[alanlamm]

I am surprised that of the pages and pages of comments that I have read (about 500+ comments), few discuss the potential implications of (a) having virtually all of a business's communication (not just the emails and such, but now also the meetings) potentially tracked and monitored, and (b) whether a remote workforce would be even less well equipped to identify/call-out improper corporate behaviour. Would the Google employees that called-out some of the surveillance projects, or the Uber employees that called out harassment exist remotely? And if they did, isn't it just so much easier to get rid of them? "Susan will not be joining the call today. She no longer works here". A scenario in which HQ gets to know everything while every individual is forced into need-to-know seems dystopian to me.

[wyattpeak]

I don't know how much I think it would have an effect. Google employees didn't know about the surveillance projects because they found out on-site, they knew about them because Google chose to make them known. Plenty of companies keep secrets from their employees, and those secrets largely remain safe despite employees working on premises. And outside of Google, who had until recently a very open culture of critiquing decisions, almost all calling-out happened through non-company channels.

And is it really so much easier to get rid of them? Presumably they'll have the same legal protections they previously did, and having to be physically removed from the building isn't exactly a major limitation on firing.

[buboard]

unless you are being surveilled with a camera or sth, you can use anything to communicate (which you normally can't do in an office). And having more work opportunities readily available makes it easier to call-out and quit , no? You also don't need to conform to a physically concentrated groupthink. In many ways, remote work is better in all those terms