No this is just Elon being Elon (seeking attention at any cost). There are always parts of companies that need people on site to do x or y job but for the most part the pandemic has forever changed how work is done. If you've got the skills that are in demand you can always quit and go work somewhere else where remote is still an option.

> If you've got the skills that are in demand you can always quit and go work somewhere else where remote is still an option.

You could say this about any shitty part of tech work though. Software devs won't be put on 24/7 on-call rotations because they can just quit and work somewhere else. Software devs won't be forced to put together a quick hack because they can just quit and work somewhere else. Software devs won't be forced to work nights and weekends to meet an arbitrary deadline because they can just quit and work somewhere else.

For whatever reason, it doesn't end up being that simple.

The cost of switching is pretty high. Interviews, background checks, filling out your W4, coming up to speed on a new team with new processes, etc. It ain't free or 0 stress. To get around the interviews, I think this is why some people always have interview processes going on in the background, even if they're not looking for a job. Then when they want to rage quit to make a point, they can easily land on their feet. (It is annoying when you interview people that don't accept your offer, but what can you do.)

A lot of what makes people want to leave companies is the simple nature of working with other people in a for-profit enterprise. That is not going to change by moving to another for-profit enterprise. So those people probably feel pretty stuck regardless of how good the market is.

That was 2010 thinking, in the twenties, you have 2-3 FTE jobs going at once and drop the worst one periodically as you bring on additional employers.

How can people constanly like like that? I mean, they must constantly cover up the reason why they couldn't join a call or couldn't answer on chat at the moment etc.. Not to mention outright lies during interviews. I guess they also have to stop maintaining their Linkedin.

I still don't understand how people find time to do this. The overhead from switching all the time would kill my productivity and take a bunch of time away from what I actually want to be doing, which is not working.

The point is not to be productive, the point is to shamelessly do the bare minimum you need to in order to get more money.

Right, sure. Just as there's no ethics in capitalism I don't think there's any room for shame in capitalism either.

Personally, when I was consulting I really wanted to want multiple clients at once but I actually found myself most happy with just one.

Maybe they don't. I've heard this story a few times, but never in a way that could be verified. It's a bit of an urban legend equivalent for me. Maybe there's even someone who pulled it off for a while. But just as likely it's a joke that became a "true story". Same as the manager throwing the CVs in the air to choose the lucky ones.

Honestly I posted that as a joke. But I am intrigued if it actually can be done. Take the easy jobs, apply a 10x/4 for a two x effort at all your jobs. Be careful to only accept jobs that are low on meeting expectations.

IMO the people that can actually succeed while overemployed could be just as successful, if not more so, as an above-the-board consultant or freelancer. It just seems like inventing a way to do something that already exists and many people do.

I probably agree after careful consideration. Finding a low tax jurisdiction to consult remotely from is probably the best move for someone capable and experienced.

I agree, i don't think this narrative of "just move" applies to 90% of developers. And most people are not in a position to just leave...

This is why tech needs unions.

It's not just Elon. A few other prominent and less prominent CEOs are pushing the same agenda. My former employer went the other direction and opted to not renew any leases on office space. So I think this is going to be a point of friction for a while and we'll see some varied approaches but I also think remote work is definitely going to win.

No, this is just going back to normality. This is how it was in 2019.

IMO certain professions may be ok with remote but for the most part, the kind of work Tesla does, remote work is suboptimal.

We are going to see a bifurcation of companies that adopt either strategies. Time will tell.

> the kind of work Tesla does, remote work is suboptimal.

What's _the kind of work Tesla does_? Sure, remote assembly may be suboptimal. What about software development? Operations? Etc.

You don't need face to face all the time. But sure, be a dick and give a one week deadline for people to adjust again and see how it goes.

I sense a bit of frustration and rudeness in your response, not sure why. I've worked as a engineer (not software) and most of the things get done in person, in the lab and in cubicles. Brainstorm on physical objects, looking at CAD models and comparing geometry, reviewing drawings, troubleshooting manufacturing problems, etc. Even operations requires interfacing with manufacturing leads which are in the factory.

If you have an axe to grind about WFH, probably should work as a non-software engineer or talk to someone who does and have a sense that perhaps your view is biased towards a particular type of personality that you may have.

Even amongst software engineers, there is a debate about how well WFH works.

> What's the kind of work Tesla does?

I am having trouble thinking of a job that requires a minimum of 40 hours in the office plus untold many hours that can be done either remotely or in the office.

> The kind of work Tesla does

The factory workers are already in the factories. The ones remote are the ones who can do their work remote and the company has only broken records since the pandemic started with remote work.

Elon himself says, you can do remote work, after you’ve been in the office for 40 hours, implying, that remote work is totally possible

> Elon himself says, you can do remote work, after you’ve been in the office for 40 hours, implying, that remote work is totally possible

You took that seriously? It was clearly a joke.

It's not like you can build rockets or cars at home.

You sort of can! I work in hw for an av company and we make it work. There are some people who are required to come in, but a lot of hw development is data analysis and/or done in cad. You don't need to go into the office for that.

This this this. I've been at plenty of gigs where everyone is all around the world. It's too late to go back, and good riddance! :D

I work for a large, non-tech, Fortune 500 company in the Midwest. When I was interviewing here back in January/February of 2020, they insisted on making all tech workers work in-person out of the Chicago office and even paid me a relocation bonus to move back to Chicago. After having spent my entire career at various startups across the country, some of which were remote, it seemed a bit backwards and old fashioned to insist that everyone work in-person, but I rolled with it since I wanted to move back to Chicago anyways.

Ironically, my first day coincided with the March 2020 lockdowns, so I never ended up going into the office. Since then the company has hired engineers from across the country and contractors from around the world. Leadership has mentioned many times how nice it would be to have everyone back in the office, but it's simply too late at this point. We're too distributed to bring everyone back. I worked out of the office recently and I was literally the only one there.

I wouldn't mind working from the office if I had an actual office. But instead I get an open space cubicle with random people walking and talking behind my back every 5 minutes. I get a $50 uncomfortable chair that looks like it's 15 years old. I get an unstocked kitchen, so I have to spend $15-20 on a meal. I get random people stealing food and stuff of my desk.

This was at a big 3-letter corporation and at a startup before that. I switched to remote 10 years ago and don't ever want to work from "the office" ever again.

I work for a company that was a hardcore office only. Then covid started. We made a decision in less than half an hour and in just a couple of days everyone was working remote. That was back in 2020. Since then, some heads of departments changed their stances completely and point blank refuse to return to the office. Some didn't know how to manage people,so they ended up getting them back in the office. My department was a perfect example that remote could work,so we were left alone and any further attempts to bring people back to the office were killed before gaining any traction. I ended up moving to a different country. Shortly after I asked if I could get a budget for some office space. The CEO approved.So after more than 7 years in stupid open space offices,I ended up in a corner office. I furnished it with my own money, everything from a fridge to a couch and even a bottle of whisky. O used to get approached every 10 min about some shit. Now I sit alone all day. People still call, email me, but I don't get distracted with stupid shit. My second half never understood why I spent all that money on that office space,but for me it was that ultimate corner of my own.

You get a cubicle? I thought nowadays the norm is just people sitting at a row of desks, as if office furniture and space was made of gold and needed to be extremely optimised for.

It helps you "collaborate", if by "collaboration" you mean everybody griping about how awful the working conditions are. It's funny to see people waxing nostalgic about the days in the office - everybody working in an open space, wearing headphones and ignoring one another so they could get some work done, and everybody griping about how awful the environment is.

I have a story very similar to yours. I worked in the office for a total of one week in March 2020 before we voluntarily switched to remote. (In Florida, so no real lockdowns.) We were expecting it to be a few weeks, maybe a couple months...

Now we're in the process of releasing our leased office, and renting a much smaller space for occasional collaboration. My team, which is only 7 people to start with, live in 4 different metros.

There is no back for us as a company. This is how we work now.

For the OP: I would take a look at how companies are hiring. If their job reqs are all for specific locations and no remote listings, then I would expect that you would be correct for that company. If their listings are remote, then I would expect that they're probably beyond that point.

I go into the office daily and it's now quieter than my house! There's hardly anyone there. I get more done due to less chit-chat.

_An_ office to go to if you _want_ to work there is different from a _requirement_ to work there. Imagine if the office were more like a members only coffee shop with a crummy kerieg pod coffee machine. Do you not remember what pre-pandemic was like?

I drink instant coffee from Walmart. It's cheap and effective. I actually like the taste too.

Sure but you have to go to Walmart.

I think people at Tesla should call his bluff and leave. That goes for any company that puts out ultimatums.

Believe it or not, I don't say that in a spiteful way. I respect that the people who own companies have the right to declare rules for their company. But at the same time, we get to set our own rules for our own lives. If those sets of rules do not match... then do not work there. There is enough variety in this world to find a place that works for you. There might not be enough variety for people like Musk to find all the workers they need.... but that is their problem. I'm just going to find a good place for myself and enjoy my work.

Agree. Maybe it's me, but everyone is starved for employees, from coffee shops to data science companies. Good time to switch

Or continue to work remotely. They can demand you be back in the office but just tell them you have COVID so are self-isolating.

Last time I ran the script I made to analyze the "Who's hiring" threads here (this weekend), remote offers on HN were above 80 %. Doesn't look likely. https://rinzewind.org/blog-en/2021/percentage-of-hacker-news...

Companies that advertise roles on HN are not representative of the economy.

But they may be representative of the companies HN users have access to. So this 80% may be similar to the testimonials people will leave in the comments here.

The same could be said of anything you see on HN. (for example, the obsession with SF real estate, or the use of Javascript stacks)

But the trends are

In Europe, I personally know a bunch of friends and coworkers who are ready to quit immediately if asked back to the office permanently. Most people want a hybrid setup it seems with 1 or 2 office days a week maximum.

Personally, I like the freedom of choosing every day and I have bursts of office weeks when I feel social and burts of home office weeks when I feel anti-social. I have colleagues who haven't seen the office since February 2020, others come in every single day... it varies a lot.

Would these friends/coworkers be those who have no or few commitments such as dependent children? This is an honest question, not sarcasm.

No. The company I work at (roughly 20 countries, 2000 employees -- blurred to avoid doxing myself) is embracing WFH and this allowed us to merge the knowledge and skills of the all our departments across the world. This also allowed us to hire people from all over the countries. Instead of hiring only people local to each branch we get to hire the best workers from all cities. This also allowed the company to hire where there are no offices.

I cannot see it going back any time soon. The advantages are too numerous.

We still have offices and are encourage to use them like any other resources. They have became hubs where we meet when needed to increase productivity instead of obligatory energy drains. New hubs were recently purchased and customized to our needs. Some even have private cafés and bars in them.

This requires trust from the management team, which we have proved over and over for decades.

If anything, people are working slightly longer hours now. The 2 hours people would use to do commute are no longer existent so a lot of people are willing to throw extra hours.

It's common for people to voluntarily stay in chatrooms while cooking diner and using the time to do teambuilding and also casually talk about work related issues. Similar to how people used to gather in common spaces after work. We even had events where the company would send us ingredients so that we could all cook the same recipes together and enjoy a remote lunch (on paid time).

Some of my coworkers are even living the digital nomad lifestyle where they travel across the world yet work their full time. Meetings where people have a beach or forest behind them are common -- and they are not static image backgrounds.

I do not miss the previous model and would never go back to it willingly.

I cannot imagine the company going back either as they would now need to fire all the new hires who are not close to the offices... and those offices have been converted into hubs with meetings rooms and a small amount of workstations. Even if the entire company wanted to go back tomorrow, there would not be enough workstations.

I just read through who’s hiring post here and almost every post offered remote or hybrid. To my memory there was one offering onsite only and it made them look sad. Most companies don’t want to look sad.

I know some of the major banks who were adamant about return to office have quietly surrendered that hybrid is here to stay.

You’ll find all sorts of companies though and I suspect if we head into a recession the remote rights crowd will lose ground.

What I am waiting for is the day that accounting gets the CFO to realize if they got more people working remotely they could reduce real estate. Once the emotions of the situation die down sooner or later the accountants will point out that productivity didn’t drop during remote work lockdowns and there’s money that could be saved. This is the moment things really shift. But that’ll be 5 years IMO.

Edit: to be clear they already know these facts but right now it’s all emotions based decision making. Once the emotions fade and a little water goes under the bridge a profit motive in cost cutting will be the thing that strangles in office work. If you think about it it’s quite a luxury to spend that much money just to collocate bags of mostly water for their social pleasure. And accounting doesn’t give a rats ass about your social pleasure.

Some corporations, though, are saddled with real estate that can’t be easily sold off. Large enclosed campuses, e.g.

The one I’m thinking of in particular is a huge part of the downtown economy, all those workers taking lunch breaks.

I don’t envy the corporate officers, although I envy their salary. It’s not an easy playing field to navigate.

Most companies tend to not flat out own their real estate but lease it, sometimes through a special purpose vehicle that only owns that building and was financed by the company. This allows a lot better flexibility and isolation from bankruptcy etc. But I would expect if my prediction is true a big write down for those owning and holding large campuses as other corporate real estate “right sizes” to what the accountants can convince the board of.

I hope the glut of office space can be rezoned to mid use - smaller office foot prints combined with residential and commercial. We are frankly overweight office space in regions saddled with a massive shortfall of residential space.

However I really emphasize with commercial businesses right now. Downtown seattle is a ghost town. The lunch crowd businesses are suffering, and the streets have been taken over by the mentally ill and those that feed on them.

This. Productivity is harder to measure than the cost of the offices, the accountants will win it hands down.

Small company data point here, but we're going more remote, not less.

Previously, remote was basically for people that had been with the company before and left the area, but that we wanted to keep.

The pandemic finally wore down the last bit of resistance to embracing remote fully. We still have our (scaled down) office location, but new hires need not have ever set foot in the area.

Exact same story here. Previously we had a few remote employees because the option was to let them go remote or lose them. ~3 months into the pandemic, when it became impossible to hire engineers, we said "fuck it" and accepted that we'd become a remote company even once the pandemic was over, just so that we could access the wider talent market.

There's sort of a tipping point where enough companies being remote heavily dilutes the talent you can find in a city now. It probably means any one city after the pandemic has at most 50% of the talent it had before.

Laszlo Bock was recently interviewed on this topic via Fortune (article below), and I tend to agree with him. It will be a slow roll over time for most companies returning to work (see Apple taking harder stance) with some exceptions on hybrid model 3-2 at work vs. remote.

  > Bock says that after three to five years of flexible work models and hybrid plans, the normal in-office schedule will prevail at Google—and beyond. He predicts this transition will happen over the next few years, telling Bloomberg it’s the “boil the frog method.”

https://fortune.com/2022/04/04/former-google-hr-chief-laszlo...

I think he vastly overestimates the percentage of employees who feel that they need to be seen. This is not about the rank and file. This is about middle managers trying to impress corporate execs.

Fair point. Out of sight out of mind and reduces ability for advancement up the corporate ladder. It plays a role in office politics and positioning for better or worse in organizational structures and accolades.

Companies/the pandemic accidentally gave knowledge workers a huge value raise by keeping remote work and making it effective for many roles.

Now, if it gets taken away, people will leave unless $$$ is used to compensate the lost value.

The global workforce is shrinking due to demographic trends, so there will always be jobs to fill for quite a few decades.

I live somewhere pretty idyllic, and get approached about remote roles in London paying $$$ regularly. Granted I may need to travel a few hours on the train for a big client meeting once a month, but I accept that the personal touch accelerates things massively in the early stages of a client relationship.

My team is spread out across Europe, and gets a serious amount done. Given the remote first element I can still be in contact with them whilst travelling.

Compare that to the local companies that want me in the office 3-4 days a week for $ (almost half the salary), with a team where communication is not remote first and it's a complete no-brainer which is more attractive.

Remote is here to stay. Some companies will do it, some won't. Time will tell which have the competitive advantage..

More than two years into this, "*returning* to the office" is incorrect framing in a lot of cases. I have been hired via Zoom to companies out of state TWICE in this period, each headquartered more than 1k miles away. I had/have no office to "return" to. If either decided to roll back their remote policy and require physical presence, they are essentially firing me (along with ~100 other folks).

I guess I am on the other side - the more remote permeates, the harder it will be to claw it back. Not just because people like it and are now empowered, but also the practical/logistical headaches involved.

There are problems with remote work. An employee of a California company is working remotely in, say, Illinois. He sits on his chair in the morning to do his regular work at his desk at home. The chair collapses; he is injured. He files for worker's compensation. His company paid no premiums in Illinois, no coverage. Will California cover an out of state injury? I don't know.

Second scenario. The California employee decides to work in Mumbai. Why not? Cost of living is lower and relatives are near. The employer then gets a tax bill because it is "doing business" in India. Or the ED VA. Or anywhere the employee decides to rent an apartment.

These issues have been put aside during the force majeure pandemic {in war and plagues the laws are silent, or at least, temporarily shut up} but a return to normalcy now means there is no more force majeure excuse.

> The chair collapses; he is injured. He files for worker's compensation. His company paid no premiums in Illinois, no coverage. Will California cover an out of state injury?

This sounds so American: Insurance and litigation for every little thing.

Haha true. I thought the commenter was exaggerating first. But maybe commenter is really serious and literally means it.

So to his second point, does the employer get a tax bill because a worker is in a region? The employee might get an income tax bill in the region, and that seems to be the accepted norm. Maybe the company does get a bill.

If you have an hr dept that isn't worthless, they're already in compliance with whatever local state laws they need to in order to operate in that state, including workman's comp.

Remote work =/= work anywhere.

Companies can easily set policies to only allow work in jurisdictions they have tax and legal infrastructure to handle.

This isn't the same as requiring all your employees to come in the office.

> There are problems with remote work. An employee of a California company is working remotely in, say, Illinois. He sits on his chair in the morning to do his regular work at his desk at home. The chair collapses; he is injured. He files for worker's compensation. His company paid no premiums in Illinois, no coverage. Will California cover an out of state injury? I don't know.

It's almost as if no company ever in existence of the universe has had regional sales employees.

They do. And they have branch offices as well, even in other countries. They make the choice to establish such offices, form local companies to do so, qualify to do business in foreign jurisdictions, pay taxes, etc. The point is that it is the company making the business decision to do so, not random employees who decide they'd like to live in Kerala while earning US salaries.

Random employees don't get to make that decision in a WFH scenario either. They're hired while residing at a specific location. If they decide to move, they need to clear it with company HR first.

This is definitely an issue, but I don't think it's a serious concern for larger companies with good HR departments. When covid first hit HR at my employer was interested in where employees were located, there was a list of allowed work locations. But they got it figured out and physical location is less of an issue for tax and insurance.

Don't worry about it, seriously. Vote with your feet or civil disobedience if need be.

If you want to work from home then do so. There's more options for 100% complete work from home than ever before. Will it pull back from the lockdown era? Probably. Will that affect your ability to find a job that fits how you work best -- I sincerely doubt it.

If the place you work is willing to incur attrition forcing talented people back in the office against their will there's going to be a whole industry of folks perfectly willing to attract that talent to continue working from home.

I'm surprised to see Elon explicitly admitting that he and his executives at Tesla have no way to measure the productivity of workers other than counting how many hours they are at the Tesla office. To be clear, I'm not surprised that this is the case, but I'm surprised that he would voluntarily admit it. He obviously thinks it's a sick burn, but it's a pretty big self-own even for an Elon tweet.

First, define productivity for each role. After trying to do so, most companies could probably fire 1/5 of their work force without repercussions.

Perhaps that's true, but still, it's weird to say "we don't have any way of measuring productivity based on output, so our approach is to require people to physically be in the office 40+ hours per week so that we can at least fire people who literally don't show up enough." In fact, I would call that "pretending to manage a company" more than I would call remote work "pretending to work."

You can't just fire the entire C-level without any repercussions.

One weird problem with not having empathy as a leader is you think everyone works the same way you do. It's bizarre to me that you couldn't see that some people might be more productive working from home. I liked going into the office. I liked my teammates, I liked some of the social aspects. But between 90 minute lunches, coffee breaks, people constantly talking in the office. I was lucky to work 4 hours a day. How you could think that butts in seats is going to work better for everyone is bizarre to me. But maybe everyone just pretends to be working while he's around and he doesn't see the waste.

Yup, had exactly the same thought. Valuing an employee by how many hours they were "visibly present" was shockingly unaware.

I don't think we are moving to a world where all companies are remote, or a world where all companies are non-remote. I think it will be bi-modal, where people choose which type of company they would like to work at.

I know people who strongly prefer being remote and those who strongly prefer working in the same space, and the world has room for both types of companies.

I am not qualified and experienced enough in tech and business to judge his alleged genius and credentials so to speak, but I have seen enough life to see that this person is on the extreme end of being an attention seeker in a such a way that it’s never enough for him. Most other leaders aren’t.

So, no. But if a companies wants employees to return to office most of them would do it like adults and being discretionary.

My company got rid of all physical space in US and UK and EU and is considering/discussing hybrid in India (monthly/bi-monthly in person 5-7 days work in office together; with a weekend included; travel and expense paid by the company). Most aren’t agreeing for that either. Out of 180 present only 4 raised hands for hybrid (I was one of them! sigh) — even our managers didn’t say yes for full-time on site.

Smart companies will see what's happening with the airline industry--execs pushing for end to restrictions, having a full return to normal, etc.--and it backfiring with huge swaths of staff out sick constantly, etc. and re-evaluate plans to return to full in-person normal. It really seems like it should be a team-by-team choice if and how they integrate in person into their workflow.

edit: Also if your company is in manufacturing, typically a 'pause' of operations is a big warning sign that orders are down and layoffs are coming soon.

Yes exactly the people pushing to end restrictions want to use us back into the office too.

Can't require masking or the vax but if you want to keep working from home, you're being selfish.

Well, our productivity measurably increased. It got management's attention. We've also now been hiring people, even VP's, from all over the country and let them remain where they are. Pandora's box has been opened and we're not closing it. Honestly, if I were working for a company demanding everybody to come back to the office I'd be looking for another job. It's not the returning to the office that's the problem per se - it's the fact that leadership will have demonstrated such poor vision and leadership and abuse of power to bring everybody back to the office. Such a company is doomed to go the way of the dodo bird. You may as well get out while you can.

We ended our lease in May 2020 and saved tens of thousands of dollars since even with the cost of outfitting people's remote work spaces. Productivity stayed the same or increased and we could hire more easily outside the city. People felt more comfortable having kids because they'd be around for them more. Why would anyone go back?

It's not about whether anyone would go back, it's about a blind C-suite (Elon & Bezos as a start) deciding that everyone needs to go back.

Stay away from any company holding over 100 million in real estate. They need to force you back.

We (mid-sized tech company) are gone fully remote since the first week of the pandemic and there's no going back now.

However, my significant other has had a very different experience of late. They (staid corporate Fintech company) panicked at the start of the pandemic and needed to FedEx lots of new laptops around the country just to get people online. Roll forward two years and they start introducing two days back at the office "after consultations with staff", and then last week announced full time back in the office from September. So far this week about 5 percent of staff have resigned, and my SO will also once something new and remote is lined up.

The company I work for has a commercial lease that is up for renewal in December, and (AFAIK) they have zero intention of renewing it. So that's one data point in the "no" column.

I don't feel that the realities of rent/utilities/snacks get nearly enough attention in conversations like this. If you have more than a handful of employees with office space in a major metro area, rent is easily equal to (or more) than the cost of multiple people. If you are looking to trim costs in a bad economy, or on the flip side - grow your company efficiently, rent seems like an easy spot to compromise on.

The FAANGs have spent millions of dollars building or leasing their current offices, it's not hard to see the Finance/Accounting folks escalating that those investments should to be utilized. (Not saying that it's a primary driver here - but surely it's a factor.)

The cost benefit analysis has to indicate what companies would do. Many companies think offices are costly; employees are happy and still very productive working remote.

If Elon thinks great products can be shipped only from the office, it's fine. We continue to ship "subpar" stuff from wherever. Our products are still useful to a lot of people, get the job done and is profitable and making lots of money.

Modern tech and knowledge work seems like it would happen in a hybrid of office and home (or wherever).

Here's a second data point: the office I work out of has its lease up for renewal in November (I think). There are so few people left working out of that office (less than 10, from a high of 30 a few years ago) that the company has decided not to renew it, and we no longer have to go to the office at all.

A third data point: Every other office our company has is now open, and employees have to (or are strongly encouraged to cough cough) return.

I'd love to hear from someone that works at GitLab on how things work internally. My understanding is that they have hundreds of employees and are 100% remote. Seems amazing from my outsider's perspective.

GitLab team member here.

We are all-remote with hundreds of employees as you noted.

You can read more about how things work at GitLab via our handbook and our all-remote guide:

- https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/

- https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/

I looked into it but pay is location based based on a formula so it's pretty meh.

Unknown companies doing remotes will pay more if you're decent at negotiating and selling yourself.

Buffer has better salaries, I may explore that at the next switch.

Depends what you mean by ending remote. Thoughts below only apply to tech companies:

* I think that relatively few companies will return to "back to office = 5d / week"

* I think that many companies will return to "back to office = 1-4 days / week" or "back to office = everyone is in the office for a full work-week every month"

But I think that some amount of essentially 100% remote roles will endure, just as they existed pre-pandemic. If I were guessing 5-15% of the workforce will settle into that state.

Companies are practical. If 5d / week in office means a lot of employee retention issues, and you aren't ok with that, rational actors aren't going to intentionally floor the car off a bridge.

As a CEO I'll echo this, we're at 2+ days across locations where we have offices, and we try to hire in markets where we have an office or can build to an office of 10+.

WFH 100% roles don't do innovation and collaboration the same way that happens in person and even flying folks together for planning sessions is subpar for our goal to impact the communities we operate in positively. With a critical mass volunteering for causes the local team cares about, getting involved with schools, setting up internship programs, etc. are all much easier to achieve.

My long-term belief is we'll see a sorting of companies deciding on how they want to operate, then advertising that in recruiting, and finding people who are also passionate about the same. While we go through the changes it will be turbulent for both employee and employer.

I understand that in person collaboration can be extremely helpful when you're trying to increase the pace of innovation, pivot, respond to market stresses, etc.

But why 2+ days per week? It feels like you're really limiting your pool of candidates when you insist that people come into the office multiple days a week. Why not try an "innovation week" once per quarter to get that work done, and ad-hoc team meetups instead? With the expenses you'd save from ditching the office lease, you could run a lot of social events for employees that serve a similar purpose.

Not trying to criticize or change your mind -- I'm just curious how you came to the conclusion that hybrid is the answer, since it sort of feels like the worst of both worlds to me.

High level...

...one of the 2 days teams are all in together, they focus on internal team activities.

...the other of the 2 days team members spread out across the week, they focus on collaboration with other teams.

It does limit our prospective candidates to being in specific geographies or being willing to move to them, the trade-off is we're seeing many people who voluntarily are in more than 2 days per week, they really missed the separation of home/work, the getting to meet and know new people (WFH video/phone/chat is works for getting work done with each other, it isn't great at really getting to build relationships, it happens much more slowly).

This is an area where we're still innovating on overall as a company and we will continue to do so, also what works for us may not work for others, there isn't a global monoculture. One of our [4] core values is, "People First -- We provide an opportunity for people to do meaningful work with people they love to work with", and as we live the value, we find people enjoy being at the office because they enjoy being around their team members.

My office started going hybrid recently (two days / week right now, three eventually).

I'm introverted and used to be bullish on remote work, but I did a mix of remote and in-person collaboration in grad school and observed first-hand that there really is no comparison. Consequently, starting my job during COVID I was skeptical about remote work and was gratified to seemingly find that it at least kind-of worked. Things got done, the ball kept moving...

But now that we have in-person days there's no question. The level of engagement, collaboration, ideas, 'hallway conversations' that crop up is massively higher...to the point that it feels like a waste of time. I'm so distracted from my main focus of making widgets to talk about hypothetical futures that it feels like I'm falling behind my main 'assigned' duties, but already the fruits of this are starting to be born out and we're probably avoiding mishaps and more fully sucking talent out of everyone due to lower barrier of participatory entry.

I understand not everyone feels this way, but I will note that some of our team is still (and will forever be) remote. In mixed meetings they're the same as they ever were, which is to say, mostly silent. The in-person people are much more engaged.

Bottom-line: if your work is well-defined or scoped at the individual or perhaps small-team level, remote might work. If you're pushing boundaries I'm skeptical--not that remote work can't work, but that it works best.

>With a critical mass volunteering

Is it really volunteering then?

I'm not programming to 'get involved with the community'.

Our experience is different folks want to get involved with different things and they're much more likely to do so with another coworker or two than they would be to do so alone.

We understand this isn't what all folks want and don't mandate involvement.

I don't think anyone on HN has a crystal ball, but...

My guess is yes, the tech industry will largely be back in offices by the end of 2022, for a very simple reason: most of the tech giants have returned to working in-office or announced that they will be returning in the near future. Twitter is the notable exception, but of course if Elon's takeover goes through, they will no longer be. The rest of the tech industry largely copies whatever MANGA does, for better or for worse. Remote jobs and fully-remote companies will still exist, but they will be notable because they're unusual.

Apple delayed their corporate return to office, for like the fourth time in a row now: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/17/technology/apple-delays-r...

I don't think Amazon is entirely back to the office for corporate workers either.

AFAIK Microsoft is one of the few that dove head first into back to office.

Sure but those returns have been delayed, not canceled in favour of a perma-remote policy. I don't think moving to Sioux Falls as an Amazon or Apple employee would work out 6-12 months from now.

At Amazon return to office is now up to middlemanagement some entire orgs are officially ok with full remote indefinitely. Outside these orgs some individuals can work from different locations on the same team. It's not quite clear what the average steady state will look like, but with a lot of internal hiring at Amazon, I would imagine things would gradually tend towards being fairly flexible

It seems Meta and Amazon in particular are moving even further in the direction of remote.

I think Apple and Google will follow.

meta seems committed to remote work

airbnb?

Our routine:

- CEO expresses the virtues of in-person to all employees - CTO follows up, reminding IT that we have more flexibility.

I'm seeing something like 50/50.

A friend of mine left a company because they tried to get him to come back to the office after letting him work remote for almost 18 months, he just doesn't want to do it.

I'm okay of going back into the office sometimes, what is really frustrating is I can't choose where I live anymore. I can't decide that I want to go and buy a house out in Nebraska. I need to stay in an expensive Metro

A good hint will be what the company did during the pandemic. Did they tell people they were free to move outside of the area? Did they open hiring up to everyone (as opposed to hiring locally even during WFH)? How flexible were they on remote work before the pandemic? Those kinds of companies will find it very hard to go back to "everyone in office". What are you going to do, tell everyone that you hired outside the core area that they need to move or be fired? I'm sure some companies are doing that but it will be terrible for morale and the company in general.

I do think that the balance will shift a bit more back towards being in office, but it will happen via current companies failing and new companies starting as "in office." Obviously there will be the hit in hiring but some people will think it's worth it and it will be easier when starting fresh vs. de-transitioning a company that went remote.

> Today we got an email that our entire global staff would be getting a long weekend, just because.

How is this related to companies ending remote?

(btw this week the UK has a 4-day weekend starting tomorrow)

Monday is a public holiday in many places in Europe.

I was remote with HP for years, doing SysAdmin work. Then I changed job, went back to the office and slowly went a few days a week remote, then went fully remote during the pandemic. The company learned they could save a bucket ton of money not having to pay for an office and just told us all to stay at home. Honestly, for about a year and a half I put in 10 hours a day or more, just recently I learned to to back off some and put a hard end to the day. I can easily put more hours into my job than ever before remotely than I could going into the office. It is up to companies to learn how to work with their employees. Honestly, it takes creative workers and employers to benefit, the companies that are the future and that are building the future will learn to best utilize their remote workforce.

Remote productivity is lower than colocated productivity for the vast majority of the companies ( including 99.9% of those that are represented on HN). Most companies simply exist in the middle of the bell curve of "success" with their competitors being right there, next to them.

During the pandemic the productivity slump was about equal across the board. The first company that brings the workers back into the office will get the productivity gain of 15-20% over its newly "we are remote peers", cleaning its peers clocks. In a couple of quarters the management of the "we are remote peers" will tell everyone to get back into the office.

I've seen many studies that said the opposite of what you're saying.

References?

Remote work has been a thing for a while. I've been working remotely (mostly anyway) for over a decade at this point. The only thing that's changed recently was that more jobs (including those outside of tech) were forced to embrace remote working.

I think there will be some normalisation over the next year or two as offices reopen, but the trend over the last decade has only been towards more remote working. A decade ago it was difficult to find companies open to remote work but in 2018 (the last time I looked for a job pre-pandemic) it wasn't hard at all -- at least within tech.

The thing I'm most concerned about in the immediate future is the tech job market in general. I'm a fairly senior dev so I'm not too worried about myself, but I think junior devs might have a hard time finding work if the economy takes a turn for the worse. I'm not that worried about remote working though. Almost everyone I speak to seems fairly adamant that they won't be returning to the office just for the sake of it. Going forward there will be more pressure than ever for companies to accommodate those who wish to work remotely and personally I don't see myself ever taking a non remote job again. I'm sure some companies will insist employees work from the office, but those companies will find it increasingly harder to recruit talent.

They are going to try to. Many workers will resist.

Eventually we will reach a Nash equilibrium [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium

While my employer hasn't (and probably won't) come out and explicitly said that they will eventually be back in the office, they aren't hiding that this is what they eventually want.

We have always been about flexibility and work/life balance, so it's not surprising that 30-40% of us have young kids at home. Last time they tried moving to a hybrid working plan, a ton of people said that they would have to quit because child-related stuff was still a mess. I bet in another year or two, they'll look to see if things have stabilized, and if so they'll start the move back to in-office work.

I was just forced to go on-site for team building.

It was fun! I had to fly into SF. We had a nice time.

Came home. Covid positive. Me and my partner. Hooray.

Well, I have been going out and doing stuff for months and months, but i didn't catch covid until I was forced to go to an airport.

So yeah, I think there is a balance.

I am not one of those "we need to stay inside forever" people. All activity has an inherent risk, and we are not robots that do everything perfectly every day. However, in retrospect I think having us fly in without a working vaccine was reckless.

So I guess my point is that covid is still out there and forcing people to congregate on a regular basis isn't the move yet. People are still getting sick.

For me, it was a very mild sickness. My poor partner is MISERABLE today.

My employer is having everyone return to the office. The difference is that we now have satellite offices, easing the commute for many people (I will be a five minute drive away, as opposed to a 30-60 minute bus commute). Plus we have limited WFH days available each year.

Working remotely full time is pretty much forbidden. People who moved out of the area during the pandemic were told to move back or leave their jobs (which more than a few did). No one was fired over it (that I'm aware of), but there were a number of resignations and retirements.

It's strange that Musk isn't putting in the 40+ hours per week for the various companies he runs isn't it?

Would be nice if more leaders would lead by example, instead of dictate.

Some will certainly try to "get back to normal." They didn't weather the disruption (i.e., pandemic) well, and are still struggling. The easy and obvious solution (to them) is to return to the good ol' days of no WFH.

On the other hands, the smart orgs are focused on figuring out how to use the disruption to their advantage.

Of course, in the short term, there will be winners in both camps. But WFH is not a fad, just as the internet was not a fad.

I will leave my company before leaving WFH.

The company a good friend of mine (software engineer) works at is transitioning to fully remote. By transitioning, I mean they're in the process of getting rid of their physical office. They're a tech company.

So while there will of course be companies ending remote because reasons, there are certainly others that are committing to full remote.

There are some industries, activities, teams, & individuals who can work as well, or better, remotely. There are other industries, activities, teams, and individuals who can work better with more in-person/same-site time.

Some workplaces that were more-remote for transient pandemic reasons (including government mandates) will become less-remote, either because they think, or they know, that will offer them an advantage. Others, their eyes opened to remote's potential, may continue to encourage or expand remote work.

Employees & employers should absolutely self-sort into the situations that work best for them. There's no one right answer for the whole economy, across many industries, teams, and individual work-styles. And those employers that erroneously choose one style, despite another working better for their teams, will receive negative feedback from the markets for both hiring & their products.

Some of us were already remote before the pandemic, of all the industries software is among the best suited for WFH

We're shifting back to synced hybrid in July - in office Tuesday/Wednesday, remote the rest of the week. Tuesday/Wednesday we have 'core' hours of 10AM to 3PM during which we're to be available.

Initially the plan was to return to office full time, so this is a shift in the direction of remote.

Same here - moving to more telework, but not "remote". Still expect people to show up in a common location for meetings and the like, but not 4-5 days a week.

I Work in MD/DC/VA area where traffic can be very bad so this can help younger co-workers with families who typically have to live further out. They did create a formal remote work process for those that want or need to come to the area. This includes new hires during the pandemic who may not need to relocate right away (or at all).

The answer is yes, and no. There are definitely a lot of the large tech companies who plan on being back in office. They are at various stages of how they are enforcing it. There are also a number of large tech companies that have committed to a kind of nebulous middle ground where offices are open but it’s up to each organization or sometimes even team if they are in office, fully remote or somewhere inbetween. Then there are a few large but especially a significant number of smaller tech companies that have fully embraced remote. Finding it to be a good way to differentiate and attract workers they otherwise would not get. Finally there are companies that still can’t seem to make up their mind and leave everyone in a limbo state of what is going to happen.

Even if many companies manage to force people back into the office, I’ve met some truly exceptional people who only work remote - many the best in their field. It would be a moneyball moment where startups can destroy larger companies by capitalizing on this talent pool.

Depends on what is good for the company. Certainly, a downturn will give more power to management. On a longer timescale, I think things look good for labor overall given the demographics.

My company just reinstated the mask mandate, so I don't think we're headed back soon. Also, a lot of folks seem to have shadow relocated to avoid a salary adjustment, so if/when management does ask people back, they're in for a hell of a surprise.

I know I feel like a sucker for sticking around the bay area during the pandemic. It's looking like the housing market will correct soon. When that happens, we're leaving. Hopefully in 4-6 months, but sometimes these things take years to play out.

Things were trending towards remote in 2019. We overshot the ideal remote rate because of the lockdowns and it's in correction now.

For one thing there has been a lot of shifting. Some colleagues prefer to live in a remote location close to family, where the living costs are low too. And they'll be forever remote from now on.

And there are those who are more flexible. I like seeing people but I'm not an extrovert. Peak remote work wasn't quite "work from home" but "work from a co-working space". For some reason, many offices are not as cozy and arr too remote compared to a co-working space.

Most companies in my country, including big tech, are in hybrid remote setup now. A year ago it was 1 day/week that must be spent at the office. Now it's 2 days while for some companies it's 3 days/week. There's still covid in the country and community quarantine in place, but eventually they'll ease us all back to the office. The government is the biggest one pushing for a return to office, as they see it as their key metric to getting the economy back on track.

One advantage of remote work is that there can be no "hostile environment," and there are fewer stages on which an employee can act up.

Of course, there are people like Jeffrey Toobin on Zoom calls, but fortunately, not too many.

The CEO of the company I work for has announced an official return-to-office date, a couple of weeks away.

However, every lower-level manager that I know has told their reports that they can either come into the office or continue working from home indefinitely, whatever works for them.

I plan to mainly work from home but will probably spend more time in the office during the summer, due to: 1) Wife and kids will be home more, and I focus better in a quiet office. 2) I get to ride my motorbike in the nicer weather. 3) 50% less traffic along my commute due to college kids going home and university staff on vacation.

I'm starting a job tomorrow, and I requested to be all in-person, at least to start with. I will need to establish connections and observe work styles to discover what the true needs of the team are.

Thus: it depends.

Companies that aren’t WFH flexible will simply be less competitive in the jobs market. Good developers have choices and are less likely to pick inflexible companies to work for. It’s that simple.

Downturn means less money.

Less money means pressure to lower salaries.

That creates a pressure to hire outside the US, thus remote.

So, given that we understood that remote is possible, the downturn will make remote more likely.

I cant get over the fact that American employees are using a soon to be ending once in a lifetime opportunity where they have significant power over their employers to push for policies that make them easier to be replaced by people who will live much better lives at a quarter of their salaries.

Many companies experienced a brain drain with all of the people leaving for other options. It's known that a return to onsite will lose more headcount and companies still aren't prepared for more losses yet.

It'll probably take another 2-3 years before most companies have processes in place that can sustain a mass exodus. In the meantime they're going to allow remote and keep future plans as ambiguous and non-committal as possible...

I was a dedicated electrical engineer and did not miss a day of work (other than PTO) in 42 years. However, I truly disliked WFH during Covid, and found myself wasting time and being very non-productive. It is puzzling to me that people can’t believe that others could act as I did during lockdown. I for one can side with employers and their insistence that employees get back to the office in the name of productivity.

There will be and is a bit of a pullback into the office, but I think there is a permanent and big increase in remote work baseline that will never go away.

I guess it will depend.

My company was on-site always before the pandemic, no remote work. After the pandemic and the productivity we showed during it, the policy was changed to "office optional" for all workers, you may need to go if your job description actually needs you on site for something, but if not, it's always optional (in theory forever).

About half of the people I work with I haven't seen face to face.

Doubt it. The healthcare org I work for is still happy for all IT staff to be remote and the companies that have come headhunting me recently have all offered full remote. This is for analytics work in hospital systems, they aren't exactly the most forward thinking orgs but even they are adopting WFH as a new normal for back office staff.

Some will, especially at places where leadership felt like they individually weren't as productive during covid than when they could meet people in person.

But there are many other companies who found themselves just as productive (if not more so) during covid and are happy to embrace the lower costs associated with not needing so much office space and hiring workers from areas with lower cost of living

It will be on case by case basis - purely software/intellectual products companies I guess will continue to work remotely especially those with nimble teams. Those with physical products will move to hybrid or office work.

Tesla makes cars. I think it helps to be as close to the cars as possible if your goal is to put out the best products.

But to be fair I do think that commute should be paid at some rate.

I think we'll see different companies discover different levels of efficiency.

Some will feel compelled to move, others much less so.

Investors are pressuring management to act in a way that they understand. Many investors have not learned anything in the last few years about productivity and so are reverting to what they know. They need to be educated and willing to learn from the information they are provided. This may be asking too much.

We're moving to a smaller office that doesn't fit everyone, while growing the team by hiring from anywhere in the country, while some staff are moving up/down the coast. Expectation is 1 or 2 days a week in office, but it won't be mandatory even if you're in commuting distance.

My employer recently announced it was planning to continue its hybrid approach for the foreseeable future. We grew significantly over 2020-2021, and we now have significantly more employees than desks for them, but no current plans to find more space.

I definitely hope so.

I expect you'll get downvoted by the vocal cohort on HN that hates working in-person, but FWIW I agree with you. 9/12 years of my career have been remote, and increasingly it's difficult to even find a job that has an office. But the time I was in the same building with the whole team I was working with were the most productive and enjoyable years of my career. I really wish I could get that back.

I have been working exclusively remotely for over a decade as well. I also occasionally reminisce about working from the office. There were some really great aspects of it. At the same time, there are lots of great things about working from home

Recently I tried to see how those tradeoffs stack up against each other. I had an insight. A lot of what I missed about working from the office had nothing to do with working from the office. It had a lot to do with me being younger, without so many family commitments, and a lot of free time and flexibility. Concretely, in my 20's and early 30's, I would have preferred working from an office. But later on, I vastly prefer working from home. The tradeoffs get weighed differently depending on what stage in life I am at.

As someone who has been WFH for ~5 years now, I 100% agree. I very much miss being in an office, WFH is not nearly as fun as it's made out to be, especially when my "from office" years were still very flexible, no "butts in chairs" attitude, just "here's a place to get work done and talk to your coworkers", which IMO is how you should treat any adult with a digital job.

The key is "and talk to your coworkers" though. Video calls just don't do it for me.

I worked remote for 12/16 (the 4 years being somewhere in the middle). Working from the office was surely fun.

Jokes, ping pong, lunches, going to the gym, coffee breaks, beers, useless meetings, company parties.

Most of my time in the office wasn't productive but I was sure happier about the company.

Working remote it's easier not to give a crap about your employer. Still, at least you have time to get stuff done without anyone bothering you and then have some extra free time.

Why?

Many reasons but to give you one that I haven't seen mentioned before: After going permanently mixed remote our company has reduced the office space. This means that we now have flex seating. It sucks and I really miss having my own desk.

My point is that even if I can choose it's just not as nice as before so I certainly hope some companies will revert. Remote work is simply not for me and I want to work at a company that doesn't have these drawbacks. I want to come into work, have my desk and know who I will meet there every day.

I think there are mainly two camps of people. Those who prefer remote and those who prefer onsite. Both perspectives are perfectly valid. Ideally, companies would put more focus on what their employees actually want instead of just creating policies. Work life would be easier if there were teams of remote enthusiasts and teams of onsite enthusiasts (and maybe teams of mixed mode enthusiasts), rather than teams where about 50% don't like the current mode.

I fully agree with that. Some companies should go fully remote, some mixed and some onsite. It would however need to evolve over time with employees moving to the type of company they want once things have settled down after the remote chock of the pandemic.

I just hope that there will be companies that are fully onsite and proud of it. Now they are getting shamed for it even when there are people like me who wants to a work at such a company.

Forcing in-person now is a cowards way at doing layoffs a-la Yahoo a decade ago.

ive always wondered what would happen if the remote employee just said they were not going back in the office. if said employer wanted to terminate the employee wouldn't that grant the employee to severance, or unemployment benefits at the minimum?

In talks hiring onto to a F500 company and they seemed to be leaning into remote, getting rid of some sw offices - which to me is a real sign of acceptance and even building it into the operating outlook.

Tinfoil: The economic downtown is deliberate to give companies more leverage to get their WFH employees back into the office.

Too much money in office space and all the surrounding businesses to keep the status quo.

I wonder how many companies who are trying to pressure employees to go back to the office would actually fire a person if they simply ignore it and continue working from home.

I mean this is Capitalism 101. The Pandemic provided leverage to Employees and they heavily utilized it (some even abused). Now, the leverage may shift back to employers and they can decide. If enough employees quit, then companies will have no choice. Supply and Demand.

Leverage has not, in fact, shifted back. Every single person I've interviewed in the past two months for roles at my company has declared that they were forced to go back to the office by their employer and do not want to commute anymore. Companies are experiencing brain drain and their executives are too stupid to recognize that a permanent shift has occurred.

You don't get to (a) keep wages low for existing employees in a market where wages have been increasing by 10% a year for years and (b) make demands of them that they almost universally disapprove of.

Employees can also attempt to unionize to keep remote work as a benefit. Organizing efforts are protected by US labor law. They can also lobby their state governments (because, real talk, Congress is a joke and it isn't going to happen there) to legislate that employers must offer remote work when the job can be performed remotely (just as state by state, employers must provide salary information in job listings or upon request). Democracy and all that jazz.

Employees can unionize but particularly the HN cohort never will.

Hard agree, but the HN cohort is not a majority of any class of worker.

Agreed.

I don't see why there is so much uproar about going into the office. If you were hired with the expectation that you go in, it's not unreasonable for your employer to ask you to return, regardless of productivity gain/loss.

Have a talk with your manager, and if it doesn't go the way you want it to, stay and commute or quit.

My company really wants to but can't seem to do it without crippling themselves... time will tell

Tesla is reducing its headcount without saying they are reducing their headcount.

They are but just ignore it and continue to work remotely.

So your facts are:

- Elon Musk basically says that he does not trust his employees enough to let them work from home (which may or may not be justified, I don't know them).

- You get one or more days off.

And your conclusion is:

- Your company may be preparing to end remote work.

I don't understand why?

I'd personally draw the conclusion that you apparently work for a company that is doing well at the moment. Nice!

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