My company would reduce my salary and bonus if I went WFH in a random city by 24%. Specific cities reduce it by less. The difference matches the difference in costs well.
Which is some bullshit, obv. The value you add to the company has nothing to do with which city you work from home in.
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No way would I stand for this. My response would be āI guess you dont value me enough to pay me the same as everybody else so I will find a company who does.ā
Basically bosses are sociopaths and assholes, end of story.
People are finally waking up to their own worth and power and the bosses are predictably trying to bully them into submission.
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I take a somewhat less optimistic view of the changes that will come to working habits.
The reason there are so many junior and middle managers is to ājustifyā the positions and salaries of those above them. Period.
They are a huge net cost to any company/organisation not only in terms of their contract but also in terms of the fruitless demands they make on othersā time (āWatch my Powerpoint/read and reply to my emails/attend my meetingsā).
But directors rely on a team of senior managers under them for delegation and to justify their positions/salaries, who in turn rely on middle managers etc etc.
Wfh has cast a bright light on the racket of junior/middle management waste, and continues to do so. Thatās why I think most companies will want people back at work at least half the time.
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My last company did a 10% Reduction in Force every year in November. This is in addition to the natural turnover during the year. Most larger companies are full of useless deadweight.
The WFH crowd will get plenty of bullying from their peers. The main force that is going to drive people back to the office isnt browbeating by managers, its fear of missing out. Companies are going to allow people to work from home, and the people that do it will be left out of key conversations and decisions, will find their projects are becoming non priorities, and eventually they will miss out on promotions and will find that they are disproportionately downsized. This is what WFH was like before the pandemic and why it wasnāt more broadly adopted even by people who were permitted to WFH.
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I would have felt that way a year or so prior to the pandemic, but we have so drastically changed how we do business now that Iām not concerned at all. Every single meeting we have now is automatically set up as a remote meeting with conference rooms as optional. Itās actually more efficient to remote into the meeting than it is to go to a conference rooms, at least for the way I work. And most of the time we have technical issues with a meeting, it stems from a conference room. It seems like most of the people I work with are fully invested in working remote, and our leadership team seems to be fully supportive so far. And Iāve been hiring people from all over the place, so I canāt get my team onsite very often even if I wanted to.
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Iām sort of fascinated by all the shade being thrown at middle management, junior vps, etc etc, I didnāt really think this stuff existed? ā¦ Then again I work for a media company and maybe itās wholly diferent. My own employment is so tied to daily production that working from home just doesnāt factor. We were 20% remote before the pandemic ā¦
But we did, also, just lease new space right before the pandemic. And so they do want folks back in, though it is essentially optional. No one is being forced back. ā¦ In my experience though, many people WANT to be back in the office. As someone who has worked remote for years, I find this mind boggling.
I have multiple friends ready, anxious, to go back to the office, back to their commutes. I do not understand, but god bless em.
If I lived close to the office, I would probably go in frequently even if not required. I used to definitely be more productive onsite. My only real issue with working from the office was the commute and not being able to afford living close by. Although now Iāve finally gotten more productive working from home, but it took me some time and effort and changes within the organization that were forced on/sped up by the pandemic. And itās great to know that I can now move anywhere in the country provided I have good high speed internet access.
Iām thinking more about unplanned meetings. Youāre talking to someone in the office and something comes up. Pre pandemic Joe was just around the corner so you could grab him and hear what he has to say. Post pandemic youāve got to open Zoom, call him, hope he answers, if he answers heās the only one on Zoom so heās more of an observer, etc etc. I think that the WFH people are going to start to become 2nd class citizens (again).
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Though Iām pretty disconnected from office culture nowadays, yes the bosses think talent is replaceable. we have always had a thick binder of resumes of it is going to take years of experience otherwise to disable them of that.
Furthermore, the bosses are right, talent is replaceable. Customers canāt tell the difference between bad work and good and if they can cost, referrals, customer service/kissing ass and network effects are more important.
Bosses, like most people, judge value by how much they like you and hiw much you kiss ass so yes, willingness to come in is a large part of perceived value. So the only way WFH wins in the long run is if Iām wrong and there actually is a competitive advantage to letting good people WFH.
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I think people realized that being trapped in an office 40-50 hrs a week pulling a sled up a hill wasnāt as fun as they thought it was and many people got their first real adult life taste without it during the pandemic.
Do any of you guys worry about the line between work and home being removed?
Same thing happening currently at my company. We reviewed stuff a couple of months ago and everybody agreed weāre happier and more productive wfh with optional office time for brainstorming or whatever the creative types do.
We even hired new people from further away, because we were now āfully remoteā. Well, starting next month everyone has to work in the office 2-3x a week to āfoster cooperation and team spiritā.
Soooā¦ anyone looking for a Rails developer?
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Ive found im able to see the line even better now. I used to come home from work, after a commute, remember something I had forgotten to do that day or something that seemed pressing and couldnt wait another day and then jumped on mobily to work another two hours to get it done.
Thats not the case anymore. I am much more focused on HOW I use my time now without constant interruptions and people talking to me or pulling me in for unneeded unending meetings that kept me from finishing those two hours of work at the office.
I rarely have to work over what I expect and I finish things on time or ahead of schedule now. And saving 1.5-2 hours of commute is precious to me.
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Yeah it does eliminate the traditional office time waste where 30% of the office is just looking to kill time by bothering those trying to work.
I have been fortunate to work for myself big chunks of my life. It makes me hyper efficient. Also when when I worked for others I usually ended up making my own schedule (including whatever obligations that required time and place presence).
I used to love going in to the office super early as I could knock out an amazing amount of work before the regular hours showed up and then even more as they finished coffee and catch up.
You must be mistaken. Your productivity should have shot through the roof the instant that colleagues started showing up and collaborating with you about their weekends and what to do for lunch. Maybe you are just not a team player.
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This is a problem for me and for others at my work and itās exasperated because the global nature of our business demands meetings outside of the normal 9-5 to accommodate different time zones. My first scheduled meetings frequently start at 8 AM and my last meetings end at 8 or 9 PM. This has gotten a lot worse over the past year but we are working on it. Iām hiring for my team in the pacific time zone right now to take some pressure off on Asia Pac programs as they can attend those meetings inside normal business hours. But itās probably going to be another 3-6 months before I can settle into a more reasonable schedule.
A few years back Mrs DUCY was managing a global team and would have to take meetings at midnight or some other stupid hour for the Asian pacific region, I thought this was insane but I guess there isnāt really any good solution for everyone. Positive was she got to travel to London, Singapore and Japan but the hours were awful so she moved on to a different job after a year or so.