[SOLAR_FIELDS]

Why not just get rid of the office space and use the money saved to get people together twice per quarter for an extended period? I bet in almost every case it would be a significant cost savings for the employer.

Unless, of course, there is some other reasoning than what you state in your comment, like for example, middle management feeling irrelevant or sunk cost fallacy on office space?

[jonathankoren]

Mozilla used to do something similar.

For background, at least half, or more of the company is fully remote. It’s so many, that the transition to remote work was met with a collective shrug. So MoCo used to have weeks (maybe twice a year?) where teams would fly in to the office to work. Later, in a cost savings move, it switched to fly every everyone in MoCo to some place for a week twice a year. It was called “All Hands”.

I enjoyed the free trips to Whistler, Berlin, and Austin, and Maui, but it never really felt like work was actually getting done. It was conference room chats ostensibly about planning, but everything always felt a bit phoned in.

I never got it. Inevitably the real planning work would end up after we returned back to our regular locations, so it was more social than anything.

My personal thought is that RTO among the FAANGs is 100% sunk cost fallacy. They wasted billions on bespoke glass donuts, circus tents, and airplane hangers. There’s pride on the minds of these oligarchs.

[detaro]

Yes, all-hands like that 100% are primarily about social and unplanned factors - getting people to see and talk to people they'd otherwise not meet and talk to.

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

I’ve been in the glass donut, and it is pretty sweet. You would probably sunk cost fallacy yourself if you were in there too!

[yablak]

It's very hard to get people to travel for days at a time. Especially those with children.

[dsr_]

This is true.

Companies can make this more appealing by holding the meetings in nice parts of the world -- note, nice doesn't have to be outrageously expensive -- putting people up in nice hotels with suitable space for spouses and kids, and by making the week before vacation for half the group and the week after for the other half, with the option to stay in the same hotel at the company's expense.

This won't work for everyone, or every company, but it's a much nicer carrot than usual.

[mitthrowaway2]

Couldn't one say the same about getting people to come to an office 250 days per year?

[jedberg]

No. It's a lot easier to hire someone to watch the kids on a regular basis, and also they go to school during the day. I can hire people to pick them up and watch them after school, and then help them after work with homework and chores and such.

But if work wants me to travel for a week, it either means my spouse has to pick up all the stuff I do at home, or I have to find someone I trust to stay at my home for a week on an ad-hoc basis.

It's much harder to find ad-hoc babysitting than regularly scheduled babysitting.

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

Couldn’t the employer just hire people close together if they feel like that is an issue and still not have an office space?

[devoutsalsa]

When I owned a business, that’s what I did. Everyone worked remotely, except for me and a couple of people. I had a small coworking space simply because working out of my shoebox sized apartment was not fun. I hired everyone from the local area & occasionally had a meeting in the coworking space.

[WarOnPrivacy]

> It's very hard to get people to travel for days at a time.

I believe parent is suggesting quarterly gatherings of the existing office team, the ones who share an office now.

[olliej]

Happily commuting for hours and being away from home most of the week is actually super easy for people with children.

[astura]

Most people don't want to be on travel every six weeks. You'd have to pay me a LOT for me to agree to that.