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Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away
- CurtHagenlocher 2y agoI'm not aware that Microsoft has a "return-to-office" mandate. Maybe that's only for some employees? I know quite a few people on product teams who are 100% remote.
- wahnfrieden 2y agoThey reportedly have an RTO mandate for all employees. Managers can override the mandate, and can withdraw their approval forcing them back to the RTO mandate default. I expect driving senior talent away is part of the strategy - the senior talent demands the highest compensation, which is what these employers are combatting industry-wide and in coordination. They want to hire them back at lower wages later on.
- jjulius 2y agoIf we read the article instead of just the headline, we see that it makes clear that Microsoft has a hybrid arrangement, and that said hybrid arrangement has still resulted in a loss of employees. >Microsoft, which also enacted a hybrid RTO approach, saw a decline of 5 percentage points.
- legitster 2y agoIn that case it's really hard to pin it on RTO.
- zem 2y agogoing from remote to hybrid is still RTO, just not full RTO
- paleotrope 2y agoYeah I mean it doesn't capture the people that moved after wfh was implemented. Hybrid is appealing if your office is 500 miles away. Claiming it's hybrid is disingenuous imo.
- whatevaa 2y agoSomething like 3 days per week is pretty much RTO.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoIt sounds like it is group dependent. Some managers might insist on firm RTO. Hard to get to that level of nuance from high level numbers.
- olliej 2y ago“Hybrid RTO” is still RTO. Requiring people to come to the office 3 days a week for no reason other than executives and managers getting off on control is moronic. “Hybrid” RTO has literally no benefit over RTO except for being able to say “hybrid”. It forces all of the same problems as RTO - cost and location of living, planning for not being home, massive commute times, etc
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- paxys 2y agoThis makes sense considering senior talent has significantly more flexibility in switching companies in today's tech job market. If you are entry-level or mid-level and your company mandates RTO, well suck it up, because there are thousands more ready to take your place in a heartbeat.
- tiffanyh 2y agoLesson Learned ... If you take away an employee perk/benefit, employees get upset. The lesson learned is, most companies didn't realize allowing WFH (due to COVID) would be perceived as an employee benefit.
- itake 2y agoBut where did they go? Did they start startups? Join another big tech (if so, who competes with Apple for pay)? There aren’t that many opportunities for people these days, especially at the senior level where titles and compensation is still inflated due to 2020-2022 grants.
- throwaway5752 2y agoThey may have retired. Past a certain point you are in it because you love it, and if you no longer love it, there are better things in life than gilding the lily of a nest egg.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoA lot of people in my demographic have amassed roughly "fuck most people" money rather than "fuck everyone" money. Beyond a certain point, it's easier to coast on your nest egg and do other things like family, volunteering, or living a slower life rather than relent to reactive, rudderless corporate bullshit like RTO.
- benterix 2y ago> There aren’t that many opportunities for people these days, especially at the senior level where titles and compensation is still inflated due to 2020-2022 grants. You are joking, right? Apple, SpaceX and Microsoft are not the only game in town.
- id00 2y agoI'd even say Microsoft & SpaceX pays is lower than many other big tech
- itake 2y agoWhat big companies that have equal or better branding are have fully remote jobs for seniors contributors? I am sure you can name a couple, but I am skeptical that there are that many comparable roles available within those companies at this time.
- stuff4ben 2y agoAll the more reason to have a union.
- wahnfrieden 2y agoThese employers are certainly coordinating on wages, RTO policy, etc. They do it via third party compensation research firms. It's suspicious that people downvote your suggestion that workers also coordinate.
- _oai_amil 2y agoIt is suspicious only if you ignore the fact that YC exists to support the interests of capital, not labor.
- olliej 2y agoI don’t think the anti-union is suspicious: HN has a super libertarian bent and libertarians hate unions because .. reasons?
- wahnfrieden 2y agolibertarians are highly sus on the face of it, it sounds like a flavor of anarchism, along that spectrum and with some similar appealing points. but then there comes all this state and state police stuff, and endless domination and role based subjugation in a variety of legalized ways that rely on state violence to preserve. I can't understand the coherency so the results are suspicious (also, unions are not the only way for labor to organize. there are lots of ways to do this.)
- dgellow 2y agoJust in case people don’t take that claim seriously: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-tech-jobs-settlement-20150903-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-tech-jo...
- wahnfrieden 2y ago
- someguydave 2y agoHow many SpaceX employees really want to live in downtown LA?
- 121789 2y agoWhy would they have to live in downtown LA?
- someguydave 2y agoPresumably they have to be physically present within a few miles of downtown LA daily
- 121789 2y agoDo you presume that because you don’t know anything about LA? Downtown LA is a specific place, and SpaceX is not located there.
- someguydave 2y agoYep I am ignorant. How is my misuse of “downtown” germane to my original point?
- legitster 2y agoI think the outcome of all of this is going to be much more aggressive cost-of-living adjustments. It provides real, non-negligible value to sit in the same room as your coworkers. If companies want to reap that value though, they are going to have to pay for it. I think the days of setting up shop in downtown SF and just expecting talent to show up are over.
- dmitrygr 2y ago> It provides real, non-negligible value to sit in the same room as your coworkers Please cite a reputable source for this unsubstantiated and unsubstantiatable claim. eg: to me it provides a negative value (commute, noise, lack of my cat). To my employer it also provides negative value: my lower productivity, my much higher chance to GTFO to a more sane workplace. I can and do communicate with my coworkers over slack and zoom just fine. As my job does not require touching them, no problems are created by this arrangement.
- Jahkk 2y agoWhen I interned at MS in 2021, I was forced to be remote. I sat in calls with heavily-accented people with crying babies in the background. It was unbelievably bad. I was catching every third word from my “mentor”. That’s why I’m not there today. (I turned down a full time offer)
- andry_ad 2y agoAnd now, people go back to the office and I hear other people in the background instead of babies because companies have mandatory office days when they have all employees there at the same time. I can tell you, it's easier to phase out baby than other people in the background :)
- olliej 2y agoSounds like you would prefer a in person job. The question is not “do some people prefer offices”, the problem is “some people prefer offices and then require everyone else to be there to support them as well”
- ChrisArchitect 2y ago[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40339852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40339852
- dboreham 2y agoSo much effort expended trying to put a genie back into a bottle.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoI know people that were having friends scan their badge to meet company guidelines on return to office (their manager and teams were okay with remote work). But then Amazon added cameras on badge scans from what I heard.
- tonoto 2y agoWho could've guessed that. But in the end that decision may have developed innovations as at least a couple of those seniors started new companies.