OT: Will remote work as it is stay around?

[fishwater99]

Or is it time to get back in the office. I see a more Hybrid workplace going forward.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/we-need-...-to-end-silence-on-remote-work-153902316.html

 

[Shmuley]

Let’s see what happens when employers start cutting salaries of remote only workers.

 

[Smoked Toag]

Good Lord the whining in that article is pathetic. Are we just supposed to forget all the advances we've made during this pandemic? The only reasons they can come up with for a return to offices is a sick baby boomeristic 'thats how we've always done it' and the cries of businesses (not even an existing business, a NEW business who knew the drill before they opened) who feed off foot traffic. HOL EEE ****.

No innovative thought going on....at all. Only whining about getting back to the way it was by people who liked it the way it was.

I'm not voicing my opinion either way by saying this - I'm simply pointing out selfish hypocrisy and the lack of logic.

 

[dorndawg]

Let’s see what happens when employers start cutting salaries of remote only workers.

Let's then see what happens when in-demand employees leave those employers.

 

[Smoked Toag]

Let’s see what happens when employers start cutting salaries of remote only workers.

Why would you want to lose employees in a time where it's difficult to replace them? You just going to pretend like production didn't get better during remote working? Plenty of data on this.

 

[dorndawg]

Good Lord the whining in that article is pathetic. Are we just supposed to forget all the advances we've made during this pandemic? The only reasons they can come up with for a return to offices is a sick baby boomeristic 'thats how we've always done it' and the cries of businesses (not even an existing business, a NEW business who knew the drill before they opened) who feed off foot traffic. HOL EEE ****.

No innovative thought going on....at all. Only whining about getting back to the way it was by people who liked it the way it was.

I'm not voicing my opinion either way by saying this - I'm simply pointing out selfish hypocrisy and the lack of logic.

Third time this week I've completely agreed with GOAT. Of course there are plenty of jobs that have to happen mostly or completely in person - probably the majority. At the same time, there are absolutely some managers not feeling important because without employees in the office they don't feel like a big shot. Work from home has definitely been a blow to folks who are good at office politics.

 

[Faustdog]

Let’s see what happens when employers start cutting salaries of remote only workers.

It's anecdotal, but every business owner I talk to says the productivity of their employees has suffered as a result of remote work.

It's one of the least shocking things in the world when you think about it. Of course your average person gets less done at home.

One of the first things you learn managing people is that your average person will do as little as they can get away with doing.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

I think that at least hybrid schedules are an expectation for the current generation. People who work traditional in office jobs simply don't understand how many positions have always been full-time remote, so it's a hard concept for "them". I used to be one of "them" but the last decade or so I've been home office or with customers. I think that there are so many Boomers retiring that we need the young workforce to participate, so we should be flexible.

There are some jobs that simply cannot be done remotely. That's understandable. However, there are plenty that can. For positions that can be done remotely, I think that poor leadership is a primary reason for people not allowing it. Set attainable goals for your employees. Measure success. Communicate results to employees. Fire the ones who cannot or will not meet goals. Lazy leaders that just "know" people are working because they darken the door daily are productivity killers anyway.

 

[PuebloDawg]

The biggest issue with remote work is the taxes the city loses. And, obviously the service industry businesses.

No one is out lunching (taxes). No one is driving (fuel taxes). Hell, even clothing demand is going down. If I can work all day naked from the waist down, you can figure out the long term effects.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

I do think that young workers who have only ever been remote are missing out on some collaboration and learning that is best done in person, but I'm not prepared to say that it is so substantial that it's going to curtail their career growth. Also, if you wander through life expecting to find logic, coherent, reasoning you are perpetually disappointed...

 

[Smoked Toag]

It's anecdotal, but every business owner I talk to says the productivity of their employees has suffered as a result of remote work.

Of course they would say that, because a business owner wants control. Can't blame them. And each business owner can absolutely determine whether or not his/her employees can remote work or not (and likely have to live with the consequences if they determine you must work in an office when logic says it's not needed).

It's one of the least shocking things in the world when you think about it. Of course your average person gets less done at home.

One of the first things you learn managing people is that your average person will do as little as they can get away with doing.

Again, this isn't true. Many things factor into this. Plenty of data suggests the opposite. If someone is concerned about their career, they'll do what they have to do to get the job done, be noticed, advanced, etc.

I mean we aren't talking about McDonalds employees teleworking here. People that do it are typically educated and white collar and making pretty good money.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

I've seen the opposite. In multiple cases, I see better productivity from not being in the office, particularly from support staff who were subjected to drive by distractions constantly and now can mostly focus on work because it turns out work place distractors are mostly opportunistic, but not so ambitious as to pick up the phone and distract.

 

[dorndawg]

The biggest issue with remote work is the taxes the city loses. And, obviously the service industry businesses.

No one is out lunching (taxes). No one is driving (fuel taxes). Hell, even clothing demand is going down. If I can work all day naked from the waist down, you can figure out the long term effects.

Don't you still gotta eat lunch? If you just go make a sammich, weren't you going to do that anyhow?

 

[Smoked Toag]

The biggest issue with remote work is the taxes the city loses. And, obviously the service industry businesses.

No one is out lunching (taxes). No one is driving (fuel taxes). Hell, even clothing demand is going down. If I can work all day naked from the waist down, you can figure out the long term effects.

Isn't that just how the world works? I don't get everything I want. I can't just open a restaurant and demand people go there.

 

[PooPopsBaldHead]

There will still be more remote/hybrid work than historically for sure. But the push is big to get people back into the office. I'm not convinced it will help that much though.

I have worked remotely my entire career effectively. Some people are cut out for it and others are not. A good rule of thumb, the cohort in the office that is playing candy crush, checking facebook, packing up at 4:45 every afternoon, and burning tires at 5:00 to get out of there are not working at the office either. The show up early and stay late crowd will get it done from anywhere.

My counterpoint is that the bigger issue to the lack of productivity since Covid has less to do with remote work and a lot more to do with the lack of giving a ****. When you lay everyone off and give them tons of stimulus and perks to not work, they tend to think if it happens again uncle sam will have their backs. Service in everything from retail to construction to B2B has been absolute dog **** for the last 2 years. I am not talking about shortages and supply chain delays, I am talking about not getting phone calls returned for weeks at a time. No follow ups after deadlines are missed by "salespeople." Empty glasses sitting on tables at dinner until you walk back to the kitchen to get it yourself only to find everyone in the back chatting.

While it will suck personally, there is a big part of me that hopes we have a real recession with big time layoffs. No fed support either. Let some of these 17ers that are coasting through their jobs actually experience some struggles so they appreciate gainful employment down the road. Right now there is not a day that goes by that I don't personally experience **** service somewhere and it seems to be getting worse.

It wasn't even 15 years ago when the great recession hit. I **** you not, as coworkers, customers, and other colleagues were getting laid off en masse... I though every single day from about mid 2008 until 2011 or so was going to be my last. There was no backstop. We worked our assess off and because of it, we built a booming economy that lasted a decade.

"The tree of capitalism must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of lazy asses and malingerers. It is its natural manure."

ThomasJefferson'sSocks


ETA. The BLS confirms productivity is down considerably in 2022. In fact, the last 2 quarters (-7.4% and -4.6%) are the worst declines in productivity since the data was collected in the 1940's. On top of that, because of inflation and pay raises added to the output decline per hour worked, the unit labor costs are up 10.8% YOY. I don't want to hear anymore of this greedy corporations are causing inflation ********. Labor costs are up 10.8% YOY and inflation is at 8.5%. The companies aren't even raising prices as much as their labor cost increase. So the labor component of a widget is up 10.8%, but the widget is only up 8.5%.

View attachment 24934

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/prod2.nr0.htm

My guess is this is a combination of a few things, like supply chains and covid disruptions... But lazy asses are definitely apart of it.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

Honestly, the money I've saved on cleaners, gas and food over the years is pretty substantial, but I don't see it as my responsibility to keep any/all of those folks in business.

 

[fishwater99]

It's anecdotal, but every business owner I talk to says the productivity of their employees has suffered as a result of remote work.

It's one of the least shocking things in the world when you think about it. Of course your average person gets less done at home.

One of the first things you learn managing people is that your average person will do as little as they can get away with doing.

This is absolutely what we found at my workplace. Staff were not even logging in to the server on remote days.

I was working from home yesterday afternoon and wasted all kind of time, even mowed the lawn on the clock.

 

[The Peeper]

there is a big part of me that hopes we have a real recession with big time layoffs. No fed support either.

That no fed support part is funny, Chucky Schumer and Nancy Pat Pelosi will be throwing out unemployment checks like Mardi Gras beads off of a parade float

 

[aTotal360]

2 great points.

 

[Smoked Toag]

This is absolutely what we found at my workplace. Staff were not even logging in to the server on remote days.

I was working from home yesterday afternoon and wasted all kind of time, even mowed the lawn on the clock.

That sounds like your workplace's problem. If your workplace can handle that level of no productivity, then they obviously do not need the employees. Get rid of them.

Do you not have any type of accountability? What kind of businesses are you guys in?

 

[horshack.sixpack]

Interesting related article: "According to Pew Research Center, the rate of retirement in Baby Boomers has accelerated since the start of COVID-19 with almost 29 million boomers retiring in 2020 – An increase of more than 3 million from 2019. With 75 million Baby Boomers retiring by 2030, The Great Retirement is looking to supersede The Great Resignation as the biggest hiring trend for 2022..."

https://blog.adeccousa.com/2022-hiring-trend-great-retirement/

 

[Faustdog]

That no fed support part is funny, Chucky Schumer and Nancy Pat Pelosi will be throwing out unemployment checks like Mardi Gras beads off of a parade float

And Trump too if he gets back in. Let’s not forget he wanted more, bigger stimulus checks until McConnell reigned him in,

 

[BoDawg.sixpack]

That logic would apply to workers as well, of course they would say they're more

productive working at home. Remote work and hybrid work schedules tend to give them more control. I would wager if you looked at each industry where remote or hybrid scheduling is possible you'd find variability in the level of productivity measured against an office only schedule. The next analysis needed is what variables are statistically significant when determining the variation in productivity, including how many distractions (kids, pets, phone calls, etc) each person experiences when they're at home.

 

[dorndawg]

This is absolutely what we found at my workplace. Staff were not even logging in to the server on remote days.

I was working from home yesterday afternoon and wasted all kind of time, even mowed the lawn on the clock.

But you still got your work done, I presume? So why would you have needed to be at the office?

 

[aTotal360]

Yip.

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

Exactly.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

Please re-install your blinders and just choose one side to dislike.***

 

[CochiseCowbell]

Please re-install your blinders and just choose one side to dislike.***

 

[johnson86-1]

I've seen the opposite. In multiple cases, I see better productivity from not being in the office, particularly from support staff who were subjected to drive by distractions constantly and now can mostly focus on work because it turns out work place distractors are mostly opportunistic, but not so ambitious as to pick up the phone and distract.

I don't think that's because of distractions primarily, I think it's because of incentives. Most people in an office setting probably do less than 6 hours of work a day if I were going to guess. When their reward for getting done with their work by 2:00 is to hvae three hours in the office to kill, better to spread the work out. When their reward is doing what they want around the house, they get their work done quickly.

 

[8dog]

Remote is awesome. More productive. Happier employees. Expanded talent pool.

 

[johnson86-1]

Why would you want to lose employees in a time where it's difficult to replace them? You just going to pretend like production didn't get better during remote working? Plenty of data on this.

I'm not sure how much I trust that we are capable of accurately measuring that for a lot of office workers, but even to the extent we can, I really wouldn't put too much weight on the numbers from during and immediately after the pandemic. Primarily because it was new. I would bet that whatever impacts there are to productivity, the first few months would not be representative. But also because the potential distractions were not necessarily the same. Probably not as big of a deal, but not as many potential temptations to leave the house for.

 

[ckDOG]

Hybrid/Flexible is the way to go.

Too much facilities costs to trim. Too many lessons learned in actual employee productivity. Let folks work from home when it makes sense. Provide quality but scaled back space to meet in when that makes sense.

That said, there's a ticking time bomb. Learning and relationship building is FAR better done in person. We have our head in the sand on how this is going to set back our young workers who are missing out on this. Folks that have decades of experience don't get impacted by this as much bc we've been around the block. Rookies might be getting by, but they are losing out on some of the soft stuff that you need to navigate your career (office politics/making quality connections/etc.).

We'd be dumb to not take away lessons from all of this and allow employees some flexibility/freedom, but I think we need to encourage people to be more physically present than we have been. Pendulum moved too far IMO.

Of course, everywhere is different. My observations are from context of high headcount fortune 50 finance world.

 

[mcdawg22]

I don’t understand the need for some jobs to go back into the office. My team is remote and we have the entire country to hire from. My company doesn’t have to pay for the electricity I use, the plumbing, or the space I occupy. Since going remote, our satisfaction metrics have gone up. I understand it’s not for everyone but it seems to be working for us. The key is for open collaboration using technology.
ETA: I also had Covid a couple of weeks ago and didn’t miss a minute of work. If I worked in an office I would have been out a week.

 

[DawgInThe256]

You've captured my thoughts on the subject. At my company we've proven that we can work well remotely, but I don't think it's working as well as everyone thinks it is. There's no substitute for getting a bunch of talented people together around a white board to come up with creative solutions to a problem.

 

[DirtyDog]

Why would you want to lose employees in a time where it's difficult to replace them? You just going to pretend like production didn't get better during remote working? Plenty of data on this.

The studies that report improved production typically only focus on individuals, especially those that do NOT work in teams or do repetitive mundane tasks. Check out this study, which shows that teams and individual workers that work as a part of a team are only about 70% as productive as their office team counterparts.

Reference: New Technology, Work and Employment 35:1ISSN 1468-005X "Co‐workers working from home and individual and team performance" by Tanja van der Lippe and Zoltán Lippényi

 

[HRMSU]

There will still be more remote/hybrid work than historically for sure. But the push is big to get people back into the office. I'm not convinced it will help that much though.

I have worked remotely my entire career effectively. Some people are cut out for it and others are not. A good rule of thumb, the cohort in the office that is playing candy crush, checking facebook, packing up at 4:45 every afternoon, and burning tires at 5:00 to get out of there are not working at the office either. The show up early and stay late crowd will get it done from anywhere.

^^^^ This right here from JLS!

If you can't trust them to work in the office there is no way they will work at home. The role needs to be redefined or performanced managed better.

On the flip side if they are productive in the office then they will most likely be productive anywhere they prefer to work. Performance management will validate and create more flexibility for them.

 

[Trojanbulldog19]

We've adopted hybrid. Seems to work ok.I like working remotely but some people are hard to get a hold of. I think core hours are more important so people are available at the same time. If I need to talk to you, it may take me three days if you working a lot of weird hours.

 

[af102]

My current employer's CEO was a very "we need to be in the office to collaborate effectively" guy pre-covid, but it never made a ton of sense because most development teams in the company had a few members in other locations due to mergers/acquisitions. Even though everyone was in an office, we still had all our meetings on some kind of video conferencing software. Right before covid, I think we had like 5 in Atlanta, 3 in Vermont, and 1 in Maryland. Our switch to fully remote was actually an improvement in overall team communication during meetings because no side conversations could happen that the microphone wouldn't pick up.

We "returned to the office" in July 2020, but we were on some kind of weird rotation where only half the office came in each week, you still did all your meetings on zoom because close to half your team wasn't in Atlanta, and all the office food perks were gone (snacks/free lunch). I think that lasted less than 2 months before COVID cases spiked again and they made the office completely optional again.

Summer 2021 saw a true mandatory return to office, but we were given the ability to opt in to a hybrid schedule of 2-5 days per week in the office. On the 2 days in the office, we all became acutely aware at how distracting our open office is. Pretty much everyone just put on noise canceling headphones and didn't speak. I think we did that for a month or so before all development teams went remote first. We are growing so fast that only recruiting in Atlanta was basically impossible, and our CEO had to acknowledge that out productivity had increased during remote work. There are a handful of folks in our division that still go to the office every day, but that's purely by preference. They do all their meetings on zoom with the ret of us.

I've had all kinds of in office interview requests in the last year or so, and I just outright refuse them. Going remote gave me hours of my day back, lets me see my kids far more than I would normally have been able to, and just leaves me with way more energy in general at the end of the work day.

The next big shift that needs to happen is how US companies handle vacation, sick leave, and paternity/maternity leave. I recently turned down an offer from a company that had 3 weeks of combined vacation and sick leave for an entire year! My current employer gives us unlimited PTO, and I'm averaging like 30-35 full/partial days off the last 3 years (not including sick days). Throw another 6 weeks off the last time I had added a kid to the brood, and it's very easy to retain employees here.

The one downside to unlimited is you don't bank it to get paid out at the end, but I've had coworkers take like a month off to go visit family members in other countries, and no one bats an eye as long as you give enough notice to plan around it.

 

[BigBully]

My company has made a strategic decision that we will be Hybrid for the foreseeable future. We also allow our employees to choose if they want to come in the office full-time or if they want to go to a hybrid work schedule -- 1, 2, or 3 days per week. At a minimum, we are making hybrid workers come into the office 4 times a month. This is a good solution for us because we have grown so much we couldn't house everybody in our buildings if everyone came back full-time. This equates deferring costs of building additional workspaces on our campuses. At the end of the day, it's the managers responsibility to actually manage their teams to be productive -- regardless if they are on campus or working from home.

BB

 

[8dog]

Yeah. When some of our group happens to be in the office at the same time by happenstance they all say the same thing “how did we ever get any work done before?”