Spotify Will Let Employees Work From Anywhere After the Pandemic (cnbc.com) 66
Spotify is the latest tech company to shift to a flexible work model following the Covid-19 pandemic. From a report: The streaming company announced Friday it's adapting a "Work from Anywhere" model, which will allow employees to choose whether they want to be in the office full time, be at home full time or a combination of the two. The company will also introduce more flexibility around locations, so employees will be able to choose the country and city where they work. Spotify will provide co-working space memberships for employees who choose to work remotely but still want a dedicated workspace. "As part of our ongoing Dynamic Workplace effort, we're reevaluating our office spaces across the globe for increased sustainability, flexibility, and well-being to ensure that all of our employees, regardless of ability or situation, can work comfortably and efficiently," the company said in a blog post. "The ultimate goal of our new design approach is to ensure that employees have a place where they can focus, collaborate, and create -- whether that's at a desk, in a conference room, or in cafe spaces."
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
So any business that preferres WFH will end up eviscerating itself and lose against those that are designed for humans, not lizards.
You do know that lots of businesses have *always* worked remotely, right?
Lots of travel agents, phone service reps, order takers, etc have worked remote for years and years. They haven't failed due to some perceived lack of "social interaction" in the workplace.
How do you explain that, and why don't you think other companies can successfully model this kind of work environment?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As soon as Starlink is in full production my work site will be in Cusco, Peru. (Actually a small town 2 1/2 hours away, only 30 straight-line miles away but there are no straight lines in the Andes.)
Re: (Score:2)
In the office environment there is plenty of screw around time as well. Sometimes a lot more, because there are people who are talking about stuff, dealing with a bunch of people taking breaks at different times... Feeling obliged to stay in the office until the manager leaves, or face the judgment of that random co-workers who seems to intent in tracking all your time. So you may just sit in the office, doing crosswords, or play on your phone until your time is up.
Work From Home, you can often take more m
Expect Spotify to fall apart. (Score:1)
After they drown in internal flamewars because colleagues are too far away to feel empathy, partially fueled by everyone also slowly realizing how much money they now have less due to paying for that office electricity/chair/computers /toilet/etc themselves, and they erect a "Code of Conduct" regime that forces everyone to wrap their vile hate, of which they now got oodles of, into p.c. words, so it can get even worse before anyone can put a finger on it and find words to say what the hell went so wrong. Re
Re: (Score:2)
You have odd fantasies.
Re: (Score:2)
paying for that office electricity/chair/computers /toilet/etc themselves
For most people, that will be less than the cost of commuting.
If you include the unpaid time spent commuting, it will be far less.
Re: (Score:2)
everyone also slowly realizing how much money they now have less due to paying for that office electricity/chair/computers /toilet/etc themselves
You don't have electricity or a toilet at home? As for the computer, my office was willing to supply that.
I'd be willing to bet that the cost of electricity to power your computer for 8 hours a day is far less than what you are saving by not commuting.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd be willing to bet that the cost of electricity to power your computer for 8 hours a day is far less than what you are saving by not commuting.
I was curious about my statement and did the math, using real values. To run my current machine 40 hours a week for a month would cost about the same as I'd spend in fuel driving to work and back once.
Re: (Score:2)
It almost looks like you're trying to communicate.
Re: (Score:2)
You've not met them before obviously
Re: (Score:2)
You've not met them before obviously
I'm unsure as to whom the "them" is that you are referring to. (??)
Re: (Score:2)
do you need a hug?
Re: (Score:3)
We are at an impasse because not only is there a significant percentage, but not majority, who will not be able to work unless under constant threats, but because they have not been trained to manage their own time or use basic tools. I know recent college graduates who canâ
Good... (Score:5, Insightful)
Micromanagers have been dragged kicking and screaming into the WFH model that was thrust upon us by Covid. The only sensible approach is to give employees a choice. Not everyone wants to continue WFH and others love it. Let people work where they are most comfortable. There is no one size fits all.
Some of the weaker managers are worried they will be exposed for what they are - a needless drag on the bottom line that provide little to no value to the company. In my company they are the ones clammoring to get everyone back in the office. The sooner we get rid of them the better.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't understand how a flexible model like this has anything to do with "weaker managers" being exposed. What is it about working in an office environment that allows such managers to thrive while providing "no value"?
That wasn't in the article at all, and doesn't make any sense anyway.
As a manager in a modern office, you have tons of data on your employees that is all collected automatically throughout their work day. It doesn't matter where they are physically located. It is a micromanagers dream come true.
Re: (Score:2)
Working in an office allows weaker managers to hide. It is very easy to fill up a calendar with useless meetings and drift from one to another without providing any value. Executives will very quickly realize which managers are providing value and which ones are not.
Re: (Score:2)
The only sensible approach is to give employees a choice. Not everyone wants to continue WFH and others love it. Let people work where they are most comfortable. There is no one size fits all.
Well said and spot-on.
Personally, I'm going to be 100% WFH until I retire in a few years.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm with you JAOG. I am fairly certain that my employer will allow everyone on my team to WFH if we choose to do so. For me it's going to be 100% WFH. Either that or I'll be looking for a more progressive employer. Or maybe I'll just retire * shrug *
Re: (Score:2)
If they try and get you to come in, tell them you have "multiple co-morbidity factors" and ask if their insurance will cover the lawsuit resulting from them deliberately forcing you into an infectious environment.
Re: (Score:2)
Haha...good strategy. I'll keep that one in my back pocket :-)
Re: (Score:2)
The only sensible approach is to give employees a choice.
Let's hope the managers don't think a different "sensible" approach is to install monitoring software that constantly checks for mouse movements or runs screenshots every 5 seconds.
Caveat (Score:3)
It sounds nice to say work from anywhere - until you think about the realities of it.
Internet is not readily available in many areas. Some areas have issues with stable electrical grid - one area I was in if the main power went out the backup would last only until the fuel ran dry and it would take days to get a refuelling.
Most importantly though the time zone of where the office conducts business. It'd be great to fly off to Europe and travel around while working full time but if the company is on mountain time that means you're starting your day at 6pm and ending at 2am. Then what currency do they get paid in? Does the company have to adhere to labour laws where the employee resides? It's a massive can of worms that many companies won't want to deal with unless the employee is valuable.
In reality, "anywhere" means close enough not to cause the company headaches.
Re: (Score:2)
My niece works for a company on Eastern time, and she and a friend just went to Anchorage for a couple of weeks. She worked her normal schedule, and my brother's not sure her boss even knew she was out of town.
Re: (Score:3)
I worked from Cambodia and Laos on my last trip to SE Asia, and I never really *explicitly* mentioned to my manager that I was going out of town. He found out when IT contacted him about some "suspicious logins from Asia". lol
The IT guy (on a group slack call) was incredulous:
"Wait, you're actually in Cambodia right now?"
"Yup."
"Well...okay I guess."
It was no big deal and the only thing anyone said to me was to "notify your manager if you're going to work remotely".
Nowadays it would probably be, "notify your
Re: (Score:2)
just use a vpn at whatever geo you need next time and work won't be so upset
and if you don't want to put it on your work laptop, run it via some minimal router you bring with you (e.g., I'd imagine openwrt could be configured as a bridge for such purposes without too much effort)
Re: (Score:2)
I'd rather travel with my work laptop- if something happens they'll go "tut tut" and give me a new one.
Re: (Score:2)
oh, i mean connect your work laptop to a an external vpn (if you're at a hotel/etc., you could use an openwrt as a vpn + wireless bridge)
I'd be personally pretty upset if my work laptop broke as I've spent so long making it work properly (I'm, embarrassingly, a windows 10 user) so I treat it pretty carefully
Re: (Score:2)
oh, i mean connect your work laptop to a an external vpn (if you're at a hotel/etc.
I'm not sure what benefit a vpn would be; they apparently don't care where I am and I don't care if they know. (??)
Re: (Score:2)
if work doesn't care and you don't care then don't bother
a vpn would only help if there was any concern
Re:Caveat (Score:4, Interesting)
It's definitely not impossible, I'm merely saying that there are issues.
What happens if you're based out of Toronto, take Thanksgiving as a holiday on October 11th, then head down to the US in November. Do you get to take Thanksgiving holiday a second time? Do you need a work permit? What if you're moving there for an extended period - do you get paid in USD? Is the wage change made based on the current exchange rate or fluctuate with pay periods? If it does change once, who determines when that change occurs and when you move back how does it change back?
The company my better half works for does it to their advantage, so after 3 months they must switch to being paid in the local currency, the company chooses the date the wage change occurs, and upon moving back it gets changed at the current exchange rates. That means they could end up with a pay cut but the company prohibits pay raises being obtained this way... bullshit but that's corporate for you.
Re: (Score:2)
It sounds nice to say work from anywhere - until you think about the realities of it.
Internet is not readily available in many areas. Some areas have issues with stable electrical grid
Okay, so change it to "work from anywhere that has internet and electricity."
Seriously, how many places do you need or want to work from where there's unstable internet or electricity? Not many. Yes, there are places like that but most of the world has enough infrastructure to enable WFH.
If I can work from Laos, you can work from Laredo.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not that they don't have these things, it's whether or not they are reliable. Laos is a major urban centre but something as simple as the snow belt in Ontario is prone to outages due to storm activity. Not long or major, but enough that someone may miss a day or two of work. Some companies may understand that but others will see it as an unauthorized absence.
Re: (Score:2)
An unreliable employee is an unreliable employee.
A remote worker who has a power/internet outage is no different than an office worker who's car breaks down. It happens. Fix it and move on. A decent manager knows that occasionally shit happens. If it happens often enough to make you an unreliable employee you may lose your job over it.
Re: (Score:1)
Some companies may understand that but others will see it as an unauthorized absence.
If any company tried to say my power or internet outage was an "unauthorized absence", I'd quit on the spot.
I'd also probably look into suing them (I'd let an attorney figure out the exact charge).
Re: (Score:2)
"Laos is a major urban centre"
No, it's not. You need to get out more because if there's anything I wouldn't call Laos, it would be an "urban center".
Charming place, lots of cool stuff, stunningly beautiful women, great food, but an "urban center"? Ummm, no.
Re: (Score:2)
You're absolutely right - for some reason I read it as Lagos - woops!
Re: (Score:2)
You're absolutely right - for some reason I read it as Lagos - woops!
Heh, I wouldn't even fly over Lagos if I could avoid it. Never been there, never want to go there. That's one place that's definitely not on my bucket list.
Long been a policy afaik (Score:2)
I met a Swedish spotify coder on the lifts at Chamonix, he was living there for 6 months after a few years in San Fran.
TRANSLATION (Score:3)
"As part of our ongoing Dynamic Workplace effort, we're reevaluating our office spaces across the globe for increased sustainability, flexibility, and well-being to ensure that all of our employees, regardless of ability or situation, can work comfortably and efficiently,"
TRANSLATION:
"We're tired of paying for big-ass buildings when we'd all really rather be doing this shit from our couch."
Re: (Score:2)
Working at home during the pandemic has shown us that when staff can work from anywhere, we can recruit them from that same "anywhere".
Anywhere, that is, where wages are low and employee rights are whatever we say they are.
Re: (Score:2)
Working at home during the pandemic has shown us that when staff can work from anywhere, we can recruit them from that same "anywhere".
Anywhere, that is, where wages are low and employee rights are whatever we say they are.
I don't know about that...they're recruiting me from "anywhere" right now and my wages are going up. My next job has us all over the place- East coast, West coast, Mid-west, India, etc. Somehow they've been making it work for several years, long before the Trump Virus and the pandemic.
It's not a one-off, lots of places have been doing stuff like this for years and years. If it wasn't workable they would have dispensed with it and moved to something that worked.
Re: (Score:2)
Also:
"You can all be contractors now, and work from anywhere! What do you mean there's no job security?? Work from ANYWHERE!"
Re: (Score:2)
Let me throw you a clue....
NOONE has had job security for decades. As a W2 employee, you really have no more job security than a 1099 contractor.
IMHO, if you're going to have the job security of a contractor, you might as well have the bill rate to go with it.
And, if you are a contractor, you can write off most everything too...internet, cell phone, etc....
Being a contractor isn't ne
Re: (Score:2)
NO ONE has had job security for decades. As a W2 employee, you really have no more job security than a 1099 contractor.
Sad but true. In some cases we have more security. :) .
If you can do that, it can actually be more lucrative than W2 employment.
Also very true, at least it has been for me. And I don't spend a microsecond thinking about office politics or how to impress my boss or his boss etc etc etc.
I show up, do my job, and that's that. I don't give a shit about office drama or who's getting promoted. I don't really care what my manager thinks of me or if I've met my "stretch goals" (the answer is "No, and please get the fuck out of my office"). Feel free to climb that ladder all you want, I
GOOD and this is why: (Score:3)
Commuting is obscenely, grotesquely wasteful as is the desire for meatbag gatherings. Force continued adaptation to make WFA the desired standard as the tradeoffs in reduced pollution, reduced traffic and reduced concentration of humans in expensive locales are more than worth any downsides real or emotional.
COVID is not the last pandemic (especially since biowarfare is ever more practical) so "civil defense" includes social restructuring to avoid the plague ship workplace model. If you don't physically interact with co-workers they don't infect you nor you them. Human contact is not necessary for communication which is most precisely accomplished and archived by text.
Re: (Score:2)
Commuting is obscenely, grotesquely wasteful as is the desire for meatbag gatherings.
Don't hold it in, tell us how you really feel, lol.
(FWIW, I feel more or less the same way.)
Re: (Score:2)
COVID is not the last pandemic (especially since biowarfare is ever more practical) so "civil defense" includes social restructuring to avoid the plague ship workplace model. If you don't physically interact with co-workers they don't infect you nor you them. Human contact is not necessary for communication which is most precisely accomplished and archived by text.
You make an excellent case for a build out of rural high speed internet.
Re: (Score:3)
This is going to be a catastrophe for the building management and commercial real estate fields. Even residential real estate in previously high-demand areas like downtown Seattle (Amazon) and south Redmond (Microsoft) are going to be hurt as people move somewhere that a studio apartment no longer costs $2500/month or more.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe. Or Spotify could just make it the employees' responsibility to comply with the taxes of their residence states or countries. Or hire employees on a contract basis.
There are those who claim that once a company allows 'work from home', that work might be shifted overseas. Effectively, this is what many companies already do. They contact a job shop overseas and contract to have work performed. That job shop takes care of all tax obligations of it's employees, relieving the customer company from the res
Re: (Score:2)
My favorite is the a remote work from home employee in New York City has to pay a specific city tax that subsidizes the subway system.
Re: (Score:1)
I don't know about "large international companies" in general, but WFH/global hiring practices are pretty standard in tech companies. I'm pretty surprised that Spotify is just now officially accepting this.
Just remember (Score:3)
If you can do your job from anywhere, someone else can do your job from anywhere.
If only their app would work from anywhere... (Score:2)
Does that include... (Score:1)
Re (Score:1)