I think companies are trying to use the current economic environment as leverage to claw back some rights their workers have gained since 2020. It’s all about control, nothing to do with your output as an employee.
This is kind of an odd way to frame this. The increase of remote work, at Meta at least, was not a result of some kind of workers vs. management struggle in which workers temporarily gained an upper hand. It was the result of an exogenous event (the pandemic) forcing an on-the-fly experiment.
Meta needs its best engineers to be highly motivated in uncertain times. Otherwise innovation will be harder to come by.
All the best engineers I ever worked with so far all favor remote work because it increases code quality, throughput, and happiness.
Meta will be disrupted, seeing as whatever Meta tech they’re building isn’t even good enough for their own employees to dogfood for better remote work experience.
I'm a big advocate of remote work, but my role has changed it's value significantly:
* As an IC, remote is amazing. It gives me distraction free space to focus and be productive. With moderate process, I'm able to be extremely productive and unblock myself.
* As a manager, remote can be challenging when trying to drive cross-team/cross-org impact - especially on ambiguous projects. It's far more challenging to drive outcomes when you can't simply walk into someone's office for a quick conversation . Good process can help with this, but most companies don't reward for this.
The place I work for hasn't fully embraced remote for in house staff, since lockdowns it's now 2 days a month in the office but we have hired an agency to help with an app rebuild. We've got 5-6 people from the agency working from Spain, Hungary, Poland and the UK and they're brilliant. Really knowledgable about our specific niche with loads of experience in related areas. I have no idea how we'd find people this good in the UK let alone ones tied to commute distance of the office.
I can only assume the huge companies like Meta are wanting to reduce HR overhead of dealing with different countries and states employment laws, taxes etc.
Suddenly all these layoffs from the tech industry now make sense. Companies view the WFH movement and the rights which the workers have gained over the past three years as a threat to their very existence. The layoffs combined with a mandatory return to office will discourage any sort of dissent.
Do they though? I see the WFH movement as a threat to the existence of my job. If the entire IT department works from home, what's stopping the company from moving it to India, Bangladesh or Pakistan? If you live in North America or Europe then I feel like you should fight against WFH, since a lot of smart people in the world would gladly do your job for half the salary.
To what "rights", specifically, are you referring? How were they "gained over the past 3 years"? There is a weird strain of thinking in this thread that tries to frame this as some kind of Marxian labor-capital power struggle. But that framing doesn't really fit the facts.
Paywall blocking the article for me, but... I considered changing jobs to FB about a year ago. The recruiter was saying that they're remote-first and plan to stay that way.
Recruiters are there to get you hired, not to tell the truth. I imagine the messaging internally for recruiting teams has changed drastically.
Is there anyone who still wants to work at facebook at this point? The company that is laying off thousands, that has wasted billions on a metaverse that no one wants, not to mention one that has helped rip apart the fabric of society? And now doesn’t want you working from home? Is it really worth the money at this point?
I doubt the recruiter would have known anything different. A lot of these sudden RTO initiatives appear to be top-down things, not something recruiters would have known about a year in advance.
This isn't as nefarious as everyone makes it out to be. There are articles that state Meta has hard data that people who start as Remote workers at Meta significantly underperform those that don't. In light of that data, they're pausing the experiment and working to understand what the data is saying.
As I had written a long time back as Facebook slowly dies, we will see the monster thrashing and causing destruction in its wake. Trying to lobby for banning TikTok, getting rid of remote, they will try everything now. The metaverse idea failed and now they are completely lost.
Arguably I'm not quite done mulling over this, but I've started to wonder if the insistence that work-from-home isn't working, isn't an indication of failed management.
While software developers and similar roles have rather easily adapted to working from home, some managers haven't been able to keep up. I suspect this is because many of them weren't great manager to begin with. They struggle to do project planing, follow ups on current tasks and keeping the job queues full. Forcing people back into the office is an attempt to revert to an environment that hides poor management skills, even if it's worse for everyone else.
The success of "work from home" seems to me to be very much dependent on the management and culture of a company and Facebook may simply not have a management layer that can deal with developers not being at the office or working at odd hours.
While it may be controversial, I like that some companies are trying Work from Office, for multiple reasons:
It forces companies to tap into a smaller talent pool locally, which can include more junior employees that may require training. This makes the company more inclusive and gives opportunities to those who might not otherwise have access to them.
Let's not forget that one of the most successful companies in the world, OpenAI, operates mostly from the office. For one, if there truly is an advantage to remote work, then companies that embrace it will naturally outperform those that don't. However, the fact that Meta and other companies are requiring employees to return to the office suggests that there may be benefits to in-person work that can't be replicated remotely.
My company choose an hybrid option that I find interesting. It is remotely only, but hires only locally.
> My company choose an hybrid option that I find interesting. It is remotely only, but hires only locally.
Oh, the worst of both worlds. The talent pool of one city and reasonable commutes, combined with the great communication and innovation of video calls looking up someone's nose.
> It forces companies to tap into a smaller talent pool locally…
But this is meta we’re talking about who are deeply embedded in the one place on earth every software developer wants to go to get the best job opportunities.
Great job humans. Keep encouraging more daily commuters and contributing to greenhouse gases instead of making things better through technology. I am sure the next generations will thank us for this and not even showing the willpower to look at the issue objectively. /s
Office commuting is the most viable public transport service. Trains would use a negligible amount of power per passenger. It might even be more efficient to take a train to an office than to heat your home.
WFH may very well be a trap for companies to identify their "least loyal" employees. I've heard in business that if you're not at the table you're not involved. I can see a future where the same will be said about WFH: If you're not at the office you're not involved, a team player, or someone to keep.
Why in the future? It is already the case in a lot of companies that are not able to make WFH and office work in parallel, especially on the information sharing, on the spot decision making and so on. My personal biais says that most companies actually failed to transform to viable remote-oriented companies and are not ready to remove the bandaid and bring everyone back to the office.
I don't blame them. Were entering a bear market, they have disadvantaged themselves with metaverse (although their hand was forced when ad market was nuked).
It's a hectic market where job seekers and employers are about to get tight.
This goes to show that it doesn't take talent to be one of the worlds richest. It just takes luck. And Zuck has run away from what made him so lucky. He will fall.
[+] [-] temp_account_32|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blibble|2 years ago|reply
has he stopped believing in the transformative power of the metaverse then?
[+] [-] psychphysic|2 years ago|reply
I don't know why Meta exists at this point other than the momentum of a large business with loads of assets and meaningful no product.
[+] [-] sp332|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mandeepj|2 years ago|reply
https://www.protocol.com/mark-zuckerberg-remote-work-faceboo...
[+] [-] dalyons|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] basisword|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] next_xibalba|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ThorsBane|2 years ago|reply
All the best engineers I ever worked with so far all favor remote work because it increases code quality, throughput, and happiness.
Meta will be disrupted, seeing as whatever Meta tech they’re building isn’t even good enough for their own employees to dogfood for better remote work experience.
[+] [-] SkyPuncher|2 years ago|reply
* As an IC, remote is amazing. It gives me distraction free space to focus and be productive. With moderate process, I'm able to be extremely productive and unblock myself.
* As a manager, remote can be challenging when trying to drive cross-team/cross-org impact - especially on ambiguous projects. It's far more challenging to drive outcomes when you can't simply walk into someone's office for a quick conversation . Good process can help with this, but most companies don't reward for this.
[+] [-] sumo89|2 years ago|reply
I can only assume the huge companies like Meta are wanting to reduce HR overhead of dealing with different countries and states employment laws, taxes etc.
[+] [-] wooptoo|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slowmotiony|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] next_xibalba|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hot_gril|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] briga|2 years ago|reply
Is there anyone who still wants to work at facebook at this point? The company that is laying off thousands, that has wasted billions on a metaverse that no one wants, not to mention one that has helped rip apart the fabric of society? And now doesn’t want you working from home? Is it really worth the money at this point?
[+] [-] btgeekboy|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SketchySeaBeast|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jchonphoenix|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drewbug01|2 years ago|reply
Until they do so, I remain deeply skeptical. It’s all too easy to engineer measurements or interpret data to support the outcomes you already want.
If the data is truly so revealing, show it to the world.
[+] [-] ilrwbwrkhv|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arthurcolle|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ErneX|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dv_dt|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrweasel|2 years ago|reply
While software developers and similar roles have rather easily adapted to working from home, some managers haven't been able to keep up. I suspect this is because many of them weren't great manager to begin with. They struggle to do project planing, follow ups on current tasks and keeping the job queues full. Forcing people back into the office is an attempt to revert to an environment that hides poor management skills, even if it's worse for everyone else.
The success of "work from home" seems to me to be very much dependent on the management and culture of a company and Facebook may simply not have a management layer that can deal with developers not being at the office or working at odd hours.
[+] [-] bratao|2 years ago|reply
It forces companies to tap into a smaller talent pool locally, which can include more junior employees that may require training. This makes the company more inclusive and gives opportunities to those who might not otherwise have access to them.
Let's not forget that one of the most successful companies in the world, OpenAI, operates mostly from the office. For one, if there truly is an advantage to remote work, then companies that embrace it will naturally outperform those that don't. However, the fact that Meta and other companies are requiring employees to return to the office suggests that there may be benefits to in-person work that can't be replicated remotely.
My company choose an hybrid option that I find interesting. It is remotely only, but hires only locally.
[+] [-] danpalmer|2 years ago|reply
Oh, the worst of both worlds. The talent pool of one city and reasonable commutes, combined with the great communication and innovation of video calls looking up someone's nose.
[+] [-] UncleEntity|2 years ago|reply
But this is meta we’re talking about who are deeply embedded in the one place on earth every software developer wants to go to get the best job opportunities.
They might deny it on “moral grounds” but, yeah…
[+] [-] birdsnezte|2 years ago|reply
How are you measuring success?
[+] [-] albatross13|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] la64710|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] add-sub-mul-div|2 years ago|reply
Since working from home, I drive around the suburbs almost daily Monday to Friday for lunch/errands to get out of the house.
People make weird assumptions.
[+] [-] Gigachad|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paxys|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Overtonwindow|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notagoodidea|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] surgical_fire|2 years ago|reply
I don't want to be kept. Even if they wanted to keep me, they most likely wouldn't make it anyway.
[+] [-] psychphysic|2 years ago|reply
It's a hectic market where job seekers and employers are about to get tight.
[+] [-] chris_wot|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adversaryIdiot|2 years ago|reply