[andrewdubinsky]

RTO has simply become a structural disadvantage. Companies that cannot manage remote teams simply won't be able to attract top talent.

Even if 80% of companies RTO the remaining 20% that recruit remote-only jobs will create massive disruption in top performers. HR has their head in the sand because so many companies are either freezing hiring or reducing headcount, but there's a real issue here. Talented people just don't need to consider onsite work, period.

The only way you work onsite is you are inexperienced or you don't have another job. Maybe you want a big name on your resume. Either way those are jobs that will need to be filled again.

In this article, they state openly that Blizzard is managing a crisis to ship multiple products. The cost of a failed product release outstrips their lease cost by orders of magnitude. I don't get the play here. What's the outlook on the next release cycle without talent?

[JohnMakin]

> The only way you work onsite is you are inexperienced or you don't have another job.

Or you are in the subset of people that prefer working in-office. They aren't nonexistent, although that's frequently assumed on this site.

[tivert]

> Or you are in the subset of people that prefer working in-office. They aren't nonexistent, although that's frequently assumed on this site.

And who don't work for an employer who, simultaneous with RTO, is working to make in-office work a shit experience.

Hot-desking* in an open-office space, while you Zoom with your remote teammates based in a different office? WHO WOULDN'T WANT THAT?

* Now euphemized as "hoteling."

I actually like working in-office, but FFS, at least give me a cube with some storage, open desktop space, 3 or 4 walls that are taller than I am when sitting (and preferably when standing) that's in the same building with my team.

[spondylosaurus]

"Hoteling" is an awesome euphemism. Give me a desk that's depressingly impersonal, wasn't cleaned very well after its previous occupant left, and is always three degrees too cold. (At least there's free breakfast, right?)

[klyrs]

You're not supposed to eat the free breakfast, it was supposed to be somebody's lunch but got left out overnight...

[m-p-3]

I'd be happy if we had free coffee..

[jrjarrett]

No. That got cut as well.

[pmarreck]

> * Now euphemized as "hoteling."

Just FYI, I was a consultant for Deloitte in the early 2000's in Boston and they called it that even then, because consultants frequently travel and were out of the office anyway, so the incentive of paying for less under-utilized office space was already there.

And, heh, if you didn't reserve a desk in time then you basically got stuck in the hallway on a "floater" terminal with a lot of foot-traffic behind you

[ozim]

Or at least give these 3 or 4 walls to these guys who are constantly on the phone or video calls.

[RestlessMind]

> Hot-desking* in an open-office space, while you Zoom with your remote teammates based in a different office?

Yes that's a shitty setup. People I know, who prefer hybrid, prefer that only when the rest of the team is in office as well.

[wrs]

That is exactly the conundrum. Why would a hybrid team be in the office at the same time? Most likely, only if there’s a requirement to be there at that time. So hybrid doesn’t really work either.

[pmarreck]

I'm one of those who are most certainly more productive in-office (learned the hard way and the soft way via various work experiences). The reasons don't matter, but we are a significant minority.

The problem is that you can't have a discriminatory work policy. If for example you make a rule that "if you are considered productive, you can work more days from home; if you are considered to be becoming less productive, then you must come to the office more," then a few things happen, first and foremost being that people who are visibly in the office more are perceived as slackers, which can be a self-fulfilling belief, and the people who are out of the office more are "primadonnas" or "boss bootlickers". All of this creating more tension, as the "productive mostly from-home'ers" are also less likely to get promoted, etc. Basically there are a bunch of knock-on effects from treating employees differently in this capacity.

I have a friend who had hard data showing he was more productive when he was WFH and he still ended up having to RTO after covid lockdowns. I'm sure this wasn't a decision made lightly by management.

There's always the option of finding a 100% WFH company where they basically don't hire (or end up retaining) anyone with any ADHD =) and where those highly self-disciplined folks can go to thrive. But a large company like Blizzard won't be it.

I almost want to apologize to the people who are more productive when 100% WFH for having to comply with RTO policies for the sake of people like me. People like me are grateful for your sacrifice.

[JohnMakin]

a significant factor in choosing my current role was that it was 100% on-site. Of course, this comes with a significant amount of nice amenities like catered lunch, free beverages/snacks, a gym, etc. It's also close to where I live. I understand people's reasoning for wanting to WFH, and they are valid, but just wanted to voice there is a subset that don't prefer this way (or thrive when WFH, I am like you, I am much less productive at home).

At the risk of getting downvoted I do think there's another subset of people who are convinced they are more productive WFH but actually aren't. Or, know they aren't, but don't care. I think this realization is what sparks these draconian RTO policies by upper management.

[TeMPOraL]

> At the risk of getting downvoted I do think there's another subset of people who are convinced they are more productive WFH but actually aren't. Or, know they aren't, but don't care. I think this realization is what sparks these draconian RTO policies by upper management.

Part of it may be that working on-site is still culturally considered the default, and WFH an exception. This creates an interesting asymmetry: if you're less productive at home than in the office, then obviously you should work from the office; if you're less productive in the office than at home... then you're a bad employee and should be let go.

[manuelabeledo]

> They aren't nonexistent, although that's frequently assumed on this site.

It seems to me that those who want to return to offices are a bit like the target market for the iPhone Mini: a very vocal minority.

And they are a minority indeed [0]. In fact, if the average HN poster was a white male, the RTO crowd would be overrepresented and thus it would explain that, in each one of these debates, there is always a good bunch claiming that in person office work is great.

[0] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-post-pandemic-offic...

[RestlessMind]

> It seems to me that those who want to return to offices are a bit like the target market for the iPhone Mini: a very vocal minority.

YMMV. It seems to me that "zealots" on either spectrum (fully remote or fully office) are vocal minorities. Most of the people seem to prefer hybrid, where they get to go to office a few days a week and spend time WFH a few days.

HN crowd seems to have a lot of vocal proponents of fully-remote work.

[manuelabeledo]

> Most of the people seem to prefer hybrid, where they get to go to office a few days a week and spend time WFH a few days.

The numbers given don't seem to back that up.

Either way, the hybrid model is also polarizing, as it proves ineffective over time when people go to the office in non overlapping days, effectively turning going to the office into the same experience as working from home, just away from it.

[FullyFunctional]

While hybrid works for me, only fully-remote enables you to move far away from the office and, potentially, significantly improve your quality of life. I totally get why people feel so strongly about it.

My annecdata is that I feel far more productive (concentrated) at home, but going in 1-2 times a week is very important for incidental communication that can have important consequences. I currently manage a fully remote intern, but we have him come ~ two days every month. So far this seems to work.

[nkellenicki]

They're not non-existent, I work with a few myself. But generally I've found that they're single, live by themselves, and enjoy the social interactions of meeting coworkers in person. (Of course, there will be exceptions to this).

[c-fe]

I dont think you can generalise this way, its is also dependent on where you are living or what your commute looks like.

As an example, right now I am living and working in Amsterdam. My commute is 10 minutes by bike or 25min walk. I generally prefer to work in the office since I like the free exercise, context switch, and my office is also nice. However if my commute was longer than 60 mins, and in a car or public transport, I would want to work remotely.

[jdlshore]

Same. I’ve been working remotely for 23 years. I love working in an office when I get the opportunity to. The context switch is what I miss the most. It’s a 30 minute bike commute downtown for me. I had a chance to work in an office downtown several years ago and it was one of my favorite experiences.

And before anyone asks, yes, happily married, kids at home, excellent home office, healthy social life.

[willcipriano]

How is your partner/kids?

[tivert]

> How is your partner/kids?

Great, but it's a pretty isolating idea that you should spend all your time with the same few people. It's nice and healthy to context-switch and spend some time around different people.

[refulgentis]

Pointing out that this isn't OP -- took me a minute, I was confused by the tone switch from 'there's nuance here and its conditional based on current circumstances' to chiding of a position no ones advanced.

And I'm very much RTO crew! Who is calm about it because of exactly that conditionality on current circumstances.

[willcipriano]

You don't spend time with friends?

[scruple]

Married, my wife also works a demanding career, and we have 3 kids and 2 dogs.

I've been part-time remote since ~2012, full-time since 2016. I've recently taken a hybrid role. I really, really enjoy going into the office twice a week these days. The change of scenery is helping my brain. Plus, my kids preschool/daycare is equidistant from our home and the office, so it's not actually adding any measurable commuting time to my life. My daily commute is ~40 minutes in total regardless of where I sit my ass down to work.

I'm fortunate that my life is set up this way but I know from going into the office twice a week for months now that I'm not alone, most of my colleagues are in similar situations.

[smcleod]

I'm all of those things - and /much/ prefer working from home. If I was made to RTO - even one day a week - I would find another job that was 100% remote.

[smoe]

From the ones I know and myself, it more about where they want to life. If I would be living in the suburbs with a long commute, I'd definitely insist on working remote only. But since we are living around 10-20 minutes from the office by bike or public transport anyway, I enjoy the social interactions with coworkers a couple times a week, working from home the rest of the time.

That said, I'd be perfectly happy to go fully remote as well. Wouldn't come to my mind to advocate that others to have to go to the office, just because I enjoy it once in a while.

[tomatocracy]

That's not my experience - but then I work in quite a different line of work (investing) to the majority here. My experience is there isn't really any correlation between age, home situation, etc and desire to work in the office. Most people I work with (of all levels of seniority) seem to be happy with a hybrid setup (which probably averages out over the year at 1-2 days per week WFH, 3-4 days in office or work travel). In fact that's what we naturally did ourselves before there were any rules set from above.

[yieldcrv]

Yep that’s basically me

To clarify my marital status is single but that has nothing to do with my relationship status

Also I live in nice and connected parts of town and prioritize short commutes, ideally walkable and bikeable

[whateveracct]

There are also the people who like to get away from their spouse and/or kids.

[slipperlobster]

I assume the statement was geared towards those who do not prefer working in-office. No need to force RTO for those willing to (or already did) return to the office.

[bombcar]

If you have a group that consists of four home office warriors and one office worker (and assume they're all the best of the best) you still either have an office they go to or you don't, and if one person is alone in the office, what is the real point?

I think the end is going to mash out, but the real underlying problem that nobody wants to directly address is managers know who they'd be fine with working from home, and those who they are not so fine with (and it could all be entirely legitimate). Since they can't discriminate, they just slam to the lowest common denominator.

[slipperlobster]

> what is the real point?

I can't speak for anyone but myself, I can only speculate. Maybe the lone office warrior wants to get away from noisy construction at home, family, etc.?

I know we have been WFH since March 2020, and we're _just_ starting to talk about RTO. No one wants to, but the state institution we work for is about to demand it. We have plenty of low performers that may work better (or, with some of them, actually work) being in the office. For our team, that would come at a significant disadvantage for those who _can_ work remote who now have to juggle managing the lower performers.

Obviously, it'd be easy to let go of the low performers and replace with more solid people, but being a state employee makes that somewhat difficult (HR, salaries, etc).

[UncleMeat]

I know more than a few extremely skilled engineers who'd leave if their team wasn't local, simply because they hate doing everything over virtual meetings.

[adra]

No matter how much I you puff up about the advantages, most workers will choose cutting their commute to zero with the lost costs/ time wasted as a net positive. The calculation on workers remote / local benefits and costs were always there, but they're certainly more heavily scrutinized now. So sure those guys will find the few willing to come to office while the rest just make more staying at home. Enjoy!

[surgical_fire]

I, too, know people with odd habits.

They are still statiscal oddities.

[blub]

If we’re talking about people with the “odd” habit of working away from home, they represent the great majority of humanity.

One has to be several layers deep in the bubble to think otherwise.

[surgical_fire]

The great majority of humanity are forced to work away from home. The system of work and bosses was always a system of coercion, after all.

One has to be several layers deep in the bubble to imagine otherwise.

[kodah]

I actually like working in an office sometimes, but if you mandate it to me I'll never show up and eventually quit.

[jvanderbot]

I love working on site. I wish my preferred employers would pick up and move to my comfortable suburb near my family and friends. They won't. Why did we ever allow that to become choice and why did we ever create a culture where the "obvious" answer was to move away for decades?

I'm glad I left to get world class experience, and I'm glad I'm back to stay.

So I expect young people will do what I did and move on site.

[mellosouls]

Yeah that line was a bit of a daft generalisation not helping the rest of the argument. Different strokes for different folks, and there are definitely strengths to on site that full time remote can't match (remote has its own strengths), especially team cohesion - or we might as well all be off shore contractors.

[birdyrooster]

Yeah I liked the office when I actually had an office but during Covid they got us out of our offices and when we returned put us in cube farms. It sucks ass.

[BluePen7]

I actually kinda liked it.

The issue is the cost of getting to work, and even to live near work.

Just getting to work is a significant expense, parking, having a vehicle that's good enough to commute in, insured for commuting, and always repaired before the next weekday, it adds up.

When the pandemic kicked off WFH, I suddenly found myself with an extra $10,000 or so in my pocket each year.

Then I moved away from work, which allowed me to go from renter to homeowner (with rental income that helped me get approved). My monthly COL is lower, and between paying my mortgage and home appreciation, I've accumulated $300,000-$400,000 in equity over 4 years.

Back in town, I'd still be a renter hopelessly saving up for an apartment with maybe 10-20% of my current net worth.

tldr: My office was actually pretty nice, but not having to physically live near or get to it, has put me in a dramatically higher socio-economic class.

[Tiktaalik]

> The issue is the cost of getting to work, and even to live near work.

It's such an amazing own goal that as municipal politicians overly pandered to the nimby attitudes of established wealthy homeowners, and disallowed any and all new housing in desirable near downtown areas, they induced a requirement for massive, shitty commutes, which people are now naturally and smartly abandoning for WFH as soon as they can, thus destroying the economies of said cities' downtowns.

All of it could have been avoided if cities actually let housing be built.

I still often go into the office purely for the enjoyment of a pleasant and healthy 15 minute bike ride into work. I recognize however that most colleagues do not have that privilege of a short commute, and I understand completely why they'd rather stay home.

[cudgy]

> All of it could have been avoided if cities actually let housing be built.

Perhaps to some extent, but the type of housing in cities is mostly restricted to apartments, which is not satisfying for everyone, especially those that prefer living outside the city.

[felipellrocha]

Thank you. It feels like nowadays everyone assumes that remote work is a worker's right, when I couldn't think of a worst future for myself.

[krainboltgreene]

> HR has their head in the sand

I promise you no one in HR wants this once people told them that. This is entirely pursued by majority shareholders and C-level.

[Suppafly]

I don't know, I work tangentially with a lot of HR people and they always seem to get excited about projects that the regular workers are guaranteed to hate. I think HR people are just wired differently.

[TeMPOraL]

I mean, they're the "people people", and a good chunk of the job seems to be advertising the company itself to potential candidates. That alone attracts pretty much the opposite of what software development does. Plus, based on my (limited) experience, HR is one of the few roles where you're expected to drink more of the company kool-aid than most employees, and you must be visibly excited about it, whether you actually like it or not.

[danaris]

> they're the "people people"

I think even that varies—partly by the nature of the organization.

Most HR people I have known have not been "people people" so much as they have been "process people"—they lived for rules and procedures being meticulously spelled out and required to be followed to the letter.

(...And then there's the finally-now-former head of HR I knew who was mostly just a "platitudes person"—any problem that came to her, she had a whole bunch of pleasant-sounding drivel to say to get the person with the problem to go away, only later to realize their problem was never going to be solved, at least not by HR.)

[ninjagoo]

Second. Our HR recruiters told me they could fill my open positions yesterday if it wasn't for the RTO requirement.

[throw9away6]

Good for hr employment prospects then

[mortenjorck]

RTO is fast becoming my last hope for employment. I used to imagine myself to be a member of that pool of “top talent,” but several grueling months of unsuccessful job searching have roundly dispelled any pretensions I might have had.

I hate to say it, but I have to recognize when I’m without leverage. I’ll absolutely go back to the office if it means I have a job.

[tayo42]

If your judgement of your job finding ability and work quality is based off the last few months, I wouldn't be to hard on your self. It's tough for everyone right now.

[brailsafe]

Gotta do what you gotta do, though the hiring game has been a farce for years and absolutely grueling. Getting a job is luck, and it's the most unlucky time to need one. I got laid off last month from a remote job and don't even believe there's a chance at even landing an in-office job anywhere for any company right now in tech. Might call up some moving companies and start doing that or random temp jobs for cash to pay bills.

[Clubber]

>I hate to say it, but I have to recognize when I’m without leverage. I’ll absolutely go back to the office if it means I have a job.

I think this might be part of the strategy of the current layoffs, to kinda push the issue with economic force. Who knows?

>several grueling months of unsuccessful job searching

Do you not have a network of people you can ask for work?

[mortenjorck]

> Do you not have a network of people you can ask for work?

This always used to be my lifeline. 2022 was the fourth layoff of my career, and each of the three previous times, someone I'd worked with previously got me in the door at their new place, and I had a job again within a month.

This time, I've had at least half a dozen direct referrals from former coworkers, and only one has even gotten me to a hiring manager interview. Brutal doesn't even begin to describe it.

As a consolation, I've gotten a bit of freelance work through my network, but since that reduces unemployment benefits, it doesn't really help pay the bills so much as it helps support my mental health.

[tessierashpool]

> I think this might be part of the strategy of the current layoffs, to kinda push the issue with economic force.

what's going on with the current layoffs is that companies overhired from 2020 to 2022, and now they're over-firing to compensate.

there's also a snowball effect to it, because if you see that you could fire your people and re-hire roughly equivalent new talent for less, that's very appealing for the kind of manager who sees staff as a cost center.

and there's also a real estate invesmtent factor, both in terms of ego ("I met with architects for a year to build our shiny new campus, of course you peons will be more productive where I can keep an eye on you") and in terms of actual financials ("we've been spending $X per year for property taxes on this empty building").

of course it's always going to be a blend of factors, especially in an industry where tons of research proved open plan offices were detrimental and open plan offices became the norm anyway.

[shmatt]

There might be a slight disadvantage in the "Got RSUs in the early 2010's" group but for everyone else money still talks.

A box full of cash will convince many to come to the office a couple of times a week. It's still very hard to get FAANG expensive-city level compensation with a true promise that you will still be fully remote 1 year from now.

For the companies trying to pay startup wages plus demand in office, that will end badly

[RangerScience]

IANAL / California-centric -

There's a legal employment concept called "quit for cause", it's kind of the inverse of "fire for cause". In CA (and very much IANAL), if your contract is for remote work and you are required to RTO, that'd qualify as "cause". AFAICT you can tie this to other things, like "I can quit and keep the signing bonus", "I can quit and get my first year's stock", things like that - at least on a legal level. Negotiating that in (and enforcing it) are other questions.

[danaris]

From a NYS perspective: At least for the purposes of drawing unemployment, there's a similar concept here, "constructive dismissal". I know someone who had their job changed almost completely underneath them, into something that they had repeatedly stated was unacceptable to them. They quit, and were able to claim unemployment exactly as if they had been fired without cause.

[AzzieElbab]

It is not just about teams and people. It is political - cities are struggling when people do not come to work, and it is financial - many companies have taken loans putting the real estate they own as collateral; if commercial real estate devalues, these companies are facing margin calls.

[rocgf]

Yes, but this is like the opposite of a tragedy of the commons scenario. Are you saying the companies do this in order to save the cities and real estate prices? That's likely not even a small factor at the bottom of the list.

[jonathankoren]

It's sunk cost fallacy -- especially at the FAANGs. These companies spent billions on monuments to the company's greatness. These buildings, MPK 20 & 22, The Donut, Amazon HQ2, the Circus Tents, aren't just unsellable from the psychological sense, they're unsellable in a practical sense. The number of companies that need/want 2.8 million ft2 (262,000 m2) of nigh-undivided office space can be counted on one hand -- and all of these already have their own white elephant.

Mix in monkey-see-monkey-do management of smaller firms, and of course straight up class antagonism towards workers, and you've got RTO über alles.

[aleph_minus_one]

> The number of companies that need/want 2.8 million ft2 (262,000 m2) of nigh-undivided office space can be counted on one hand -- and all of these already have their own white elephant.

I partially disagree: if necessary, rent out various parts of this office space to multiple companies.

[jonathankoren]

These buildings aren’t designed for subdivision, and attempting to subdivide them, probably would cost 100s of millions.

For instance, MPK 2x are essentially airplane hangers.

[rocgf]

Totally agree with this, I’m just saying that few, if any, companies would make the decision to force people back in the office based on the well-being of cities or the real estate market.

All companies act in their best interest and that’s kind of it.

[jonathankoren]

But this isn’t acting in their best interest. It’s acting on the personal feeling of inadequacy of the execs. That’s it.

[AzzieElbab]

I am not reading anyone's mind. I am simply stating that there is political pressure and there are financial incentives

[RestlessMind]

Can you give any specific examples of financial incentives to software companies who are forcing RTO?

[AzzieElbab]

Your employer had taken a loan and put some of its assets down as collateral. What happens when the collateral loses its value?

[supertrope]

Tax credits linked to FTE count. If employees are no longer working downtown their income tax goes to their home city or even another state.

[BeFlatXIII]

I hope the RTO push fails to cause maximum collateral damage in that case.

[lazystar]

companies do this to prevent a social-economic collapse. what's the point of building up a company if there's no society left to enjoy it in?

[dv_dt]

My experience is that companies almost never own their own buildings - at most they may have a long term lease, and even then long term is maybe 5 years.

[AzzieElbab]

Commercial real estate is a highly complex beast. Some companies build offices and sell them to an affiliated REIT while guaranteeing occupancy rates, banks build their office towers and go through great length to turn them into cash assets. It is very different from state to state due to taxes and regulations.

[dv_dt]

My experience is certainly limited. Seems to me, for a bank to enter into that kind of arrangement aligns much more with the core skill set vs tech companies in the typical HN community. But even then I could see the FANG companies with a lot of guaranteed cashflow owning, but at some way down the scale to smaller companies, I would think it strongly becomes to something to avoid for tech companies.

[pydry]

It's not uncommon for companies to buy the property, especially if they become flush with cash.

[nradov]

And then a few years later a new CFO comes in and engineers a sale and lease-back transaction to make the financial report metrics look better.

[akomtu]

I bet that many of the execs and board members have ties to commerce around offices: the overpriced rental complexes, restaurants, cafes and so on. Who wouldn't want to pay employees and simultaneously set the rent prices where those employees have to live?

[harshalizee]

Real estate is an investment. All investment vehicles comes with a potential for profit and risk of loss. They should have done their homework.

[mulmen]

I mean, sure. But let's acknowledge that "global pandemic" was justifiably considered a low probability before 2020. Even today should companies price in a meteor strike? Will they be out-competed in an existential timeframe if they do?

[tessierashpool]

a) "global pandemic" was _not_ considered a low probability by epidemiologists or by governments. the US set up a pandemic office during the Obama administration for exactly this reason. partly because everybody knew climate change and globalization increased the risk of pandemics, and partly because pandemics tore through Asia and the Middle East in 2002 and 2012.

b) remote work has been making office buildings obsolete for decades now. it is fundamentally absurd to say that you need people to get together in one room in order to build a distributed system. neither office buildings nor the "open plan" spaces inside have made any real logical sense for the tech industry in a very, very long time.

[mulmen]

I agree with you in general but in the context of real estate investment I'm not sure the sudden normalization of WFH and effect on commercial real estate was reasonably predictable.

[cudgy]

From a macro perspective it certainly was predictable given the trends that have been mentioned. From a micro “make as much money from the most suckers now” and “build it and sell it to a REIT” perspective it was able to be ignored.

[BeFlatXIII]

What responsibility do the rest of us have to keeping the commercial real estate market healthy?

[RestlessMind]

None. But that's orthogonal to your GP's point - "They should have done their homework." This was not a case of missing "homework". This was literally a once-in-a-century event no one plans for.

[cudgy]

There are many once-in-a-century possibilities like flooding, fires, terrorism, pandemics, structural failures, wars, ecological disasters, eminent domain, etc. Add them all up and you actually have a many-in-a-century event scenario. Companies that are already setup for remote work will be at an advantage, by not having a large percentage of their resources at a single or several large locations, and able to continue operations with little or no disruption.

In short, the remote model is decentralized and therefore more resilient and less risky.

[mulmen]

None. I’m just pointing out the decision making isn’t surprising from a corporate perspective.

[sgu999]

Remote working was already a trend before the pandemic, it only accelerated it massively.

[mulmen]

“Only” and “massively” are in conflict here. The massive effect of an unexpected event is how we got to this exceptional situation.

[Reason077]

> "I don't get the play here. What's the outlook on the next release cycle without talent?"

Devil's advocate: maybe it's a low-cost way to avoid layoffs? As in "we'd like to reduce headcount, but layoffs are expensive and look bad. If we enforce RTO, a certain percentage of our less-dedicated employees will quit and we won't have to pay out severance etc..."

[rfreiberger]

I believe this is the way many companies are going, even if they don't need to reduce the headcount, they can scoop up hungry workers cycling them out for average performers.

I keep sharing that many companies have not defined the remote policy. It's up in the air and they simply haven't said anything about not working remote. My fear is it will all end in two weeks, asking all non-dedicated full time remote workers to be in the office.

[bb88]

Okay sure.

Now what happens when your company's processes require high performing people with experience that can't be hired just of the street? Or need several months to years worth of recruiting to replace?

[Reason077]

Companies always lose talent, experience and institutional knowledge when they cut headcount - whether it's through conventional layoffs or otherwise. The gamble is that the reduced expenses are more important/valuable to the company than what is lost.

[Suppafly]

I feel like vaccine mandates did something similar for companies, it helped them to remove the less intelligent employees. Sometimes it's better to convince the trash to take itself out.

[xiphias2]

Case-by-case (what Google / OpenAI does) where top talent is identified and allowed WFH may outcompete both full-remote and both no-wfh companies (no-wfh is over at this point).

It's a nice dream to have everyone wfh, but most people may not have that leverage / experience.

[ecshafer]

Case by case wfh doesn't work as well as all remote. Missing out on key decisions because you weren't there is a big risk, as is falling behind on camaraderie.

[bombcar]

It can cause big divisions that CAN work (a work from home boss, for example, managing people who are mostly in an office) but can also cause a haves/haves not issue.

Going for work from home with defined "in office" periods (say one week a month at an office or working resort or whatever) can be a better division, but that puts the people who thrive in an office environment at a disadvantage.

[johndhi]

So everyone knows you aren't "top talent" when they see you in person? Ouch.

[sokoloff]

Everyone knows who "top talent" is now.

[dymk]

That’s what a union is for

[collegeburner]

why would top talent risk their jobs and get less for the sake of supporting underperformers? thats how unions work in this case. they make a lot more sense where there's stuff like blatant safety issues in factory settings than when e1s are Mad Online that they have to go into office and it's Literally 1984

[dymk]

Why do doctors and writers have unions? None of them are in a meat packing floor.

Everybody thinks they’re special until they’re not. Tons of top talent at Amazon and Facebook were recently laid off. You’re not safe just because you’re smart.

[RestlessMind]

Doctors don't have unions. They have guilds (or even better cartels a la AMA).

[cudgy]

True. And conversely your not smart just because your safe.

[VirusNewbie]

This is lies. Show me top talent that was laid off

[dymk]

I used to work there and I know people who currently are mangers (among other positions) there. Maybe they’re all lying to me, but I doubt it.

[Freedom2]

How do you know they are lying?

[makestuff]

I have a feeling that will produce some discrimination lawsuits.

[etempleton]

I have to agree.

Remote introduces some challenges to be sure, but you gain access to such a wider pool of talent and it is such an employee benefit.

If you want the best talent you probably need to offer remote work or be ready to pay double because it is worth that much to most people. I would not hate the idea of working in an office a few days a week again, but the only way I am even going to consider relocating is for, at minimum, double my current salary and some kind of contract with guarantees.

[imwillofficial]

This assumes RTO is a top motivator for the best.

I’ve seen no data to support that.

[RestlessMind]

> Companies that cannot manage remote teams simply won't be able to attract top talent.

> The only way you work onsite is you are inexperienced or you don't have another job.

Speak for yourself. Among the engineers I know who are "top talent", many of them prefer hybrid while small fractions prefer either fully-remote or fully-office setup.

[jdm2212]

RTO is a real disadvantage in hiring all the people who are posting on HN in the middle of the workday about RTO instead of, y'know, working.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

You honestly believe that we wouldn't be doing that if we were in the office?

[throw9away6]

Those people are in The office butts in chairs

[keneda7]

>>In this article, they state openly that Blizzard is managing a crisis to ship multiple products. The cost of a failed product release outstrips their lease cost by orders of magnitude. I don't get the play here. What's the outlook on the next release cycle without talent?

One employee (who does not want to work in the office) claims return to work is the cause without providing any evidence. I would be very wary of drawing the conclusions you are. For all we know they are in crisis because their employees are producing 10x less when working from home versus when they are in the office.

[Animats]

>>In this article, they state openly that Blizzard is managing a crisis to ship multiple products.

Blizzard's chief operating officer, the person whose job is to avoid such crises, quit/was fired when Microsoft acquired Blizzard. He went to Yuga Labs, the Bored Ape Yacht Club people. That may be part of why Blizzard is in trouble.

[quickthrowman]

MSFT does not own ATVI yet, the transaction has not closed. Perhaps you meant when Activision acquired Blizzard.

[Animats]

Oh, right. The EU antitrust authorities didn't approve. Probably a good move.