This article includes interesting stats at first but the self-promotion midway through just makes it feel like a formulaic Medium article, and I lose trust in the author from that moment on:
"At that point, the company called me to help as a hybrid work expert who the New York Times has called “the office whisperer.”"
> Unispace found that nearly half (42%) of companies with return-to-office mandates witnessed a higher level of employee attrition than they had anticipated. And almost a third (29%) of companies enforcing office returns are struggling with recruitment.
If you want to convince me, you also need to present the same numbers for companies that don't have return-to-office mandates.
But the five yes men in my office said yes. I can't replace them with a Alexa that's auto sycophanting chanting: <that's a great idea, by a great guy (addNameHere)> or can I?
I’m curious if any company trying to get people back into the office has begun reverting it’s open floor plan to a more structured and divided one, allowing for more noise isolation and private work
yeah, this… the only reason my company can get me to come in at all is that they put me and another quiet guy in a somewhat isolated room with a door. it’s not perfect, especially when the office is relatively full, but it’s better than an open floor plan.
This. Even for a couple of days a week, open working area has a severe impact on my headspace. I basically need a weekend not doing anything to reset from it.
Why would they do this? Every good manager knows that having a noisy open office plan where you can hear every conversation in the office at once improves productivity exponentially because of collaboration.
My perceptions is zero, based on a small sampling of megacorps that account for a significant percentage of tech employment.
Before the pandemic they were doing hotel seating and encouraging work from home and had reduced floor plans with smaller open seats that were not dedicated. They were internally discussing “BYOO,” or bring your own office and strangling corporate leased/owned space until it was only used for crucial in person meetings, interactions, and roles that had to be in the office for regulatory or practical purposes.
The pandemic forces that so suddenly that C suite folks freaked out and saw the way they came up ending. They saw an erosion of the culture and company they fostered and had a strong emotional response in the other direction.
During the pandemic no one accelerated real estate acquisition or reversed the BYOO squeeze policies. Now they are struggling seating people on the mandatory policies. Everything is the same - too few seats, hotel seating, smaller desk footprints, floor plans as open as the Montana sky. Morale is about zero. As compliance rates are around 30% at most large megacorps mandating in office N days a week management is increasingly becoming aggressive and oppressive. Attrition has been pretty low owing to the spring tech apocalypse, spurring increasing aggressiveness by management. But - hiring will pick up in 1Q2024 through 3Q24 as the mirage recession fails the materialize. Whether you believe in it or not funding is flowing for AI and that’ll further improve tech employment, especially as interest rates stabilize.
I was until recently a senior leader at one of the largest of the large megacorps with draconian RTOO policies.
Myself I left a few weeks ago because they asked me to come in five days a week and joined a late stage startup being paid more, with more interesting work, and no mandatory in office.
If they value controlling my body over my contribution then they can have neither.
I was expecting mention of increased transmission due to return to office policies. That certainly happened to me. Didn’t get Covid until some coworkers decided to come to work sick and I had no recourse but be at work with them. They said they just had allergies at the time and later admitted it was Covid. Infuriating.
Management was entirely WFH at that point so they had no visibility into who was showing up sick.
Although I haven't seen any transmission from RTO requirements where I'm at, I would assume that it would fall as a symptom of the overall lack of autonomy that the mandates create.
Management still have no visibility, because there isn't a field in the resignation form for "you create a terrible environment with your open plan office".
How dare they breathe the air and spread their highly transmissible virus, like has happened for eons! Then again, why would you choose to breathe in their sickness? Were you not wearing 3 masks and keeping 3 meters distance? Did they make you come to work? Call the tribunal, we must get to the bottom of this, as soon as we've uncovered what causes rectal itch from the office chairs!
22 comments
[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 63.3 ms ] thread"At that point, the company called me to help as a hybrid work expert who the New York Times has called “the office whisperer.”"
If you want to convince me, you also need to present the same numbers for companies that don't have return-to-office mandates.
/s
Before the pandemic they were doing hotel seating and encouraging work from home and had reduced floor plans with smaller open seats that were not dedicated. They were internally discussing “BYOO,” or bring your own office and strangling corporate leased/owned space until it was only used for crucial in person meetings, interactions, and roles that had to be in the office for regulatory or practical purposes.
The pandemic forces that so suddenly that C suite folks freaked out and saw the way they came up ending. They saw an erosion of the culture and company they fostered and had a strong emotional response in the other direction.
During the pandemic no one accelerated real estate acquisition or reversed the BYOO squeeze policies. Now they are struggling seating people on the mandatory policies. Everything is the same - too few seats, hotel seating, smaller desk footprints, floor plans as open as the Montana sky. Morale is about zero. As compliance rates are around 30% at most large megacorps mandating in office N days a week management is increasingly becoming aggressive and oppressive. Attrition has been pretty low owing to the spring tech apocalypse, spurring increasing aggressiveness by management. But - hiring will pick up in 1Q2024 through 3Q24 as the mirage recession fails the materialize. Whether you believe in it or not funding is flowing for AI and that’ll further improve tech employment, especially as interest rates stabilize.
I was until recently a senior leader at one of the largest of the large megacorps with draconian RTOO policies. Myself I left a few weeks ago because they asked me to come in five days a week and joined a late stage startup being paid more, with more interesting work, and no mandatory in office.
If they value controlling my body over my contribution then they can have neither.
-- Related --
Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought : https://finance.yahoo.com/news/now-finding-damaging-results-...
Referred by fsflover - HN: Discussion - (201-comments - 2023-08-01) : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36956747
Management was entirely WFH at that point so they had no visibility into who was showing up sick.
Management still have no visibility, because there isn't a field in the resignation form for "you create a terrible environment with your open plan office".
Note! Edit to point too; 'Health Factors'
It doesn't matter that it's worse for the company it's better for their portfolio to force people in to go get disabled by covid