At $org, we too are undertaking a mandatory RTO order, enforced with door access logs.
People are up in arms, particularly those in our smaller locales, where the offices we have are perfunctory at best.
The rationale is the usual one: collaboration, watercooler chat, unspecific evidence / "research" about productivity (that we are told definitely exists, but is yet to be shared).
I remain baffled by executives' obsession with RTO... C suites are committed to spending as much as possible on real estate and geographically limiting their talent pool. Whilst making workers more tired and less productive.
I still have no idea where it comes from. My best guess is that nobody at that level wants to break ranks with the "collective wisdom" of "investors", which creates a kind of groupthink.
(An RTO mandate is also an excellent thing for a CEO to show investors they are doing, if they are not making money and lack better ideas.)
I work in a large company that mandated 4-day RTO last year. Even taking a completely objetive point of view on the situation leads to the conclusion that something else is needed. We spend our days at our desks, on Zoom calls. People won’t get up to join in person - mostly because the conference rooms are all blocked by “special projects”, but mostly due to the offshoring of positions and distributed workforce post-pandemic. We are all spending valuable time on commutes to do what was possible from home.
Now I suspect the C-suite has noticed the discrepancy between attendance and occupancy, and I fully expect that their solution in this job market to be a 5-days, monitored attendance RTO soon. We are regressing at an alarming rate.
> Microsoft's new approach is the latest sign of the company increasing performance pressure on employees. It has fired thousands of employees deemed low performers this year and introduced a new performance improvement plan meant to exit low performers more quickly.
Claims who? These also sound like typical sketchy headcount reduction tactics.
Also, it's throwing employees under the bus, because the company is tarring them as low performers, at the same time as the company dumps them onto a hostile job market. Those employees should talk to lawyers.
> > Importantly, this update is not about reducing headcount.
MS had to mention that in the memo, because that's what everyone reading it was thinking?
Just out of curiosity, how much compensation would people be willing to leave on the table in lieu of "Remote" work? (this is different to, how much would you ASK to go from remote to a new in-office job). 10%, 25%, 50%?
I've worked remotely for 5 years now, and there is NO way I would return to an office based job. I even have moved to a small town where there are practically 0 tech jobs; and at this point there's NO way I would relocate for a new job. Maybe it is my age (44), or maybe I am even in a privileged position financially; but at this moment in my life I would rather quit my job if they made me return to office (even for one day a week, as it would mean having to move to wherever the office is). Fortunately I am in a position where I can go several months without a paycheck, and I have some passive income.
It is funny to see how in one (IT) culture there is two narratives, often supported by same people:
1) Office is bad, people more productive working remote from their homes, and corporate C-levels issue and enforce RTO, which is silly and anti-productive.
2) All jokes about Zoom/Meet/Teams, with all these «Each meeting consists of “are you hear me?” questions», etc.
Maybe, I'm unique (I'm sure I'm not), but I was twice less productive at remote (when it was mandated by anti-COVID measures of my Government) and I've happily returned to office as soon as I was allowed to.
For me, there are multitude of reasons to want to go to office, including endless number of shelves I need to mount at home (it is easy to procrastinate when you have OTHER real things to do, like home improvement, and not only meme-scrolling), mental resource to prepare one more meal each day (I have canteen at the office and lunch becomes no-brainer and takes 15-20 minutes instead of additional shopping & cooking at home), etc.
But main and most important reason is, personal meetings and, yes, this proverbial cooler chats. I'm 10x more effective in communication in person than all these videocalls. I dread planned calls, I cannot «read» counterparts well via videocall and it takes me much more time to explain ideas, problems and opinions via any remote communication. Also, a lot of «small» questions are postponed indefinitely because there is no this cooler, when you can ask somebody opinion or bounce off half-backed ideas against your colleague without scheduling yet another meeting and WITHOUT throwing your colleague out of the flow (because you know that he leaved flow to drink some tea already!).
I'm glad, that I can visit office every day, but also I'm glad that I can WFH for one day if I needed to (for example, when I need to meet plumber or alike).
Yes, there is commuting, but my commute is 15-20 minutes one way :-)
I think the simple and boring answer is it really depends. As you say, your commute is short, but also I think there's just a personality element to it. Some people absolutely thrive and are way more productive remotely (and I think HN skews towards that type of person), and other people are the opposite, losing their minds if they don't have colleagues beside them to talk and collaborate with.
Oh, I agree fully. I enjoy going to office. I also enjoy WFH. But after two days of WFH I am so bored.
Like many above like to call managers 'managers' I like to call developers/devopsengineers/* 'IT people'. Office is not a 'manager' or 'c-suite' thing. Put it differently: not going to office is an 'IT people' thing.
Being productive is not only the number of lines of code you crank out. Being productive is cranking out the right lines of code. You need to communicate for that. Casually joining a few colleagues talking about work delivers so much value. Maybe make a few decisions without planning a meeting. That is productive!
It is also not only about being productive, It is also about having fun with my team or colleagues. But I also like to sense how my team members are behaving, are people super tired? Are they happy? Etc etc.
Oh and the good old whiteboard sessions, I love them and I miss them.
If I tell my non 'it people' friends my colleagues only want to go to office max 1 time a week... or not at all, most friends call it crazy.
Tomorrow to the office again, yes! 45 minute lunch walk through the city... Close the door at 17:00 and call it a day! Love it!
You’re speaking from a very privileged position. A 15–20 minute commute and an office with a canteen is not the reality for most workers. Many spend 1–3 hours daily stuck in traffic or on crowded trains, which is pure wasted time. Add in rising transport costs, pollution, and the fact that not everyone can afford to live near their workplace, and commuting becomes one of the biggest drains on productivity and well-being.
So while it’s great that the office works for you, dismissing WFH as “less productive” ignores the fact that for many people, it’s the only way they can actually be productive, stay healthy, and remain in the workforce at all.
You’re not alone. I absolutely love going to office every day but also love the flexibility to occasionally wfh if needed. I just feel like when I enter the office and put on my “unreachable” focus mode on I’m in the zone and very productive. At home there’s endless distractions (my cats make sure to check in with me every time get too focused). Also I do like interacting with colleagues. I think I started liking going to office even more once I broke up with my gf that was living with me for 4 years. Something about working the entire day from my apartment completely alone is… not appealing to my social side of the brain.
People have different preferences, some people are going to be more productive at home and some less. Some people simply can’t work from home.
I think the challenge is that leadership isn’t coherent when it comes to RTO:
1. Leadership has largely abandoned the notion of geography when hiring or building teams. Building geographic centers of excellence where all team members with the same function working closely together used to be a thing. Leadership wants the flexibility to pick the best talent, at the best prices, on short notice but also wants ad-hoc collaboration. Workers are rightly confused when every meeting they have in an office is on Zoom.
2. Leadership has largely abandoned the notion of timezone alignment and structured working days. Leadership wants to hire talent across the globe which requires more cross-timezone collaboration and non-standard-work hour meetings. That wasn’t possible when at 5PM to 7PM everyone was commuting. It also isn’t reasonable to expect people to hold a rigid 8AM to 5PM in-office schedule and then take 2 hours of meetings from 6PM to 8PM.
3. Leadership is complains that office space is both essential to productivity AND too expensive to spend money on. Employees home setups in terms of working space, noise isolation, connectivity and configuration are now more productive than what is offered in-office. When leadership took people from dedicated offices, to cubicles, to open seating and then to “hot desking” it was justified that commercial real estate was scarce, expensive and required the sacrifice of productivity to manage costs. Now that it is plentiful and cheap? Leadership is saying that RTO is needed for productivity AND that they will continue to reduce spending on office space per employee.
The only way to mentally reconcile that is to either assume that leadership is incompetent or that they want to return to 18th century sweat shops and envy China’s 9x9x6 culture. I can see why mid-level management is struggling getting compliance which is why they are relying on badge swipes.
Thanks for being honest. I cannot imagine trying to work from home and I think it is a shared charade we are all caught up in. Be thankful you have a job to go into work to, that may not always be the case for everyone…
MSFT employees - better make sure not to work from home anymore considering your jobs can’t be done from there. Close your laptops at 5pm, do not re-open them until you are back in office at 9am the next day.
The only thing I hated worse than going into the office was our remote employees, who never seemed to be available when you needed them, had their status set to Away (or wouldn't respond for hours if they were green).
It was a privilege, people abused it, and now it's over. And managers were the worst offenders.
Interesting. I've been remote for 5 years across three different companies, and if anything I've had the opposite experience: my remote coworkers are far more responsive than my on-site coworkers, who are always in meetings, in transit, having in-person chit chat, or taking a break.
I have a more nuanced take here. For low performing or junior employees, remote work was generally a terrible thing that led to less productivity (and more managerial overhead). For strongly performing employees with obligations at home, there were many who preferred working at home.
I fall more into the latter camp (at least I hope so) and, given I've only worked in nice offices with catered lunches, gyms, video games, offsites, etc, I enjoy a 3 day hybrid schedule works best for me.
That seems like an issue of company leadership and culture. There are many remote companies where this isn’t true. I’ve seen comments from Amazon workers talking about they were much more productive in a remote work situation, even though their leader (Andy Jassy) chose to make the company go back to the office 5 days a week with invasive monitoring of how people badge in and out.
I'm very pro remote working, but I think people like me need to realize that this is a real issue. It happens in the office too, but it's a bit harder to get away with, and it's really a performance management issue which brings us nicely to your second point.
I agree, managers are always the worst offenders when it comes to this sort of thing. But they do the same in the office by disappearing into meeting rooms for the entire day. I'd love to know how you can effectively manage a team by constantly being in meetings with other managers.
It always seems weird to me how people complain about such things. Just do your thing and don't care about others. If others are blocking you, just say so in the daily or to your manager. Easy.
I don't really care about unproductive people, I care about myself.
I abuse the WFH thing because my manager promised me a raise if I complete a project and then sabotaged it, then put the blame on me, and finally changed the raise requirements. Really can't stay motivated in such an environment. If the game is "who fucks harder the other party" then don't be surprised that I watch porn during WFH and then try to convince other employees to do the same.
I will forever fight this with saying that chat is an async medium. If you need a response right now, pick up the phone.
Worst offenders are people who say things like: Hey, how are you doing?
And then ... nothing.
Or maybe people are actually working on something. And your 2 minute question might cause them to lose 30 minutes.
This is why it is important to have multiple work-streams going when doing remote work, so that you don't sit around and wait until you have your answer.
> It was a privilege, people abused it, and now it's over. And managers were the worst offenders.
IME, managers do this in the office just as much as remote.
Look at the typical manager's schedule. It's completely full of meetings - most of which are bullshit "busy" meetings, and they never respond to anything timely.
Hardly. It was COVID. It forced companies to do the most logical thing they could in a world of high speed internet. Many of them refused to read the writing on the wall and assumed it would return to normal one day. They made no efforts to internally reorient themselves around this new work strategy.
> people abused it
Other than your anecdote what evidence is there that this is true? Has the economy faltered? Is there any second source for the data which shows _any_ impact _at all_?
Abused it in which way? Don't touch the money-makers. And if you're in the office, don't daydream about 'improvements' you could make that touch the money-makers in a vain attempt to quell your anxiety about not appearing to do anything of value.
Reading this comment I can't help but imagine a high school student using the same pattern to respond to an "open period" being changed to "study hall" with mandatory in-library presence; which is not to dig on you, just to raise the idea that maybe k-12 education really is a conspiracy to train people to sit in factories.
This is the issue. Too many people take the absolute piss with it. On the opposite end of the spectrum you have people who don't switch off and put in a lot of extra hours essentially picking up the slack. I'm finding a lot more people (both at work and amongst friends) who are desperate to avoid speaking on calls or turning their video on because it makes them nervous. Probably healthier for everyone to just be in the office.
I have worked for 7 years in the office and 7 years remote, and for me the 7 years remote were not as enjoyable.
I like the routines and processes that I adhere to more when I have a separate work location; I find it more difficult to adhere to those same processes when I can roll out of bed and walk to my computer half asleep and zone in on work.
For example, I find it much more likely I’ll consistently shower, get dressed, eat breakfast etc, when I go into the office than when I work from home.
Additionally, when working remote, I find that there’s often more of a bias towards threads or messages starting off related to something work related; I do try to ask about colleagues weekends occasionally for example, but when remote it often feels more like you’re consuming their bandwidth or attention vs just minor conversation in passing.
Sometimes things take time to compile, or conversations over text-mediums are difficult; having a manager nearby that can sense when things are difficult and more effectively help is great. I’ve had many times where I’ve sighed about something and my coworker heard and asked what got me flustered and explaining it helped lead to resolution.
What I would suggest is that perhaps some teams should be remote and some local if possible to facilitate different types of employees.
I totally get working remote, I’d probably do it if I was back in a relationship and/or had kids.
50 miles is a lot. That can easily be 2h in most big cities.
To do what exactly? Sit in an open office in Redmond, jump on Teams to call with someone in Fort Lauderdale?
Funny thing, I had multiple interviews with them on explicit remote roles (which are different from roles that went remote during COVID). I wonder if the policy changes there.
I live about 100 miles from NYC, which is 2-2.5 hours by car but only 1.5 hours by train. I think that that would be considered an acceptable commute time for companies with a hybrid work plan. However, every time I ask recruiters from NYC-based companies if their commute subsidy would cover the train, I get told employees have to live within a 50 mile radius of the office. Like you said, that could be 2 hours by car! For the right salary and benefits, I'd happily spend 3 hours a day on a train. At least I wouldn't be driving.
This is going to lead to these abstract discussions of subjective perceptual "productivity" as it always does, but by the actual economic definition of labor productivity, revenue per employee, Microsoft has gone from $143 billion with 163,000 in 2020 ($877,000 per head) to $282 billion with 228,000 ($1.24 million per head) so far this year. They've become the 2nd largest company in the world by market cap, in large part specifically because Microsoft employees are so economically productive.
It says a lot about a team when they win, and instead of rewarding the players that got them the win, they do shit like this.
Having to sit in the car, train, or even walking can be seen as a punishment when the 80% to 890 of your work is done sitting by yourself in front of a computer.
At the office there where those who clearly wanted to minimize human interactions and people who thrived and performed better when interacting with others.
And then there is liminal spaces (Severance) the place where hope and creativity comes to die.
It mentions this was based on some “data” (in emailsto employees) that it will yield better output but I somehow doubt it. I wonder what happens with the stock. It sort of makes it worse for the teams that are distributed and harms collab between sites in different zones like Europe/Asia and US/Europe. When you are working from home it is easy to stay later or start earlier and join calls. If you are in the office this is not that easy due to commute.
Given that MS does not have top salaries, my bet is that folks will leave to other companies given that the main leverage like WFH is gone.
It’s a common thing here on HN to believe that remote is superior for productivity, and I’m always reminded of Richard Hammond’s observations about open door vs closed door coworkers. He noticed over time that the closed door workers were more productive. He also noticed that the closed door workers were less impactful in their fields years later. His were observations in R&D settings, but I suspect they can be extrapolated. People who are interrupted get less done. This seems largely indisputable, but what is the other takeaway? People who don’t interract with peers don’t course correct enough, seems to be solid advice based on what we know about the OODA loop. People who don’t interact with coworkers don’t get enough time saving advice? I know I’ve saved lots of effort by having coworkers who know things I didn’t about related problems.
What complicated things, is return to work will cause all the best to rethink their employment. I’ve seen HBR surveys that suggest the top talent is ending up places that allow them to stay remote. I think this leaves businesses in a tight place. I have every reason to believe that companies with lots of employee interactions have better acceleration/trajetory than fully remote, but it’s a big hit to lose top talent. And remote may have so much velocity from gaining this talent that they don’t care about the acceleration tradeoff.
Further, concentration of talent in a region also cannot be discounted. Certain things can’t happen without the exchange of ideas (partly why I think cities/counties should ban non competes). I don’t know how much a given company can control this concentration of talent, but I know that Seattle wouldn’t be what it is without Boeing, and then Microsoft attracting very smart people.
> We’ve looked at how our teams work best, and the data is clear: when people work together in person more often, they thrive — they are more energized, empowered, and they deliver stronger results.
Ah the data is clear, without reference to the data collected or metrics used.
[+] [-] neonate|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] jbreckmckye|6 months ago|reply
People are up in arms, particularly those in our smaller locales, where the offices we have are perfunctory at best.
The rationale is the usual one: collaboration, watercooler chat, unspecific evidence / "research" about productivity (that we are told definitely exists, but is yet to be shared).
I remain baffled by executives' obsession with RTO... C suites are committed to spending as much as possible on real estate and geographically limiting their talent pool. Whilst making workers more tired and less productive.
I still have no idea where it comes from. My best guess is that nobody at that level wants to break ranks with the "collective wisdom" of "investors", which creates a kind of groupthink.
(An RTO mandate is also an excellent thing for a CEO to show investors they are doing, if they are not making money and lack better ideas.)
[+] [-] Mobius01|6 months ago|reply
Now I suspect the C-suite has noticed the discrepancy between attendance and occupancy, and I fully expect that their solution in this job market to be a 5-days, monitored attendance RTO soon. We are regressing at an alarming rate.
[+] [-] neilv|6 months ago|reply
Claims who? These also sound like typical sketchy headcount reduction tactics.
Also, it's throwing employees under the bus, because the company is tarring them as low performers, at the same time as the company dumps them onto a hostile job market. Those employees should talk to lawyers.
> > Importantly, this update is not about reducing headcount.
MS had to mention that in the memo, because that's what everyone reading it was thinking?
[+] [-] xtracto|6 months ago|reply
I've worked remotely for 5 years now, and there is NO way I would return to an office based job. I even have moved to a small town where there are practically 0 tech jobs; and at this point there's NO way I would relocate for a new job. Maybe it is my age (44), or maybe I am even in a privileged position financially; but at this moment in my life I would rather quit my job if they made me return to office (even for one day a week, as it would mean having to move to wherever the office is). Fortunately I am in a position where I can go several months without a paycheck, and I have some passive income.
[+] [-] blacklion|6 months ago|reply
1) Office is bad, people more productive working remote from their homes, and corporate C-levels issue and enforce RTO, which is silly and anti-productive.
2) All jokes about Zoom/Meet/Teams, with all these «Each meeting consists of “are you hear me?” questions», etc.
Maybe, I'm unique (I'm sure I'm not), but I was twice less productive at remote (when it was mandated by anti-COVID measures of my Government) and I've happily returned to office as soon as I was allowed to.
For me, there are multitude of reasons to want to go to office, including endless number of shelves I need to mount at home (it is easy to procrastinate when you have OTHER real things to do, like home improvement, and not only meme-scrolling), mental resource to prepare one more meal each day (I have canteen at the office and lunch becomes no-brainer and takes 15-20 minutes instead of additional shopping & cooking at home), etc.
But main and most important reason is, personal meetings and, yes, this proverbial cooler chats. I'm 10x more effective in communication in person than all these videocalls. I dread planned calls, I cannot «read» counterparts well via videocall and it takes me much more time to explain ideas, problems and opinions via any remote communication. Also, a lot of «small» questions are postponed indefinitely because there is no this cooler, when you can ask somebody opinion or bounce off half-backed ideas against your colleague without scheduling yet another meeting and WITHOUT throwing your colleague out of the flow (because you know that he leaved flow to drink some tea already!).
I'm glad, that I can visit office every day, but also I'm glad that I can WFH for one day if I needed to (for example, when I need to meet plumber or alike).
Yes, there is commuting, but my commute is 15-20 minutes one way :-)
[+] [-] tigeroil|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] BozeWolf|6 months ago|reply
Like many above like to call managers 'managers' I like to call developers/devopsengineers/* 'IT people'. Office is not a 'manager' or 'c-suite' thing. Put it differently: not going to office is an 'IT people' thing.
Being productive is not only the number of lines of code you crank out. Being productive is cranking out the right lines of code. You need to communicate for that. Casually joining a few colleagues talking about work delivers so much value. Maybe make a few decisions without planning a meeting. That is productive!
It is also not only about being productive, It is also about having fun with my team or colleagues. But I also like to sense how my team members are behaving, are people super tired? Are they happy? Etc etc.
Oh and the good old whiteboard sessions, I love them and I miss them.
If I tell my non 'it people' friends my colleagues only want to go to office max 1 time a week... or not at all, most friends call it crazy.
Tomorrow to the office again, yes! 45 minute lunch walk through the city... Close the door at 17:00 and call it a day! Love it!
[+] [-] poszlem|6 months ago|reply
So while it’s great that the office works for you, dismissing WFH as “less productive” ignores the fact that for many people, it’s the only way they can actually be productive, stay healthy, and remain in the workforce at all.
[+] [-] laurels-marts|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] slv77|6 months ago|reply
I think the challenge is that leadership isn’t coherent when it comes to RTO:
1. Leadership has largely abandoned the notion of geography when hiring or building teams. Building geographic centers of excellence where all team members with the same function working closely together used to be a thing. Leadership wants the flexibility to pick the best talent, at the best prices, on short notice but also wants ad-hoc collaboration. Workers are rightly confused when every meeting they have in an office is on Zoom. 2. Leadership has largely abandoned the notion of timezone alignment and structured working days. Leadership wants to hire talent across the globe which requires more cross-timezone collaboration and non-standard-work hour meetings. That wasn’t possible when at 5PM to 7PM everyone was commuting. It also isn’t reasonable to expect people to hold a rigid 8AM to 5PM in-office schedule and then take 2 hours of meetings from 6PM to 8PM. 3. Leadership is complains that office space is both essential to productivity AND too expensive to spend money on. Employees home setups in terms of working space, noise isolation, connectivity and configuration are now more productive than what is offered in-office. When leadership took people from dedicated offices, to cubicles, to open seating and then to “hot desking” it was justified that commercial real estate was scarce, expensive and required the sacrifice of productivity to manage costs. Now that it is plentiful and cheap? Leadership is saying that RTO is needed for productivity AND that they will continue to reduce spending on office space per employee.
The only way to mentally reconcile that is to either assume that leadership is incompetent or that they want to return to 18th century sweat shops and envy China’s 9x9x6 culture. I can see why mid-level management is struggling getting compliance which is why they are relying on badge swipes.
[+] [-] Mistletoe|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] timcobb|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] gnabgib|6 months ago|reply
Verge: Microsoft Mandates a Return to Office https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45184017
Geekwire: Microsoft sets new RTO policy, requiring employees in the office 3 days per week https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45184032
[+] [-] barbazoo|6 months ago|reply
Of all the "voices" I'd like to be able to do, corporate shitspeak is definitely the top one.
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|6 months ago|reply
Why Microsoft Has Accepted Unions, Unlike Its Rivals - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/25/business/economy/microsof... | | https://archive.today/ES3SF - February 28th, 2024
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_and_unions
[+] [-] Ancalagon|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] sugarpimpdorsey|6 months ago|reply
It was a privilege, people abused it, and now it's over. And managers were the worst offenders.
[+] [-] kokanee|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] ariwilson|6 months ago|reply
I fall more into the latter camp (at least I hope so) and, given I've only worked in nice offices with catered lunches, gyms, video games, offsites, etc, I enjoy a 3 day hybrid schedule works best for me.
[+] [-] SilverElfin|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] rgblambda|6 months ago|reply
I agree, managers are always the worst offenders when it comes to this sort of thing. But they do the same in the office by disappearing into meeting rooms for the entire day. I'd love to know how you can effectively manage a team by constantly being in meetings with other managers.
[+] [-] dakiol|6 months ago|reply
I don't really care about unproductive people, I care about myself.
[+] [-] anal_reactor|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] OptionOfT|6 months ago|reply
Worst offenders are people who say things like: Hey, how are you doing?
And then ... nothing.
Or maybe people are actually working on something. And your 2 minute question might cause them to lose 30 minutes.
This is why it is important to have multiple work-streams going when doing remote work, so that you don't sit around and wait until you have your answer.
[+] [-] onlyrealcuzzo|6 months ago|reply
IME, managers do this in the office just as much as remote.
Look at the typical manager's schedule. It's completely full of meetings - most of which are bullshit "busy" meetings, and they never respond to anything timely.
[+] [-] themafia|6 months ago|reply
Hardly. It was COVID. It forced companies to do the most logical thing they could in a world of high speed internet. Many of them refused to read the writing on the wall and assumed it would return to normal one day. They made no efforts to internally reorient themselves around this new work strategy.
> people abused it
Other than your anecdote what evidence is there that this is true? Has the economy faltered? Is there any second source for the data which shows _any_ impact _at all_?
[+] [-] gamblor956|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] butlike|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] singlepaynews|6 months ago|reply
How/can we "montessori-fy"?
[+] [-] basisword|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] christhecaribou|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] lbrito|6 months ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] thr0waway001|6 months ago|reply
Like, how stupid do you have to be to kill your golden goose of life work balance?
[+] [-] noremotefornow|6 months ago|reply
I like the routines and processes that I adhere to more when I have a separate work location; I find it more difficult to adhere to those same processes when I can roll out of bed and walk to my computer half asleep and zone in on work.
For example, I find it much more likely I’ll consistently shower, get dressed, eat breakfast etc, when I go into the office than when I work from home.
Additionally, when working remote, I find that there’s often more of a bias towards threads or messages starting off related to something work related; I do try to ask about colleagues weekends occasionally for example, but when remote it often feels more like you’re consuming their bandwidth or attention vs just minor conversation in passing.
Sometimes things take time to compile, or conversations over text-mediums are difficult; having a manager nearby that can sense when things are difficult and more effectively help is great. I’ve had many times where I’ve sighed about something and my coworker heard and asked what got me flustered and explaining it helped lead to resolution.
What I would suggest is that perhaps some teams should be remote and some local if possible to facilitate different types of employees.
I totally get working remote, I’d probably do it if I was back in a relationship and/or had kids.
[+] [-] tokai|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] awill|6 months ago|reply
This would have made sense when the company was all at one site, but over the last 5 years my company (and microsoft) have massively expanded.
So now I drive to the office and video call my colleagues in other sites. Brilliant.
[+] [-] OptionOfT|6 months ago|reply
To do what exactly? Sit in an open office in Redmond, jump on Teams to call with someone in Fort Lauderdale?
Funny thing, I had multiple interviews with them on explicit remote roles (which are different from roles that went remote during COVID). I wonder if the policy changes there.
[+] [-] doom2|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] geodel|6 months ago|reply
To stay employed at Microsoft. After all many may want that some may not.
[+] [-] nonameiguess|6 months ago|reply
It says a lot about a team when they win, and instead of rewarding the players that got them the win, they do shit like this.
[+] [-] javier_e06|6 months ago|reply
At the office there where those who clearly wanted to minimize human interactions and people who thrived and performed better when interacting with others.
And then there is liminal spaces (Severance) the place where hope and creativity comes to die.
"There must be someway out of here."
[+] [-] sublimefire|6 months ago|reply
Given that MS does not have top salaries, my bet is that folks will leave to other companies given that the main leverage like WFH is gone.
[+] [-] milesvp|6 months ago|reply
What complicated things, is return to work will cause all the best to rethink their employment. I’ve seen HBR surveys that suggest the top talent is ending up places that allow them to stay remote. I think this leaves businesses in a tight place. I have every reason to believe that companies with lots of employee interactions have better acceleration/trajetory than fully remote, but it’s a big hit to lose top talent. And remote may have so much velocity from gaining this talent that they don’t care about the acceleration tradeoff.
Further, concentration of talent in a region also cannot be discounted. Certain things can’t happen without the exchange of ideas (partly why I think cities/counties should ban non competes). I don’t know how much a given company can control this concentration of talent, but I know that Seattle wouldn’t be what it is without Boeing, and then Microsoft attracting very smart people.
[+] [-] Izikiel43|6 months ago|reply
Where though? I thought the current jobs market for tech wasn't in a nice spot for devs.
[+] [-] jleyank|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] nphardon|6 months ago|reply
Ah the data is clear, without reference to the data collected or metrics used.
[+] [-] jbreckmckye|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] whinvik|6 months ago|reply
What I would really like to see is arguments from the other side. Can someone steelman RTO. Preferably with evidence, anecdotal or otherwise.