[gpm]

> and the cons are mostly your employers.

This sounds like nonsense to me.

If there are cons to the employer, that means I'm worth less and can demand less salary - the market might take a bit to adjust for that, but probably not long. It means that I'm going to be working for a less successful company, which is a lot less fun.

Employers and employees are usually in a mostly cooperative relationship, this adversarial view of it just strikes me as wrong.

(And no, before someone accuses me of being biased, I do not and have never run a company or anything like that)

[BobbyJo]

Do you think there are no cons for employers?

[gpm]

Rather I think separating out pros and cons between employees and employers makes little sense in most cases, including this one.

There are certainly both pros and cons of remote work, but the total cost/benefit will end up being a mutual one, in the same direction and of similar scale for both the employee and the employer.

[BobbyJo]

> Rather I think separating out pros and cons between employees and employers makes little sense in most cases, including this one.

That's wild. Personally, I've thought about the pros and cons to me as an employee a lot. Hard to imagine anyone thinking that isn't a worthwhile exercise.

> There are certainly both pros and cons of remote work, but the total cost/benefit will end up being a mutual one, in the same direction and of similar scale for both the employee and the employer.

I think it will end up better for both parties as well, but most employers have a lot of work to do, updating processes, organization, and expectations, before they share that sentiment. Until then, they aren't going to like it.

[gpm]

I might be belaboring a point here, but...

It's not exactly that I think it's not a worthwhile exercise, it's that I think that unless you're considering the "second order" pros and cons to you as an employee that come about as a result of the company (and team) doing better/worse you're missing half of the equation, and that those second order effects are roughly as strong as the first order effects to the other party.

[rewma]

> If there are cons to the employer, that means I'm worth less and can demand less salary (...)

During the industrial revolution, some employers saw that there were significant pros in employing children and working them 12 to 14 hours a day for a fraction of a grown man's salary. Not being able to employ children was a significant con.

How did "the market" handled that?

There's more to life than what's convenient to corporations, and the despair of self-hating employees to think that self-deprecarion is a competitive sport.

[gpm]

Government regulation is different because it forces everyone on the even footing, there is no-one to out compete you.

Eliminating competition on the labor side of the market is also different, because while it hurts companies, it also makes employees be in higher demand. That's also a relevant difference here.

So, your analogy is just a poor one...

But while I'm at it, you'll notice that for the kinds of business that are easily shipped over seas (where the government regulations don't apply) and you can be outcompeted by people using child labor and paying below minimum wage (another case of government regulation) that did happen to an extent, see textile manufacturing for instance.

[rewma]

> Government regulation is different because it forces everyone (...)

It really isn't. It just stops unscrupulous employers from abusing their employees. There are already plenty of tech companies that went full remote, and clearly they don't interpret that as a competitive disadvantage. The lockdowns also showed productivity increases and improvements in the quality of life and work/life balance. Therefore, returning to the office has absolutely nothing to do with productivity or company culture or dedication. At best, it's just lazy thinking enforced by strong-arming employees into positions that is overwhelmingly against their personal interests and quality of life.

[gpm]

> > Government regulation is different because it forces everyone (...)

> It really isn't. It just stops unscrupulous employers from abusing their employees.

If you're objecting to my use of the phrase "forces everyone", fair enough, but the point stands. If you're objecting to the point being made, I'm afraid I've missed your point.

> There are already plenty of tech companies that went full remote, and clearly they don't interpret that as a competitive disadvantage.

Indeed, one imagines that's because they don't see the (total) cons as outweighing the (total) benefits, and they (like me) don't see much use in separating out "benfits to employees" and "harm to the employer"... this is basically my original point (though going in the employee->employer direction as well as the employer->employee direction).