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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
by andrewdubinsky 3y ago
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?
- krainboltgreene 3y ago> 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 3y agoI 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 3y agoI 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 3y ago> 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 3y agoSecond. Our HR recruiters told me they could fill my open positions yesterday if it wasn't for the RTO requirement.
- throw9away6 3y agoGood for hr employment prospects then
- JohnMakin 3y ago> 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.
- slipperlobster 3y agoI 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.
- UncleMeat 3y agoI 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 3y agoNo 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 3y agoI, too, know people with odd habits. They are still statiscal oddities.
- blub 3y agoIf 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.
- xiphias2 3y agoCase-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.
- johndhi 3y agoSo everyone knows you aren't "top talent" when they see you in person? Ouch.
- sokoloff 3y agoEveryone knows who "top talent" is now.
- dymk 3y agoThat’s what a union is for
- collegeburner 3y agowhy 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 3y agoWhy 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.
- VirusNewbie 3y agoThis is lies. Show me top talent that was laid off
- AzzieElbab 3y agoIt 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 3y agoYes, 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.
- AzzieElbab 3y agoI am not reading anyone's mind. I am simply stating that there is political pressure and there are financial incentives
- BeFlatXIII 3y agoI hope the RTO push fails to cause maximum collateral damage in that case.
- RestlessMind 3y agoCan you give any specific examples of financial incentives to software companies who are forcing RTO?
- supertrope 3y agoTax credits linked to FTE count. If employees are no longer working downtown their income tax goes to their home city or even another state.
- AzzieElbab 3y agoYour employer had taken a loan and put some of its assets down as collateral. What happens when the collateral loses its value?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- shmatt 3y agoThere 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 3y agoIANAL / 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 3y agoFrom 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.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- keneda7 3y ago>>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 3y ago>>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 3y agoMSFT does not own ATVI yet, the transaction has not closed. Perhaps you meant when Activision acquired Blizzard.
- Animats 3y agoOh, right. The EU antitrust authorities didn't approve. Probably a good move.
- etempleton 3y agoI 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.
- Reason077 3y ago> "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 3y agoI 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 3y agoOkay 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 3y agoCompanies 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 3y agoI 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.
- imwillofficial 3y agoThis assumes RTO is a top motivator for the best. I’ve seen no data to support that.
- mortenjorck 3y agoRTO 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 3y agoIf 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 3y agoGotta 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 3y ago>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?
- tessierashpool 3y ago> 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.
- jdm2212 3y agoRTO 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.
- throw9away6 3y agoThose people are in The office butts in chairs
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y agoYou honestly believe that we wouldn't be doing that if we were in the office?
- RestlessMind 3y ago> 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.