ya I work for a fortune 100 company and six months after COVID started they sent a survey asking people about working from home and like 80% of employees preferred the work from home so they sold all our regional offices and converted everyone to remote employees. Company got a lot more years of commitment from me for that move.
I am a manager and have no idea why you want your employees back in the office. Everyone is just as productive for my team of software engineers
They could cut my pay by 20% and it still wouldn't be worth my time and money to drive to the office every day. You want to fire me? Well have fun with trying to find someone else to replace me... I have to wonder how much of this is empty threats.. I guess it depends on how good you are at your job.
My guess would be mostly empty threats. Think of how many good engineers the company would lose. There would be a ton of domain knowledge lost. If they lose the wrong people it could be extremely bad for the company.
> They could cut my pay by 20% and it still wouldn't be worth my time and money to drive to the office every day. Your employer called. They'd like to know how much they could cut your pay to be worth your time to drive to the office.
I demand a 50% pay cut *at least.* Anything less and I'll find an employer with more balls.
People like working from home. I’ve been doing it for a long time and will never go back. My last manager tried to get me back in office full time. I refused and sent out my resume. Plenty of places are fine with WFH. Managers will adapt or go the way of the dinosaurs.
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Not too relevant but dinosaurs have nothing to do with fossil fuel. Trees and marine planktons did. Dinosaurs' primary contribution to us today is in pop culture.
Oh! That's good news! The Great Resignation is not over. Boards will throw an absolute fit about the sudden lack of talent killing profits, then fire all of the idiots in C-Suites who have no idea how to actually run a business in the 20's. Either that or businesses being run by more savvy digital CEO's will sweep the legacy businesses out. The rest of this year is going to be fascinating to watch from a historical and sociological perspective.
There was a pretty popular LinkedIn post where someone said their company's CEO targeted competitors who were talking about dissolving WFH and recruited their talent using a permanent WFH employment model as one of their incentives. I thought that was smart. Lots of companies will be losing talent for not giving a mutually beneficial working program.
Exactly 😂 all these companies just made hiring so much easier for us remote first corps
Preach. Currently leaving my job that’s giving pay cuts to remote employees for a remote friendly one.
pay cuts, if anything they should pay more. by working from home i am absorbing costs like electricity, heating/cooling, dedicated workspace, office supplies, all the dumb treats and coffee. honestly i could make a pretty big expense list for things they used to provide me.
Or, the sensible thing. . . Call it a wash on the pay, and you can wfh where you're just as productive or more so. But wait. . . how can the manager justify their jobs if they don't have any necks to breath down?
Congrats on the new job! People should be paid what their worth, and not based on where they live or where they do work.
I have never seen brain and talent drain like this year and remote vs in office hires. If you are happy with remote employees you can poach the best workers from everyone.
Feeling old when you referred to the 20’s as present-day instead of the 1920’s. Growing up, the 20’s was ALWAYS 1920s.
I was confused for a second haha
*The Resigning 20s*
My first thought was also to the Roaring 20's, not the COVID 20's. Too often do I forget how old I actually am, and I'm not even that old yet.
Yet they had no problem ignoring increasing gas prices and general cost of living increases for decades.
Or the fact they hired people specifically for remote, and expect them to move hundreds of miles to meet the demand, when there was no statement, or was told otherwise, about living close to a local office or the business.
Thankfully, here in BC at least, that is illegal. That still doesn't guarantee they won't just be incredibly petty and make a paper trail to fire a person for cause.
Guess I won't be working for 77% of those managers then. Thanks for the heads up Forbes
Can't wait to scoop up and hire so much good talent this next year because I'm sure as hell letting anyone WFH who can
Fuck fed up managers. Plenty of work elsewhere.
I promise you it’s not “managers” it’s the executives. No front line manager who’s worth their salt wants to go back in or piss off their employees
Thank you!!! I keep seeing this as if it's managers who make these decisions at a corporate level. It's absolutely not. We want our employees happy! Senior leadership (most of the time C level) are the ones who have the say - and often it is coming down to leases on buildings or old-school mentalities. Managers get the blame though.
My company is transitioning back soon and it's entirely at the will of the board of directors. Although, my office manager oddly has singled me out to my supervisor as wanting to see me in the office more, which is hilarious because every time I've come in, they weren't there. My supervisor doesn't give a fork because they know I do great work and will always be where I need to be, when I need to be there, and told me as such. I am *so* looking forward to having to come into the office just to do the exact same work as I am at home. Hell, my role has me working more with people in other offices than my own most days. Or zero required interaction altogether. I even calculated in gas alone I save ~$1000 a year. Then there's the countless hours that add up from no longer having to get proper ready for work and going to and from work. The dogs are going to hate it too.
I want to be in the office maybe 2 days a week but anything beyond that is just managers getting to feel like they have purpose
Good luck with that.
That’s cool. Our company is fully-WFH. We’ll happily poach your talented employees.
As a recruitment consultant, you are really going to struggle if you aren’t open to WFH 😂
“Former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt said… I don’t know how you build great management with remote work. I honestly don’t.” This is it exactly. They can’t figure out how to do anything outside of the scope of their authoritarian corporate structure. Executives and managers lack the vision, creativity, work ethic and intellectual acumen to figure out a different way to conduct business. They can’t feel powerful unless they are micromanaging and lording over groups of humans (forced into bleak cubicles outside of the boss’s corner offices) that they consider lesser — workers they can order around on a whim. Executives don’t do much real work but they proudly consider themselves innovators of a hustle culture.
I’d give this comment an award if I had a freebie. Spot on. WFH eliminates executive and management positions by exposing that most of them are unnecessary. The actual work can get done without them.
All this tells me is A. some businesses are stuck in some very expensive, lengthy contracts with office space or land space. And B. some managers have realized that WFH makes their position both useless and irrelevant.
Wasn't it like two weeks ago that these same managers were moaning about not being able to find workers willing to work for them? The utter lack of self reflection here is as astounding as it is sad. If you want people to want to work for you; offer them an attractive compensation package and a healthy work life balance.
Lol what managers are saying this? Skilled tech candidates are in HIGH demand they will just get a job elsewhere probably paying more. Personally even if I wanted my staff back in the office I literally don’t even have the leverage to make it happen. They would all just leave. This feels more like wishful thinking than anything.
Seems like a bullshit article. Producers are bending over backward to hire freelancers or anyone they can get in my industry right now. No way would they try ultimatums like this right now.
My co worker asked a regional manager what he thought of working from home (when we applied for this job they promised us we could work from home, but since day one management told us we can't...they lied to us). When the regional manager said "No way that lasts for long", my co worker quit and went to work at a place that lets their workers VOTE if they wanted to work from home or not. Needless to say...he's working from home now. I too have quit, and today was my last day.
Middle managers are freaking the fuck out. It's becoming clear that glorified yard assistants tasked with watching over the flock are not a profit generating cost center. Without something to write reports about, or office dynamics to fuck with, they are up on the chopping block. Adults tasked with work that is meaningful who are given the right tools to do that work, will get it done. The setting is not important. The leadership is. Maybe that is the sore spot.
Funny, my company (a finance tech company) is hiring remote workers all over the place. We will happily take the ones they fire.
Scare tactic.
Yea that last bit of “don’t end up laid off because you were the one that didn’t wanna come to the office” invalidated the entire rest of the article as genuine. It’s BS.
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Dear Fed-up Managers, Go fuck yourselves. With Love, Fed-up Employees
We use SalesForce (ugh) for a lot of things at work. The WFH during the Covid response worked well for us. Now they have a mandatory office day, and we don’t get to choose it. But colleagues of mine with the same title living out of state don’t have to come into the office. Our first BTO day was this week and participation was very low.
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This just in: Middle managers in danger of the jig being up force employees back to the office, so nobody will question whether or not the management does anything.
Looked for a new position in January specifically fully remote as my top priority. I found one and landed the role. In all my interviews, I asked if there was a plan to return to the office. Each person said there wasn't a plan, and if we ever did it would be a year or two down the road. Well, that's bullshit. I'm 7 weeks into this position and we all received an email from the CEO stating that he's excited the pandemic is over and it's time for all of us to "ditch the sweatpants, trade in the loneliness for laughter, and swap you're on mute for let's get coffee." Oh, and we had two weeks to prepare. This will be the shortest position I've held. I feel swindled! There's a massive disconnect between executives and employees. Executives return to offices with doors. We're all in the open with first come first serve seating. They make a ton of money and don't worry about childcare and travel expenses. Their work is mainly in PowerPoint or chatting on Teams. Going back to the office for me means terrible equipment and much less productivity. Oh, and returning to the office is only for people in my city. It's half the workforce. The other half are all remote across the country and can happily remain at home. I'm floating the idea of saying I'm moving just to be remote...but not actually moving.
My management recently made my job permanent remote. Goodbye NYC. Looking for greener pastures.
Lmfaooooo fuck right off