> What if it becomes clear that remote workers are the last to go since they have less overhead in office space and other office amenities that companies offer to entice them to come to the office (on site gym, snacks, lunch, etc).
The lavish amenities of big tech were put there for a reason -- to get people to work more. Maybe secondarily for retention.
If you think that companies are going to look at declining productivity and think "hm, that's an acceptable tradeoff, since I'm paying less for office space!", then I'll take that bet.
I'm not begging the question -- it's the core assumption of the entire thread. I am agnostic on the "who is more productive" question. I find it less interesting to speculate than to observe what is actually happening.
Parent is asserting that even in a world where companies want employees in the office (i.e. the current world), they're going to cave on the matter because of the money they're saving on office stuff.
I made no such assumption, you read that into my comment. I made the same statement about productivity as the post I replied to… none.
I guess I missed the decision that an in-office workforce is more productive than fully remote (I personally think that hybrid is bad for productivity, and companies should pick one or the other). There is certainly a lot of evidence and debate on both sides but no real proof one way or another.
And of course I am talking about knowledge workers, not surgeons or assembly line workers.
As I said, it's the core assumption of the entire thread. GP set things off with:
> What if it becomes clear across the industry that remote workers are first in line for convenience layoffs? Beyond reduced pay and benefit scenarios, I'm curious if reduced job security will be a price workers are willing to pay for WFH.
I grant you that it's not explicitly stated, but it's reasonable to assume that companies aren't just laying off productive workers out of sheer pettiness. Replying to GP with the premise reversed (as you did) implies that the cost/benefit equation is reversed as well.
>I grant you that it's not explicitly stated, but it's reasonable to assume that companies aren't just laying off productive workers out of sheer pettiness.
The premise was that remote workers might be first in line for layoffs, no mention of productivity, and as you said, companies wouldn’t lay off more productive workers out of pettiness. So it’s fair to assume that the list of workers that are candidates to be laid off are already at the same level of productivity.
My comment was asking what if the opposite was true and if when it came time for layoffs, workers in the office were first in line because laying off office workers saves money in office space.
At no point did I say or imply that productivity would be ignored.
Companies actually track productivity. WFH had been around for a long time, treated as a perk. If it's been improving productivity it had been mandatory already. If it's been neutral - it had been encouraged (due to additional expenses on the office environment). It's pretty obvious by the push to RTO that it have been neither of the above.
It doesn't always improve productively. It doesn't work for some people.
But a lot of the resistance is less about productivity and more about sunk costs and not fully understanding a relatively new world. Work was done in the office exclusively for so long that it will be hard to change the way some people think about it.
Work has not been done in the office exclusively, we had WFH for a long while. The only thing new now is that it's been mandatory for a while so the productivity data is rock solid.
Yeah, like for example when they talk about NSA collecting data all the time on this same website... Performance drop figures is not something a company would like to publicize for everyone to know, it's usually shared internally but I guess not in your case (which is understandable if you are an IC in a big public co, anything shared with everyone in such an environment goes public in minutes).
So to recap ... there's a bevy of "rock solid" performance data but you can't link to it because it's guarded like NSA data. But you're either privy to it or just gleaned it by using your brain and not Reddit.
This is really what you're going with?
You know it'd be perfectly fine if you just said "it's my opinion." It's certainly a whole lot less eye rolling than this story you're selling.
There is no need to be upset to the point of making up quotes, if you don't even know that your performance is being measured you are obviously not in a position to change WFH/RTO policy anywhere so just accept whatever is coming to you, being snarky will only make it hurt more.
To be clear, I would have been really interested in data about this, particularly if it were "rock solid" (which is a real quote, btw, not made up).
But you're clearly just blowing a lot of smoke. You don't have that data.
Not supplying any actual support was a tip-off, but there's little doubt once you started with snark "Real life is not Reddit, sometimes you need to use your brain to figure things out and get ahead" (real quote, not made up) and then trying to project it onto me.
Like I said, I don't care if your answer is "it's just my opinion that WFH is less productive" or "I've heard about data" but you don't have anything to support what you're claiming.
And doing the "you're mad" thing is the last refuge for a broken argument. Do better.
Yours is probably the best rebuttal on the subthread. Measuring productivity is hard.
I do think this is something that is identified in aggregate, however. Maybe you can't attribute the loss in productivity to individual employees, but you definitely notice if projects start taking a lot longer than they used to.
They are paying less for all those amenities, too. Food and all the other things provided per employee really add up. When in a rough economy, cutting those things and keeping your 'best' employees regardless of WFH status is the best of both worlds for an MBA
The lavish amenities of big tech were put there for a reason -- to get people to work more. Maybe secondarily for retention.
If you think that companies are going to look at declining productivity and think "hm, that's an acceptable tradeoff, since I'm paying less for office space!", then I'll take that bet.