>recently began cracking down on Slack channels that aren’t directly related to work
I get it even just as a general response to things that have happened other places. The meta conversation is endless and stuff gets out of hand.
If I were an employer I'd be tempted to "You know what, I'm not gonna moderate or facilitate this stuff getting out of hand. We're here to work right?"
That's true, but the conversations are still going to happen elsewhere. Any work-related conversation can get derailed. It sounds like they are using it as a blanket excuse for suppressing discussions they don't want employees to have. It may be to just reduce noise, but I feel like a corporation like Apple would want to keep things under tight control.
Yeah but it also denies the fact that we spend 1/3 of our working lives at work. It's extremely silly to say not talk about things that directly impact you, especially work related things.
It reminds of the crappy jobs I'd work at where management would tell us that discussing salaries was illegal, it's not illegal.
This isn't an 1880s mining town, Apple isn't the only game in town. Workers have options and I doubt Apple employees would honestly struggle to get jobs at other more remote friendly workplaces like Crowdstrike, SalesForce, or even Facebook.
It's one thing to not allow something, it's an entirely different thing to force people to stop discussing something because a massive multinational corporation feels threatened by a few hundred employees.
The comparison being that several hundred years ago if you wanted to work in a certain city sometimes there would literally be one company that ran everything.
It's no different than companies stopping workers from organizing. It's scare tactics plain and simple. Rather than confront people and give real answers they take their ball and go home.
Conversations in this vein get out of hand, people start getting seriously argumentative and insulting, and people get upset. It's not that discussions of this sort shouldn't happen but company mailing lists maybe aren't the best place to have them if civil debate is the goal.
They are free to mandate it, but if my employer ever said you cannot think or talk about non-work stuff with collegues for 8 hours a day then I'd be out the door immediately.
Now they are just going to talk about it externally. Apple is fighting a losing battle. Pandora's Box has been opened by the pandemic. Now employees know that they can get the same amount of work done remotely and not be as stressed at work. Meanwhile, companies are desperate to pretend that remote work didn't happen because they need bodies to fill up their offices which they are paying for. But work culture is shifting for jobs that can be done remotely despite these attempts to shutter the discussion.
Some people believe tasks can be broken down and given to independent units of HR resources, executed remotely and concentrated back. Some others don’t. Some others believe it is possible but need to socialize, to belong, to talk.
If someone would rather work in the office, more power to them. But you can definitely see the hesitancy of employers to allow remote work over in-office work.
Here's the thing, if you are in a big company and you work with people all over the country, you can still collaborate with them via video and text chat. It would be the same experience whether you are in the office or at home. In those circumstances, those tasks can be done due to the means of collaboration still being equally effective.
This is just absurd, JIRA wouldn't exist if you couldn't break down work into independent tasks. You're effectively saying assembly lines can't exist. Tasks can be completed by individuals regardless of where they are.
Considering how many of these companies have been able to operate perfectly, grow, launch products and post record profits over the last year and a half goes to show that that thinking is outdated and wrong.
I respect those that want to work in an office, I just don't want their desire + the previous status quo of butts-in-seats management to make me have to go back to a horrible commute.
At that point, it would be them not respecting those of us who want to be remote.
I honestly think "Pandora's Box" is being shoved right back closed. The big banks have already going back to work and a lot of the big tech companies are forcing everyone back very soon this remote future isn't happening this year.
It's definitely being attempted but people aren't going to just forget how much better their lives were working remotely. I know it's not a for sure thing but that pressure is building.
I know of some HSBC teams who have gone full remote. It was meant to be experimental, but management has been really satisfied with the metrics so it's a permanent thing. Some banks are embracing it, even if not fully.
I’m not sure this applies to companies like Apple. Plenty of people will jump at the chance to replace those who quit Apple over a wfh stalemate. If you don’t have Faang on your cv you’d be foolish not to bite the commute bullet and take the role.
I'm really surprised that the most secretive tech company in the world uses a third party, non-encrypted, non-self-hosted app for internal communication.
It was clear to me on first read that the comment was referring to end-to-end encryption. It's 2021 - encryption schemes wherein somebody else has the keys are decreasingly relevant.
edit: Apparently Slack does indeed facilitate end-to-end encryption using a key management service, as described by the reply to my comment below.
It's not about just technical competency, but also about trust. Does Apple trust Slack to the degree that they're basically happy letting them in on all of their secrets? Currently the answer seems to be yes, which is somewhat surprising. Somehow Apple does not trust their own employees, but trusts unrelated third-party service providers.
Yes? Apple has thousands of vendors and suppliers, some of them their direct competitors (e.g. Samsung). A lot of them are in countries where Apple can't even enforce NDAs and protect their IP in fair courts. Trust is a fundamental aspect of doing business at that level.
Their most successful product by far, the iPhone, was built by teams where the hardware people had no idea what the software looked like, and the software people had no idea what the hardware looked like. That's how secretive Apple has historically been.
This is why it's surprising to read that they rely on the same 3rd party communications service many of us use daily.
Consider your keyboard. It could be uploading everything you type somehwere. Stealing all your passwords and secrets. But heres the thing, such surveillance could be detected. You could check for radio emissions. You could crack it open. You probabaly wont, but you might. And your vendor will keep this in mind.
When you upload all your data to someone else and hope they don't peek that doesn't apply anymore. If you have a hunch something is not right you can't do shit about it. And your vendor will keep this in mind.
non-self-hosted? how do you know? I have worked at 2 different FAANGs, and both use self hosted versions of Slack. Why? because most people prefer it over other internal tools. Is it secure, I dunno. Is it the best options? Probably not.
I'm not currently looking for another job (or plan to), but I respond to every recruiter email I receive telling them I'm only considering 100% remote options. I'm doing my part!
I’ve turned down 2 offers that were advertised as remote but the but the managers gave off “management by walking around” vibes, and turned down another that paid 10k less for remote.
(I’m more than full time employed and I’m being picky)
These companies all claim to hire the best and brightest and be trailblazing engines of innovation but they're scared of remote work. How about solving an actual difficult societal problem with your big brain innovators then?
It's not just Apple here, it seems like every large player is fighting this shift rather than embracing and leaning into it.
I've been effectively remote for years. But do you honestly believe that the highest-paying SV tech employers will have a problem hiring people because they're less remote-friendly than some other companies are?
I think the pandemic changed things a lot more than we give it credit. A lot of jobs were all of a sudden remote and could be done well remotely. I think we are seeing employee preferences shift to remote work if it's possible. If there are remote-friendly opportunities, employees will definitely be leaning towards that in the future.
Along with premium salaries comes high standards for being hired. Pretty much all large tech companies are constantly hiring employees as long as they meet their high standards. If there is a general shift to remote work and Apple refuses to budge then they will have to make do with less people, raise compensation beyond what it already is, or lower their standards.
To lean into the idea of "the pandemic changed things a lot more than we give it credit" I have seen a lot of folks realized (very suddenly!) that they needed to re-prioritize things in their lives and that work/money isn't the most important thing to them.
I don't think Apple et al. will have trouble finding talent, but they may have trouble attracting "the best and brightest" if they require that you go into an office.
Then again, maybe they don't want to hire people who will prioritize mental health and family over work. "Best and brightest" is often a thinly veiled way of saying "willing to over-work and sacrifice personal life for the bottom line".
A $300K salary in the context of $5 million-dollar houses makes much less sense if you can be happy and less stressed with an $80K salary with $150K houses.
Agree, I've only seen a handful of recruiter spam that don't explicitly call out 100% remote work. Smaller companies are definitely using this as a lever to siphon off talent from larger, more traditional workplaces.
I doubt Apple is forcing people back to the office without regard for what remote work proponents are saying. At the end of the day, once debate has ended, which is clearly has (at Apple, anyway), isn't it the company's decision and you can leave or deal with it?
We will see. If bigger companies like Apple do allow it, smaller ones will be incentivized to also adopt broader remote work policies or risk losing employees to the former.
Right, if it makes Apple less competitive then Apple leadership has to deal with that.
They're betting on that not being the case (at least not enough to change one of their defining work-culture tenants -- face to face, in-person work is more productive and innovative). Only time will tell.
But work is not typically a democracy and there's time for consensus and if it doesn't go your way, you can leave or stay and commit.
Employee demand will matter to the extent that there's some level of employer supply in the market. If most employers hold the line, there isn't much for employees to choose from, unless they're one of the very fortunate few who have the luxury of deciding not to work until the appropriate opportunity comes along. If large numbers of employees can't afford to hold out for better WFH policies, then plenty of companies won't need to offer them.
The thing is, a lot of companies are offering 100% now. There is a shift going on. It probably won't be a particularly big shift until larger companies get on board, but it's still moving the status quo little by little.
If so then you're absolutely right. If there ever a small % offering 100% and a larger % offering hybrid, that could be the lever that shifts the boulder.
I don’t think it’s ever this black and white. If enough employees feel strongly enough about this to quit it’s essentially not the companies decision any more (unless they want to sink their own ship).
I like this take. Companies like Apple and Google with trillions of dollars and the brightest engineers in the world are facing the theoretical problem that teams will be less productive if they are allowed to remain at home with their families instead of undertaking commutes to the office.
Why does this particular problem fall in the bucket of "throw up our hands and continue doing things the old (old, old, old) fashioned way," unlike all the other problems big tech feels qualified to attempt to innovate a resolution to? Companies that at least initially thrived on rejecting the status quo and doing what was better, even if it was challenging, suddenly abdicating to a status quo that is centuries old and costs everyone huge amounts of our least renewable resource: our time.
In defense of those in senior management, they really like the huge bonuses & exercised stock options they get for themselves when cutting labor costs & boosting stock prices.
But WFH? Less control! No easily tangible up-side! Workers might be happier? So what, how do you quantify that and what will it do to their bonuses, and OMG how can you trust the unwashed masses of anyone below C-levels & their direct reports? /s
I agree with you, but these companies all own a lot of real estate they need to be able to justify on their balance sheets. Apple just built a giant new campus before The Event so of course they want to justify it by seeing butts in chairs.
I’m sure the (widely considered, not universally) most innovative and maybe most profitable company in the world could figure out something to do with that office space.
Perhaps make it a hub for more teams, and close down rental spaces all over the bay. Make the gym and cafeteria way bigger.
Obviously this is arm chair thinking on my part, but I find it hard to believe that given enough thought they couldn’t make the numbers work out.
Before the pandemic, Apple's problem was having far too many employees to fit in the spaceship. They can probably fill that campus just with people voluntarily returning.
> Apple just built a giant new campus before The Event so of course they want to justify it by seeing butts in chairs.
Same with Asana, whose founder recently announced[1] "Asana will have an office-centric synchronized hybrid environment," which is another way of saying "employees may work from home on Wednesdays only."
Sublease! Imagine the social capital a company could get by bragging about being located on the Apple campus. That would be worth a high premium over other leased spaces.
Many of these companies invested tons of money in commercial real estate and can’t afford for that to have been a bad investment. Apple is a great example. They built a spaceship.
There is a very real possibility that allowing 100% remote work could very well prevent them from being "trailblazing engines of innovation". So many things start as adhoc idea's from a random discussion that would never have happened without being in the same location.
No they really can't. The number of random discussion that lead into whiteboard interesting solution to problems we run into infrequent or about the overall direction of our product have dropped to near 0 since I've been working remote.
Work has gotten easier in this remote world as it turned my whole team into input / output engines with very little thought along the way but god it's sucked all the creativity out of our work and removed most of the critical review of any product decision.
I've experienced this too; sure, work is getting done, but it's so difficult to be creative in a way that gets people excited and thinking about problems and their solutions to make our (and our user's) lives better.
Coming up with projects that are impactful and novel is a large part of our jobs, and creative velocity has nose-dived since everyone went remote. There's just (to me) no substitute for hallway chat, overhearing people arguing and getting involved, or coming across an interesting white boarding conversation. One person at a time talking on a scheduled webex is just not at all the same.
This discovery issue is why I advocate for room based, not call based communication (Dicord channels are surprisingly great, Mumble would probably do too). It certainly doesn't solve all of the problems, but I find it can alleviate them a bit.
At my previous gig (all remote, a startup) we had plenty of creative and productive random discussions. They'd start on slack and then progress to zoom.
So it's possible, but it certainly _felt_ different than the random discussions I'd had at in-person companies.
I can't quite put my finger on it, though. With the remote startup, there was no choice...?
Ahhh, I don't know. I'm a strong hybrid WFH advocate, but I've been embedded in operational areas, not centralized IT, for most of my career. And hearing conversations, walking past a meeting and catching a snippet of a problem I can solve for them, having rando non-IT staff knock on my door on the way to the bathroom... all of those experiences have contributed to some of the more impactful things I've produced over the years.
It's hard to have random conversations WFH when they're usually prefaced on running into someone in the hallway or saying a quick "hello" as you walk past their cubicle/office/whatever.
They can also happen in a chat room or a video call. How often does that kind of conversation organically happen in an office? Maybe with extroverts but introverts tend to keep to themselves in person. They would be more likely to come up with something via chat or video call.
Two introverts might keep to themselves, but an extrovert passing an introvert in the hallway may spark a conversation, or take a quick detour by their cubicle/office on the way to the break room. Introvert-Introvert adhoc might not be any different with WFH, but Introvert-Extrovert & Extrovert-Extrovert would definitely suffer for being harder to achieve organically & adhoc.
Are real estate holdings that much of a factor? Office leases seem more common than a purchase that generates equity, at least at medium/small companies, and some larger ones too that may have a headquarters but also lease in peripheral sites.
In that sense, I'm wondering if the push to get back in the office is more about "Damnit we're locked into a 10 year lease on this space, we're sure as hell not going to let it go empty, get those workers back in these seats!"
I don't know, it's a vague speculation that sometimes feels like a conspiracy theory when I dwell on it.
But I've worked at a couple VC funded SV startups and it wasn't exactly unusual for our investors to show up in the office and see how things are going, get a tour, have meetings. I doubt it's a contractual obligation of any sort, but there's clearly pressure to have a staffed office both local and impressive to the investors.
This left me assuming the VCs on Sand Hill Road would hold substantial real estate in the area, both commercial and residential. You're far more willing to throw hundreds of millions of dollars at high-risk investments if you can be confident they'll be throwing most of that money at office leases in the area, and salaries spent on rents and/or inflated bubble mortgages in the area. Especially if you can be confident all your investing peers on Sand Hill are doing the same, further inflating the bubble. The businesses will probably flop, but most that money just comes back through the real estate side provided you keep it all concentrated locally.
Ah, yes, that's true: If the companies are paying leases to properties owned by their investors, that changes things a bit. (For the investors though, not the companies)
I believe this is rhetorical but a lot of these companies, while they make many quality products, are coasting off one or two key innovative products. For Apple the Macintosh and the iPhone were prob their revolutionary products. Everything else is small potatoes.
Hybrid, like Apple is allowing, seems a decent compromise, though I think the balance could reasonably be at 3 or 4 days WFH instead of 2. And if someone has a good track record why not let it be all WFH?
I do see some value in having a presence in the office, at least for myself in my own position: My boss & I have to work extremely close together, and that goes more smoothly in person. But it doesn't need to be everyday, and it still works out okay with phone calls & texts & adhoc Zoom meetings.
I think employers should be open to what works best for each employee. I am currently WFH but I do server work so I do occasionally need to go to the office for configuring or picking up equipment. I would be okay with doing a hybrid option because of that. If I had to go back to the office full time, I would definitely start looking elsewhere.
Pretty much agreed-- I can understand wanting new/junior employees to develop a good track record before complete WFH. But it also seems reasonable to let a new hire that might otherwise have to relocate across the country that level of freedom and simply deal with the issue if they don't produce: not much different than how you'd deal with a new in-person employee.
I will say that, for myself, I understand my work behavior very well. If I could choose any style, it wouldn't be complete WFH. It would be 3 days WFH, 2 days in office. Just a quirk of my personality that I tend to be more focused in the office, and the time I spend there gives me a fairly regimented view of what I need to accomplish during WFH time.
Which is completely what you said: do what worked best for each employee.
This sounds bizarre to me. If Apple feels so strongly about this position then why is there any position for discussion on this matter at all?
For example, my employer is strictly a work from office company. I disagree with that position but they were always clear about this at all times: safety permitting employees will return to the office. Never was there any confusion. You can talk about this all you want and disagree about it but the employers position is still clear and everybody knew this at all times.
Because things can change. If it weren't for these talks and changes, we would still be working in horrible conditions because "that's what it was when I was hired and it was very clear this is the way to do it and I have agreed to this".
The company doesn't have total control here. If all workers organized themselves and decided to demand WFH all at once, Apple would be forced to capitulate. The company can't do shit without its workers.
Personally, I think the golden age of sprawling luxurious company campuses are over. Imagine you're Apple, you just spent billions building a next generation spaceship campus, and now no one wants to work there.
What a waste of money. There's no point in building a custom campus anymore if remote work is now the default preference for so many employees. If you need some office space, rent it out from some generic building downtown for the few laggards.
People are quitting where I work over this. (Not at Apple)
Lots of people have a commute of 1+ hour, then time to walk to the office get settled etc. Same on the way home.
For the last ~16 months people everywhere have clawed back 5 or 10 or 15 hours a week. That's a huge increase in leisure time: Enough for a another hobby, additional professional development, time with family, or just relax & help avoid burn out. A huge increase in quality of life.
Where I work the message is now "Everyone is back, in the office, full-time, every day, no exceptions, full stop." No WFH was allowed pre-pandemic.
So, people quitting. Most places are at least offering some form of hybrid. But then our President/CEO just retired, and a new one starts next week. I suspect that faced with an IT department gutting itself day by day, there may be a reconsideration. I hope there is.
At my job they're leaning into WFH. We are full WFH since March 2020 with no end in sight, with higher ups reported to be satisfied with our performance and the new job listings all listed as *remote available*.
Some people really dislike it at work and appear to come into zoom calls from the office. Most of that group really appreciates how empty the office is though.
I also work for an employer that isn't a "tech player" and you wouldn't think we are more forward than Apple on this, but here we are.
I wonder how much the Delta variant is going to influence these things... we're a short ways into a spike-- if it continues on current trends w/ break-through infections of those already vaccinates, it's going to be hard to push people back to the office.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if companies responded by building places to live on campus? They could actually be supporting housing development just to get people there.
This is what universities do with professors at places like Columbia.
We told leadership at our inclusion meetings to transform vast areas of offices into daycares to be more inclusive, I wonder where that will go…
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[ 1.8 ms ] story [ 84.3 ms ] threadI get it even just as a general response to things that have happened other places. The meta conversation is endless and stuff gets out of hand.
If I were an employer I'd be tempted to "You know what, I'm not gonna moderate or facilitate this stuff getting out of hand. We're here to work right?"
That's fine. This is the equivalent of water-cooler conversations.
Talking about work, that's fine.
It's just the nature of providing a forum/ medium so prone to problems that I would not want to do.
It reminds of the crappy jobs I'd work at where management would tell us that discussing salaries was illegal, it's not illegal.
This isn't an 1880s mining town, Apple isn't the only game in town. Workers have options and I doubt Apple employees would honestly struggle to get jobs at other more remote friendly workplaces like Crowdstrike, SalesForce, or even Facebook.
It's one thing to not allow something, it's an entirely different thing to force people to stop discussing something because a massive multinational corporation feels threatened by a few hundred employees.
It is pathetic.
That seems pretty out there.
They were aptly named company towns:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town#United_States
They have an interesting, and often sordid, history.
It's a poor look.
So you either lay down the internal law or have these indefinite squirrel conversations
It's pleasant when they all quit in "defiance". Makes it easier to get a bonus.
Respect all of them.
At that point, it would be them not respecting those of us who want to be remote.
Apple is disrespecting all of them
The best and brightest won't need to make the god awful commute to a shitty job, where the managers don't respect the employee's life.
edit: Apparently Slack does indeed facilitate end-to-end encryption using a key management service, as described by the reply to my comment below.
https://slack.com/enterprise-key-management
This is why it's surprising to read that they rely on the same 3rd party communications service many of us use daily.
When you upload all your data to someone else and hope they don't peek that doesn't apply anymore. If you have a hunch something is not right you can't do shit about it. And your vendor will keep this in mind.
(I’m more than full time employed and I’m being picky)
It's not just Apple here, it seems like every large player is fighting this shift rather than embracing and leaning into it.
eg: a 10h weekly commute better be worth at least $75k USD
I don't think Apple et al. will have trouble finding talent, but they may have trouble attracting "the best and brightest" if they require that you go into an office.
Then again, maybe they don't want to hire people who will prioritize mental health and family over work. "Best and brightest" is often a thinly veiled way of saying "willing to over-work and sacrifice personal life for the bottom line".
They're betting on that not being the case (at least not enough to change one of their defining work-culture tenants -- face to face, in-person work is more productive and innovative). Only time will tell.
But work is not typically a democracy and there's time for consensus and if it doesn't go your way, you can leave or stay and commit.
Why does this particular problem fall in the bucket of "throw up our hands and continue doing things the old (old, old, old) fashioned way," unlike all the other problems big tech feels qualified to attempt to innovate a resolution to? Companies that at least initially thrived on rejecting the status quo and doing what was better, even if it was challenging, suddenly abdicating to a status quo that is centuries old and costs everyone huge amounts of our least renewable resource: our time.
Staff doing their work from another location: Nope.
Centralising their supply chain in a volatile, genocidal dictatorship: Yep.
Big play.
But WFH? Less control! No easily tangible up-side! Workers might be happier? So what, how do you quantify that and what will it do to their bonuses, and OMG how can you trust the unwashed masses of anyone below C-levels & their direct reports? /s
Perhaps make it a hub for more teams, and close down rental spaces all over the bay. Make the gym and cafeteria way bigger.
Obviously this is arm chair thinking on my part, but I find it hard to believe that given enough thought they couldn’t make the numbers work out.
Same with Asana, whose founder recently announced[1] "Asana will have an office-centric synchronized hybrid environment," which is another way of saying "employees may work from home on Wednesdays only."
[1] https://twitter.com/moskov/status/1384556019636862982
There is a very real possibility that allowing 100% remote work could very well prevent them from being "trailblazing engines of innovation". So many things start as adhoc idea's from a random discussion that would never have happened without being in the same location.
Work has gotten easier in this remote world as it turned my whole team into input / output engines with very little thought along the way but god it's sucked all the creativity out of our work and removed most of the critical review of any product decision.
Coming up with projects that are impactful and novel is a large part of our jobs, and creative velocity has nose-dived since everyone went remote. There's just (to me) no substitute for hallway chat, overhearing people arguing and getting involved, or coming across an interesting white boarding conversation. One person at a time talking on a scheduled webex is just not at all the same.
So it's possible, but it certainly _felt_ different than the random discussions I'd had at in-person companies.
I can't quite put my finger on it, though. With the remote startup, there was no choice...?
It's hard to have random conversations WFH when they're usually prefaced on running into someone in the hallway or saying a quick "hello" as you walk past their cubicle/office/whatever.
If people stop living and/or working local to their investments, the value plummets and the hedge no longer works.
In that sense, I'm wondering if the push to get back in the office is more about "Damnit we're locked into a 10 year lease on this space, we're sure as hell not going to let it go empty, get those workers back in these seats!"
But I've worked at a couple VC funded SV startups and it wasn't exactly unusual for our investors to show up in the office and see how things are going, get a tour, have meetings. I doubt it's a contractual obligation of any sort, but there's clearly pressure to have a staffed office both local and impressive to the investors.
This left me assuming the VCs on Sand Hill Road would hold substantial real estate in the area, both commercial and residential. You're far more willing to throw hundreds of millions of dollars at high-risk investments if you can be confident they'll be throwing most of that money at office leases in the area, and salaries spent on rents and/or inflated bubble mortgages in the area. Especially if you can be confident all your investing peers on Sand Hill are doing the same, further inflating the bubble. The businesses will probably flop, but most that money just comes back through the real estate side provided you keep it all concentrated locally.
I do see some value in having a presence in the office, at least for myself in my own position: My boss & I have to work extremely close together, and that goes more smoothly in person. But it doesn't need to be everyday, and it still works out okay with phone calls & texts & adhoc Zoom meetings.
I will say that, for myself, I understand my work behavior very well. If I could choose any style, it wouldn't be complete WFH. It would be 3 days WFH, 2 days in office. Just a quirk of my personality that I tend to be more focused in the office, and the time I spend there gives me a fairly regimented view of what I need to accomplish during WFH time.
Which is completely what you said: do what worked best for each employee.
For example, my employer is strictly a work from office company. I disagree with that position but they were always clear about this at all times: safety permitting employees will return to the office. Never was there any confusion. You can talk about this all you want and disagree about it but the employers position is still clear and everybody knew this at all times.
What a waste of money. There's no point in building a custom campus anymore if remote work is now the default preference for so many employees. If you need some office space, rent it out from some generic building downtown for the few laggards.
Lots of people have a commute of 1+ hour, then time to walk to the office get settled etc. Same on the way home.
For the last ~16 months people everywhere have clawed back 5 or 10 or 15 hours a week. That's a huge increase in leisure time: Enough for a another hobby, additional professional development, time with family, or just relax & help avoid burn out. A huge increase in quality of life.
Where I work the message is now "Everyone is back, in the office, full-time, every day, no exceptions, full stop." No WFH was allowed pre-pandemic.
So, people quitting. Most places are at least offering some form of hybrid. But then our President/CEO just retired, and a new one starts next week. I suspect that faced with an IT department gutting itself day by day, there may be a reconsideration. I hope there is.
Some people really dislike it at work and appear to come into zoom calls from the office. Most of that group really appreciates how empty the office is though.
I also work for an employer that isn't a "tech player" and you wouldn't think we are more forward than Apple on this, but here we are.
This is what universities do with professors at places like Columbia.
We told leadership at our inclusion meetings to transform vast areas of offices into daycares to be more inclusive, I wonder where that will go…