<story><title>I hope work from home continues</title><url>https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2021/4/6/some-of-the-reasons-i-hope-work-from-home-continues-and-i-never-have-to-return-to-an-office</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>protonimitate</author><text>I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office.&lt;p&gt;Cost issues aside, I&amp;#x27;ve always maintained that the absolute best experience is a hybrid&amp;#x2F;flexible schedule and location policy. I&amp;#x27;m currently full time remote (I&amp;#x27;m on the East Coast working for a West Coast company). My previous company had its main office in my current city, but allowed a super flexible choose-where-you-work-from policy. It was the best.&lt;p&gt;Didn&amp;#x27;t feel like dealing with the commute or had a ton of heads down work to do? Stay at home. Wanted to go in to be present for meetings? Easy. Start the day at the office and go home to finish off the day and avoid the commute? Sure.&lt;p&gt;Of course they made it possible by actively managing it. No meetings before 11am ET (to accomodate those in different TZs). Every scheduled meeting required a Zoom&amp;#x2F;conference link. Dedicated offices were set up as &amp;quot;conference rooms&amp;quot; so remote people could call in. And of course, people all the way up the ladder worked from home at least some of the time.&lt;p&gt;Being full remote doesn&amp;#x27;t work for everyone. Providing a space for those who want it is such a huge quality of life bonus imo. But the biggest factor is creating a culture of inclusion, despite your employees working preferences. This is the hardest thing to do, especially at scale.</text></item><item><author>blunte</author><text>Wow, the author has a pretty miserable company :(.&lt;p&gt;That said, I share most of the opinions even though I quite like the office environment of my company.&lt;p&gt;I abso-fking-love choosing where I work (and to some degree, when).  Being able to take my laptop and go sit under a canopy in my back yard when the weather is nice, seeing my rabbits hopping around the yard, my cats avoiding the aggressive she-rabbit, hearing the birds, etc., while working, is just about as happy as I can be while also working on stuff that doesn&amp;#x27;t really matter much.&lt;p&gt;As I begin to form my own company, one of my priorities is to allow my employees to have at least some of their time completely at their own discretion.  They choose when and where they work as long as they can attend some important anchor meetings (and obviously be productive).  And for the social aspect, weekend or week-long dev retreats are ideal.  4 hours of intense serious work, plus a couple of hours of colleague social interaction, and the rest left to the individual to spend however they like, is the kind of situation I would have not even been able to dream of when I was younger.&lt;p&gt;And from a bean-counter owner perspective, do not underestimate the employee loyalty and overachievement motivation you can get by giving some nice free trips, nice free food, and quality equipment.&lt;p&gt;Big companies lack this freedom to treat their creative talent not because they cannot afford it but because the people in charge tend to not be creative thinkers.  This is why most interesting things happen in smaller companies (and ultimately tend to get bought by the laggard big companies).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mumblemumble</author><text>&amp;gt; I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office.&lt;p&gt;Hot take: There&amp;#x27;s a whole way of communicating and handling team organization that grew up around 20th century business management culture, and it just doesn&amp;#x27;t work well with remote teams. Methods that &lt;i&gt;do&lt;/i&gt; work well with remote teams, though, don&amp;#x27;t work well with traditional deeply hierarchical management structures. At best, they tend to make all those management layers somewhat superfluous.&lt;p&gt;This means getting people back into the office may be a matter of self-preservation for career managers, whether they realize it consciously or not.</text></comment>
<story><title>I hope work from home continues</title><url>https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2021/4/6/some-of-the-reasons-i-hope-work-from-home-continues-and-i-never-have-to-return-to-an-office</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>protonimitate</author><text>I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office.&lt;p&gt;Cost issues aside, I&amp;#x27;ve always maintained that the absolute best experience is a hybrid&amp;#x2F;flexible schedule and location policy. I&amp;#x27;m currently full time remote (I&amp;#x27;m on the East Coast working for a West Coast company). My previous company had its main office in my current city, but allowed a super flexible choose-where-you-work-from policy. It was the best.&lt;p&gt;Didn&amp;#x27;t feel like dealing with the commute or had a ton of heads down work to do? Stay at home. Wanted to go in to be present for meetings? Easy. Start the day at the office and go home to finish off the day and avoid the commute? Sure.&lt;p&gt;Of course they made it possible by actively managing it. No meetings before 11am ET (to accomodate those in different TZs). Every scheduled meeting required a Zoom&amp;#x2F;conference link. Dedicated offices were set up as &amp;quot;conference rooms&amp;quot; so remote people could call in. And of course, people all the way up the ladder worked from home at least some of the time.&lt;p&gt;Being full remote doesn&amp;#x27;t work for everyone. Providing a space for those who want it is such a huge quality of life bonus imo. But the biggest factor is creating a culture of inclusion, despite your employees working preferences. This is the hardest thing to do, especially at scale.</text></item><item><author>blunte</author><text>Wow, the author has a pretty miserable company :(.&lt;p&gt;That said, I share most of the opinions even though I quite like the office environment of my company.&lt;p&gt;I abso-fking-love choosing where I work (and to some degree, when).  Being able to take my laptop and go sit under a canopy in my back yard when the weather is nice, seeing my rabbits hopping around the yard, my cats avoiding the aggressive she-rabbit, hearing the birds, etc., while working, is just about as happy as I can be while also working on stuff that doesn&amp;#x27;t really matter much.&lt;p&gt;As I begin to form my own company, one of my priorities is to allow my employees to have at least some of their time completely at their own discretion.  They choose when and where they work as long as they can attend some important anchor meetings (and obviously be productive).  And for the social aspect, weekend or week-long dev retreats are ideal.  4 hours of intense serious work, plus a couple of hours of colleague social interaction, and the rest left to the individual to spend however they like, is the kind of situation I would have not even been able to dream of when I was younger.&lt;p&gt;And from a bean-counter owner perspective, do not underestimate the employee loyalty and overachievement motivation you can get by giving some nice free trips, nice free food, and quality equipment.&lt;p&gt;Big companies lack this freedom to treat their creative talent not because they cannot afford it but because the people in charge tend to not be creative thinkers.  This is why most interesting things happen in smaller companies (and ultimately tend to get bought by the laggard big companies).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>trentnix</author><text>&lt;i&gt;I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I doubt it lasts, at least in software. Talented people are going to have lots of remote options making it harder to find good people willing to show up for daily cubicle warfare.&lt;p&gt;I was someone who preferred to be in the office every day prior to the pandemic. But after adjusting, I really, really like working from home. Truth is, I can&amp;#x27;t imagine I&amp;#x27;ll ever take another job that expects me to show up to an actual office everyday. I&amp;#x27;m sure I&amp;#x27;m not the only one.</text></comment>