A company that achieved success due to people having to WFH are now forcing staff back in to the office

    • Polydextrous@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      69
      ·
      1 year ago

      It’s been proven over and over remote work retains top talent and makes people better at their work. And the “productivity loss” is covered by the fact that people maybe get less done in eight hours, but work longer to make up for the productivity they lost to taking more breaks.

      But American capitalism has to remind the workers that their misery is part of the point.

      • Solivine
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        39
        ·
        1 year ago

        I’m not sure there is any productivity loss, I work way more efficiently at home

        • transientDCer@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          21
          ·
          1 year ago

          Same. Guy that sits behind me in the office has an average speaking volume of 78 decibels. Yes, I pulled out a sound meter one day because he is so goddamn loud. And I’m stuck in an open floor plan with him.

          • MaxVerstappen@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            15
            ·
            1 year ago

            My kids are less distracting than the folks who walk into my office to chat while I’m in a working session. “Are you in a meeting? Yes? Oh well, You should have seen…”

          • Riskable@programming.dev
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            11
            ·
            1 year ago

            A quiet desk with your dog next to you or… soul-crushing commute and a noisy office?

            Gee, I wonder why people are generally more productive at home?

          • Domriso@kbin.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            6
            ·
            1 year ago

            Plus there’s a multitude of studies showing that people work far less than 8 hours a day, even if they are physically present at the job. I doubt productivity actually drops at all.

            • Jaytreeman@kbin.social
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              1 year ago

              I worked in a government office that supported a very seasonal industry.
              My coworker had an 8:30 start and would be done her work by 9.
              Other times we wouldn’t have time in the day to finish, but the slow season was hell.

          • Solivine
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            1 year ago

            No one’s designed to work non stop for 8 hours for sure, and that doesn’t happen in the office or out of the office. I would say the breaks are probably about the same, with less distractions (or maybe the same amount if you have kids, who probably match the energy of chaotic/distracting co workers).

            When working from home people also don’t have to “pretend to work” to keep bosses happy, which happens in every job I’ve been to within the office I find.

      • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        1 year ago

        The productivity loss takes place at the office. You go from being able to solve problems all day to having Susie Homemaker and Joe Blob wanting to talk to you about the sportsball event when you’re in the middle of super complicated logic. You go from being able to use the restroom 30 seconds from your desk to walking 10 minutes to get to the closest one at the office. You go from making a quick sandwich and then getting back to work, to driving miles away to find something decent to eat. Every engineer I know is more productive at home.

    • 7StJcS7I3TMNM3i2qf1C@infosec.pub
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      46
      ·
      1 year ago

      More likely, they’ve reached critical mass and are now using this as a downsizing move. They know a % will quit. Will reduce the number they have to float until eventual layoffs.

      • Foreigner@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        26
        ·
        1 year ago

        Aren’t they risking losing their most talented workers doing that? I assume they can more easily find jobs providing the flexibility they’re looking for.

        • EnderMB@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          42
          ·
          1 year ago

          I work in tech, at one of the big tech companies (the Rainforest one).

          The dirty little secret of tech is that you don’t need the best engineers. You just need people that are “good enough”, and that bar varies wildly across all of tech. I’ve worked with senior engineers from Google that absolutely crumbled outside of building Python web apps, and recent grads in LCOL areas that are better in all areas.

          Alongside this, many tier 1 services in big tech are propped up by mid-level engineers. Depending on the company and org, you’d be shocked at how little coding some software engineers actually do, because they’re attending WBR’s, building review decks, running all scrum ceremonies, even responsible for multimillion dollar team budgets. Again, many of these people aren’t particularly talented compared to your standard engineer.

          You’re absolutely right, but I doubt any big tech company cares. They want to reduce human cost as much as possible, and if that means letting everyone that knows how shit works go, and hiring new grads to keep your systems alive, so be it.

          • SupraMario@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            19
            ·
            1 year ago

            This only works for so long, then the company hires an MSP which does have top notch engineers and they run it like that for a decade before bringing it back in house. The cycle has always been like this. They did it in 08-11 when a ton of companies laid off their devs and shipped the jobs to code farms in India…then half a decade later when the code was like a house of cards, rehired top talent back in house to fix it all. The cycle will continue, it’s just the way CEOs who aren’t there long term for the company think. Short term profits, aka kick the can down the road to the next guy.

            • EnderMB@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              9
              ·
              1 year ago

              Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a fucking stupid approach, as do ~90% of IC’s at these companies.

              Someone at Amazon put it nicely when they’ve said that there’s a rise in “belief-driven” leadership in tech right now. Instead of following the data and asking people what they want, we’re seeing tech leaders position themselves as visionaries, and making market-changing decisions on gut feeling. It’s absolutely a series a short-term decisions, and all they care about is what they think, and how it’ll save their skin for the next 3-6 months.

              • Oh man thank you for that phrase. “belief driven leadership” is exactly what’s happening there right now. Spot on. I’m so close to finding somewhere else to work but my immediate leadership thinks the RTO is bullshit as well. However I know they can’t hold off forever.

            • SheeEttin@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              1 year ago

              I have never seen an MSP with top-notch engineers. I worked for a fairly nice one and we were pretty average.

              • SupraMario@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                I’ve worked most of my career with msps and yes there are a lot of the lower level guys which are more for triage than fixing anything and they’re average, but the higher levels all have top notch engineers usually. Don’t get me wrong, there will always be those who squeezed by and made it higher but most who are higher up the food chain have a lot of experience from tons of different environments.

          • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            That’s very shortsighted though. One great engineer is worth 10 mediocre engineers, especially when you factor in the time required to manage them. But I’ve never built a trillion dollar company before, so I’m probably not qualified to say that my ideas are better.