Bank of America Sends Warning Letters To Employees Not Going Into Offices (theguardian.com) 165
Bank of America is cracking down on employees who aren't following its return-to-office mandate, sending "letters of education" warnings of disciplinary action to employees who have been staying home. The Guardian: Some employees at the bank received letters that said they had failed to meet the company's "workplace excellence guidelines" despite "requests and reminders to do so," according to the Financial Times. The letter warned employees that failure to follow return-to-office expectations could lead to "further disciplinary action."
I'm convinced return-to-office has another purpose (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm quite sure a lot of this urge of corporations to force their workforce to drag their asses back to the office when they could perform their duties perfectly well from home has a lot to do with the pointy hairs' inertia, that can't get used to new ways of doing things and want to bring back the pre-pandemic ways.
Also, they probably have to justify their millions of square feet of unused office space that is currently depreciating faster than an oversized American SUV and they can't sell without taking a huge loss. They probably figure they might as well make use of all that space.
But I think there's an ulterior, perhaps more important motive: when employers order their workforce to comply with a pointless order, they sort out who readily obeys and who doesn't.
Those who obey are more likely to be problem-free, easy-to-shaft employees who don't ask questions and do as they're told.
Those who refuse or drag their feet mark themselves as potential troublemakers, and get a bad mark on their record, which the employer can leverage later to get rid of the employees more easily, should it decide to fire them.
I bet a lot of this return-to-the-office drive has a lot to do with testing the employees and reasserting control over them. Because God forbids capitalism be anything other than a one-sided power struggle between the shareholders who, to their great chagrin, need human workers and the human workers who unfortunately need to suck up to them to make a living...
Re:I'm convinced return-to-office has another purp (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree that WFH is a great thing, you do have to realize that there are any number of reasons why it may be unsuitable for some people.
First, you have newcomers to the job market. Someone in their first couple of years in a complex job needs a lot of support and supervision. That is best handled at least partially in person, because you can drop in on them spontaneously and check on what they are doing. Try that with Teams/Zoom/whatever and you will see what they want to show you, which may or may not be what you really need to see.
Second, there are people who can be good workers, but - given the chance - they will slack off. Being in the office puts them in a work environment, where they can be productive. Note: People who are also lazy in the office just need to be fired. But there really are quite a few folks who need a "work" environment; who would just be unable to concentrate on work if they had all the possible distractions of being at home.
Third, there are people who cannot realistically set up an office at home. Think of people living in small apartments in expensive cities. Unless they move, they may simply not have the space for a home office. Moving may not be an option, for any number of reasons. If a company wants them as employees, they will need a place to work provided by the company.
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If they hire a new person, I should be forced to show up to the office? Laughable. You must be middle mgmt.
If a person can't work from home, they can't work from the office, either.
They can move or work somewhere else. Problems solved.
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While GP is likely a shoulder-surfing manager like myself, there are fields that this is the most effective learning tool for junior staff. We have only found about 15% of engineers right out of college could be effective primarily remote. Some of the senior folks that have zero functional need to come into the office just really like doing it (3 days a week) despite the horrendous commute because they like seeing their co-workers. We have at least a couple people that come in almost every day because they
Re: I'm convinced return-to-office has another pur (Score:2)
Third, there are people who cannot realistically set up an office at home. Think of people living in small apartments in expensive cities. Unless they move, they may simply not have the space for a home office. Moving may not be an option, for any number of reasons. If a company wants them as employees, they will need a place to work provided by the company.
This is IMHO a very significant group. They may have everything in their lives set up to live at home and work at the work place. IMHO they don't need a RTO mandate and they are not the people who are upset at all this.
If this group is as large as I imagine, then I wonder what is the target and the advantage of RTO. Sadly, I'll side with the cynical people who posted here already to say it's a power struggle like any other.
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> First, you have newcomers to the job market. Someone in their first couple of years in a complex job needs a lot of support and supervision.
We have had these during the era of remote working. It is really not a problem. They either get their job done in time or they don't and you can check the results. We have had those who couldn't do it and those who could do it. If someone needs help, they just need to ask and they sometimes ask.
> Second, there are people who can be good workers, but - given the
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Yep, makes sense. Obviously for some roles, the sheep that simply obey are completely unsuitable and putting them into these roles leads to massive problems down the road and may even kill the enterprise. But "managers", and especially "leadership", has often no clue how things actually work and often has no working strategic thinking at all.
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And yes there's a counter-argument to be made - that the 'best' people have lots of options so they're the least committed. But, no matter how brilliant somebody is, they're no use if they take the pay without feeling obliged to do what the business needs done.
It's like college - yes to some degree jumping through hoops is the point, to show
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I'm quite sure a lot of this urge of corporations to force their workforce to drag their asses back to the office when they could perform their duties perfectly well from home has a lot to do with the pointy hairs' inertia, that can't get used to new ways of doing things and want to bring back the pre-pandemic ways.
There is a whole lot more to companies than people whose jobs need never interact with other humans other than email or Zoom/Teams.
And a whole world of people who interact with each other. And jobs that can't be done from a home office.
A matter of perspective - not everyone is a programmer.
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You're likely correct, there's another motive that's around land value. If people are not in the office, then any investment the PHB boss made to move to that city area suddenly decreases as nobody needs to go to the town now, so no reason to pay higher rates to live near the town, thus lower resell value of their property.
Get everyone back to the city centres, and their land investment goes up.
There's another angle that should be considered, companies that do promote WFH should get a co2 discount.
Never going back to the office (Score:2)
Will nobody think of the children... (Score:2)
or in this case the rising generation of new employees who do need some easy contacts to learn the job you've been doing for so long. That is one of the few real justifications for working in the office; the 'kids' get trained faster and better...
Re:Will nobody think of the children... (Score:5, Insightful)
The new generation that spends more time talking online than any generation before them? The generation where two people sit next to each other and send text messages via Discord and Whatsapp to each other instead of talking to each other?
That generation?
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>"That generation?"
Yep. The ones that seem to have an increase in all kinds of mental health issues, rampant narcissism, anxiety, agoraphobia, ADHD, lack of work ethic, depression, etc. One could argue it is the constant isolation from being in actual (real) social situations and relationships that leads them to be more prone to having such problems. Problems that will only worsen by being at home on computer ALL the time.
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Regretfully you might be on to something.
Reeks of desperation (Score:2)
So let me get this straight...
None of these employees management chain can get them to go back to the office?
You think a strongly worded letter will get them to act when their manager can't?
The employees are completely insubordinate. Either fire them with cause, or don't.
These workplaces are acting the same way as someone in a toxic relationship, thinking that they will be able to "change" them with words.
You're not going to change them. Either let them go, or put up with it as is. There isn't another third
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My guess: this is just a step in the ‘firing for cause’ option. Even though they probably don’t need it, it’s just one more thing for the file before they pull the trigger.
Re: Reeks of desperation (Score:2)
These steps have been going on by these companies for three years straight now.
Either fire them or give up. There's no middle ground anymore.
Frankly it's becoming exhausting.
"Letters of education" (Score:2)
Fuck off. You're my employer, not my mom, not my teacher.
The gall of thinking you could treat me like a child.
You know what? You need a good and long and hard spanking. It's way, way overdue.
But I have a hunch you'd actually enjoy it.
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Speaking of spankings, the sting YOU may feel first could be in the form of your 401k turning into a 201k because your employer chose to put your retirement investments into that commercial real estate market you're championing to fail.
If your employer doesn't give you choices of 401k plans and doesn't give you the ability to move money between plans, find another 401k plan. These days, thanks to Paychex and similar companies, I'd expect that sort of feature even from pre-IPO startups, but if yours doesn't, and if you have self-employment income on your taxes (e.g. driving for Uber), you can create a solo 401k at ETrade for free. Then, you should be able to transfer money from your 401k into that solo 401k.
One way of lowering employment (Score:2)
The Federal Reserve has stated they want unemployment to rise [cbsnews.com] and salary increases to slow if not stop.
"There will very likely be some softening of labor market conditions," Powell said in his September 21 economic outlook. "We will keep at it until we are confident the job is done."
In other words, getting you fired is one of their goals. One way is to have people refuse to go back to the office. Businesses fire those who don't, they fill the position at a lower salary, and their real estate holdings don't go to zero, thus propping up that segment of the market.
It's a logical progression when you think about it.
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That article is a year and a half old and is aging like milk. Fingers crossed, but so far since then they've done a pretty amazing job of taming inflation [statista.com] while keeping a strong jobs market [reuters.com]
The lowering of inflation (which hasn't really happened) cannot be ascribed to the Fed. What has happened, and why inflation is slowing, is companies have raised prices as much as they can to increase profits [theguardian.com], profits which are at a 70 year high. They can't raise prices much higher. The Fed had little to do on the inflation front because companies loaded up on cheap financing over the past few years and are still using proceeds from those bonds. Companies are just now starting issue bonds at higher rates
Large commerical rent seekers (Score:2)
It always surprises me (Score:2)
You can make the argument that you've got options. You could start your own business.... only very few have the capital to do that or can afford the risk to their families. You can go work somewhere else... except after 40+ years of mega mergers and market consolidation odds are your "new job" is owned by the same parent company and/or handful of Shareholders.
I guess folks
Why listen now? (Score:2)
The 8th warning isn't going to be successful. It is very clear to the employees that they are necessary, since ignoring the previous 7 warnings did not result in them being fired or seriously disciplined. The numbers are made up, I've no idea how many times for BoA, but we're now starting the 3rd year of these stories.
What competent employees would actually listen to these warnings? If you weren't fired two years ago when these warnings started, you won't be now. If you do get fired, you were likely to be
My response: G F Y (Score:2)
My response: Go Fuck Yourself.
I'm not going back into any office anywhere ever again.
I'm officially at retirement age and even if we had some sort of "return to office" policy (which we don't) my manager knows damn well that I would look into the camera, laugh in her face, and hang up.
But no worries, our entire company (~350K people) has moved to remote work, minus a few people who still need to put hands on hardware. But the rest of us? We're happy working at home, and no demand by any manager is going to
Strongly worded letter (Score:2)
If management writes a strongly worded letter that is ignored and then has no follow up discipline, did management REALLY write a strongly worded letter at all?
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Yes. The wording was strong, not the letter itself.
The letter is worse than ineffective - it will have the best remote workings looking to move elsewhere, some middle group just hoping to get away with it, and the worst workers complying and returning to the office.
There are better ways to reduce staffing without preferentially retaining the least productive.
Employers like this are comprehensively fucked (Score:2)
Education time! Here's some harsh facts about the labor market.
The baby-boomers have all retired by now. That's a massive removal of highly skilled labor from the labor market.
Generation X is now the most skilled set of workers but they're a smaller generation.
The millennials lost 5 years of work experience due to the financial crisis.
In other words, we are experiencing a labor crisis which is not going to abate for at least 10 years.
Incompetent employers like Bank Of America will be unable to compete wit
Demographics are on the side of labor (Score:2)
Corrected headline (Score:2)
Bank of America encourages staff to quit via RTO policy
Stop (Score:3)
Stop playing stupid games. Act like leaders: make a decision and act upon it.
If people have shown that they can perform their jobs well remotely, officially offer them a remote or hybrid position. Put it in the contract what is expected in terms of performance, communication, availability, and how often they have to appear in an office (and who pays the travel costs).
If people have shown that they are not doing well enough remotely, tell them that they are in the office Monday morning or they are deemed to have quit without notice (forfeiting employment incentives...). Stick to it.
Replace those who are termed with better employees who can perform remotely, or who want to work from the office. Move on.
Dragging out a breakup is bad. Get on with it. Get over it. Make a better match.
Stop whining about it and act.
Workplace excellence guidelines (Score:2)
If you've got to spell out the definition of "excellence," you've pretty much admitted you don't have it.
Crappy employer talks about "excellence" (Score:2)
My sister-in-law works for a company that is constantly calling itself "world class," while in reality is a mind-numbing place to work, where executives constantly brown-nose the CEO repeating to him how "great" he is. The phrase has become so galling to her that I gave her a mug for Christmas that just says "World Class." She now uses it for Teams calls, holding it where people can see it, just to make a statement about the irony of the phrase and to get some quiet laughs.
If you've got to give people guide
As it should be. (Score:2)
They're worried (Score:2)
It's not a good time to be financing commercial real estate.
Gotta love the internal marketing (Score:2)
This reminds me one of the reasons why I left the corporate sector hamster wheel. Not that working as a teacher in the public sector is for slackers, but you get less of the internal marketing lingo. Gotta love masking draconic workplace policies as "workplace excellence guidelines", for instance. Or labeling a dress-down talk (letter) as "letters of education" - at my work place that would be a "correctional talk". Though the public sector (at least in my country, Norway) is unfortunately increasingly tryi
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Re: How to lose your best staff (Score:2)
I'd like to buy a huge office building for pennies to the dollar and convert it into apartment units, lol.
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Re:How to lose your best staff (Score:5, Insightful)
If that were true, then companies with permissive WFH policies would be gaining market share and market cap at the expense of their more restrictive competitors.
There are studies showing remote workers are more productive, but many are based on self-assessments.
I have seen no data that companies with permissive WFH policies have higher profits, or any other measurable improvement.
TL;DR: Show me the numbers.
Re:How to lose your best staff (Score:5, Insightful)
The latest studies and studies of studies actually show that there is no measurable difference in productivity between working form home and in an office. This means that there will be little immediate difference in profitability between the two. The improvement from better workers going to Companies that allow working from home will take at least a year or two to become apparent, and most Companies are locked into real estate contracts or own the offices, so any improvement from that will take at least a couple of years to filter through. Come back in 2030 to see the results of these changes.
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You overlook that offices are expensive. Once a company does away with them, that _will_ affect profitability.
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Offices are not that expensive-- 10% of base salary is a reasonable average. For most companies, some kind of real-estate portfolio is still required, so few will be able to get that spend to under 5%. IT costs are also higher for remote workers. There are reasons some companies and roles work better remote or in the office, and this is what creates the challenge of creating a universal policy. My company used to do a lot of work for Bank of America. Specific to them, I tend to chalk their policy and acti
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Average pay; a 100 square foot per person allowance is typical in higher-density environments, 200 square feet for higher density. At a national average of around $25/square foot/year and a major market range of $35-50/sf/yr, you are looking at worst-case $10k/employee average. Cubicles are rarely rented; full cheap ones are $1k and last 10 years and expensive ones go up to $5k fully accessorized.
For a Bank of America call center in Costa Rica you have 12 square feet of work area per person and an average
Re: How to lose your best staff (Score:2)
So you convert a 40,000 sqft mega corp into a 500 sqft mail drop conference room / place to store any regulatory company books. (Those that can't be digitized or are in the process of being digitized. Maybe other secured assets like cloud encryption keys/etc.)
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The latest studies and studies of studies actually show that there is no measurable difference in productivity between working form home and in an office. This means that there will be little immediate difference in profitability between the two. The improvement from better workers going to Companies that allow working from home will take at least a year or two to become apparent, and most Companies are locked into real estate contracts or own the offices, so any improvement from that will take at least a couple of years to filter through. Come back in 2030 to see the results of these changes.
Can you show me the facts that better workers do not want to go to a workplace and be around other people?
There is a running theme in here that refusal to go to a workplace is somehow a mark of the very best and most competent people. Every time I get into a discussion about remote work, people let me know that is what they believe.
Time for y'all to show us the beef.
I believe that no, there is very little to no difference in productivity. And that is because the location the work is done isn't a ma
Re:How to lose your best staff (Score:4, Funny)
Can you show me the facts that better workers do not want to go to a workplace and be around other people?
Fact: I am a "better" worker according to my manager (who is never wrong).
Fact: I do not want to go to a workplace and be around other people.
This concludes my exhaustive analysis where I have demonstrated that better workers do not want to go to a workplace and be around other people.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
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Can you show me the facts that better workers do not want to go to a workplace and be around other people?
Fact: I am a "better" worker according to my manager (who is never wrong). Fact: I do not want to go to a workplace and be around other people.
This concludes my exhaustive analysis where I have demonstrated that better workers do not want to go to a workplace and be around other people.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Standing e-ovation!
Re:How to lose your best staff (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you show me the facts that better workers do not want to go to a workplace and be around other people?
No, because that wasn't being claimed. These are the facts being claimed:
As with any other benefit or perk, companies that offer better benefits can attract better employees.
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Can you show me the facts that better workers do not want to go to a workplace and be around other people?
No, because that wasn't being claimed. These are the facts being claimed:
As with any other benefit or perk, companies that offer better benefits can attract better employees.
And your trimming my quote to make it look like I was expressing some sort of non-sequitur, irrelevancy is intelliectually fascinating. Allow me in case it was truncated on your computer. I wrote "There is a running theme in here that refusal to go to a workplace is somehow a mark of the very best and most competent people. Every time I get into a discussion about remote work, people let me know that is what they believe.
Why do I state that? Only because it is exactly what is claimed by many. Like you
Re: How to lose your best staff (Score:2)
Regardless of individual preferences, employers who give the choice of where to work are more attractive than employers who do not give that choice, all other things being equal. If you disagree with that, please show me those people who'd rather be coerced than free.
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I have similar management experience in working with remote and on-prem staff... as well as working remotely. My personal reality is that I need both. I need time to slack off and get creative inspiration when it comes, and I need the face time to keep me from feeling alone in the world and bouncing ideas off people.
My little sister is quite the opposite-- extroverted, people lover, and more mechanical in her process. She works from home because working with her dog around makes her happier. She could easi
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I have similar management experience in working with remote and on-prem staff... as well as working remotely. My personal reality is that I need both. I need time to slack off and get creative inspiration when it comes, and I need the face time to keep me from feeling alone in the world and bouncing ideas off people.
I've always said that workplace creativity is two people in an office throwing a rubber ball around. One of my best co-workers and I actually did that. Unfortunately he passed away way too soon. But I don't have an issue with remote work. Only with the strange idea that the best workers want to work from home, and that it harms companies that want people to come to the workplace. But that's not all. Alone or around others seems to work differently.
But I agree that a dual home/workplace approach isn't ba
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Can you show me the facts that better workers do not want to go to a workplace and be around other people?
There is a running theme in here that refusal to go to a workplace is somehow a mark of the very best and most competent people.
No I think you're just missing the point. A company is made of good and bad people. Good people are typically mobile and will seek employment that makes them happy, bad people are not and will typically stay in a job for stability or at the least struggle to shift elsewhere.
Combine that with what is going on here: A company threatening compliance to employees. What do you think good employees will do when threatened by a company to do what they don't want to do? Don't google it, don't look for studies, just
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Can you show me the facts that better workers do not want to go to a workplace and be around other people?
There is a running theme in here that refusal to go to a workplace is somehow a mark of the very best and most competent people.
No I think you're just missing the point. A company is made of good and bad people.
True, dat.
Good people are typically mobile and will seek employment that makes them happy, bad people are not and will typically stay in a job for stability or at the least struggle to shift elsewhere.
That's been my experience as well. the lamers tend to go away during downturns.
Combine that with what is going on here: A company threatening compliance to employees. What do you think good employees will do when threatened by a company to do what they don't want to do?
Well, as I see it, BoA issued a return to the workplace edict, and people getting the warning letter defied the edict. We can discuss how good an employee is that ignores a directive. But even then, what I had written about in
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That's gonna take a while. Corporations are like oil tankers, even with the engine off, inertia will drive them forward.
Good workers produce the same results no matter where they are, as long as they have the resources they need to perform. This is the case in most situations where WFH is actually an option and where these resources are available. People, in general (there are of course exceptions) prefer WFH simply for the sake of less time overhead, and unless you want to pay me for the time I drive to an
Re:How to lose your best staff (Score:5, Insightful)
>"Good workers produce the same results no matter where they are"
Yes and no. I have first-hand experience with this topic involving multiple people. It depends on a complex set of issues involving the scope of the job, the person doing it, and the environment/tools at home vs. office.
There are some jobs in which everything can be done remotely. But even in those, you will lose some of the social aspect of an office- both positive and negative. Yet tons of jobs cannot be done effectively *fully* remotely. So in those cases, you lose what can't be done. Perhaps this can help the employee focus on what needs to be done, but it can also lead to over-specialization, boredom, inflexibility, rot, lack of motivation/discipline, and even depression. And just because it might work out OK the first year for some individual doesn't mean, as time marches on, that remote employee will continue to be just as effective and non-distracted as they would have been with more in-person structure, communication, and social interaction.
There are advantages, both to the employee and the employer, of being an in-person/office worker. The same is true for remote, as well. Blindly supporting one generalization is a mistake.
So RTO will hurt your business (Score:2)
Whatever shenanigans you try to use to show some kind of boost to new ideas or whatnot from being in an office you're left with a bunch of employees that are bitter and angry now. And there are tons of studies that show the effects of that on productivity.
But this isn't about productivity, this is about commercial real estate values and about exerting control.
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99% of employees are angry about it.
Nonsense. There isn't 99% consensus on anything, much less "anger" about it.
Surveys show about a third of workers prefer to work in the office. Many others prefer at least one or two days a week in the office.
But this isn't about productivity, this is about commercial real estate values and about exerting control.
No, that is more nonsense.
Companies are run by greedy bastards. They care about profit.
Higher productivity means higher profit.
Commercial property rent that has to be paid whether the building is occupied or not is an irrelevant sunk cost. There is no rational reason for a company to care about that un
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Except, the guy that secured a good (for the time) price for the space in exchange for a longer agreement looks like a genius ONLY if people return to the office. If they don't, he looks like the guy that threw millions in the toilet and flushed.
Guess which he prefers?
You have to remember, corporate decisions are made by individuals whose motivations and interests may only partially align with the corporation.
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>"Good workers produce the same results no matter where they are"
Yes and no. I have first-hand experience with this topic involving multiple people. It depends on a complex set of issues involving the scope of the job, the person doing it, and the environment/tools at home vs. office.
There are some jobs in which everything can be done remotely. But even in those, you will lose some of the social aspect of an office- both positive and negative. Yet tons of jobs cannot be done effectively *fully* remotely. So in those cases, you lose what can't be done. Perhaps this can help the employee focus on what needs to be done, but it can also lead to over-specialization, boredom, inflexibility, rot, lack of motivation/discipline, and even depression. And just because it might work out OK the first year for some individual doesn't mean, as time marches on, that remote employee will continue to be just as effective and non-distracted as they would have been with more in-person structure, communication, and social interaction.
There are advantages, both to the employee and the employer, of being an in-person/office worker. The same is true for remote, as well. Blindly supporting one generalization is a mistake.
Your post should be at +5, but I'll bet your email is getting lots of notices back and forth.
There are some people who want to work only from home because they are really good and can call the shots.
There are some people who want to work only from home because they are extremely uncomfortable around other people.
There are some people who want to work only from home because they believe it is a way to slack off or procrastinate.
There are some people who want to work only from home because they might n
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I have my social interactions outside of work. With people I enjoy socializing. At work, I expect people to work. No chitchat, no bullshit, for fuck's sake, WORK!
If you don't have friends outside of work that you can bore with your crap, realize that it's you that's the reason and work on it. At work, yes, you have a captivated audience that cannot escape you. But your stories still suck and people still wish you'd finally die, preferably painfully.
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That's gonna take a while. Corporations are like oil tankers, even with the engine off, inertia will drive them forward.
Good workers produce the same results no matter where they are, as long as they have the resources they need to perform. This is the case in most situations where WFH is actually an option and where these resources are available.
Yes, as I've noted before, half of my work can be done from home, the other half must be done on location. I don't mind. But if someone does mind, they have to look elsewhere for employment. And I enjoy both aspects of the work.
People, in general (there are of course exceptions) prefer WFH simply for the sake of less time overhead, and unless you want to pay me for the time I drive to and from work, this will not change.
My own compensation is more of a lump sum thing, so time involved doesn't factor in. Fortunately I live 2 miles from work. And my office kicks butt. And the perks are first rate.
It's also no secret that people with a rare skill set, experience, certifications and projects to show off are in short supply and in high demand.
You aren't kidding. After several failed attempts, I was found, and came in to clean up Dodge City. And
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Good workers produce the same results no matter where they are, as long as they have the resources they need to perform.
That "as long as", however, is a big "if". What a lot of managers don't recognize is that having "the resources they need to perform" isn't just about things like a computer and a fast Internet connection. It also includes things like being free from distractions, having adequate meeting rooms when you need them, etc.
People whose cognition is impaired by distractions like noise often do significantly better when working from home, because their needs are not met by open-floor-plan offices. During the pan
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Re: How to lose your best staff (Score:2)
Re:How to lose your best staff (Score:5, Interesting)
My healthcare company of ~350K employees has gone fully remote, and we just had one of our best years ever. We're gaining market share and spanking the crap out of our competitors.
In our latest "Town Hall" as they were crowing about how great things are, we're doing embarrassingly well and they weren't shy about letting everyone know. They specifically called out WFH policies as part of the reason we're doing so well. People love it and a lot of us work better in that framework.
The companies high employee satisfaction and productivity metrics show that companies can successfully operate with WFH policies, but they have to genuinely embrace them, not just grudgingly accept them.
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It has worked well for your company but every company is unique.
Yes, I know.
They do different things in different markets with different customers and so on.
Yes, I know.
What works great for one would kill another and vice versa.
Yes, I know.
The market will determine over time which companies are well run and which are not for their specific circumstances.
Yes, I know.
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> If that were true, then companies with permissive WFH policies would be gaining market share and market cap at the expense of their more restrictive competitors.
Congratulations on constructing a non sequitur. This is the thought process of a moron.
How exactly do happier, more productive employees magically increase market share? Thoughts and prayers? Good vibes? Psychic powers?
Similarly, how do happier, more productive employees magically increase market capitalization? Does the stock fairy sud
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Re: How to lose your best staff (Score:2)
Re:How to lose your best staff (Score:5, Interesting)
It's just quiet layoffs, nobody believes anymore that RTO improves performance. Bank of America posted weak results a couple of weeks ago and did layoffs outside of the US just days ago. Next step probably just trying to bully people out of their jobs using methods like this. Their CRE exposure is 'only' 75B, which they call manageable, but that's similar to what banks said in 2008.
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But this is the stupidest way to do layoffs. You're losing your talent, the ones that can easily get a new job. What you retain is the ones that cannot. The slackers, the non-achievers, the ones that are even too lazy to go look for a new job.
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You're losing your talent
An obvious solution is to make exceptions for the best people. Give them individual permission to WFH while requiring the expendable people to RTO.
If people quit, the company doesn't pay severance. That's a big saving.
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That typically still loses you most of them because company moral goes down the drains. Whoever is behind this has no clue what they are doing. Not that this is in any way atypical for "managers".
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That typically still loses you most of them because company moral goes down the drains. Whoever is behind this has no clue what they are doing. Not that this is in any way atypical for "managers".
The problem is that way too many people in here seem to have the idea that competence is directly tied to demands to never go to an office. Or at least they keep expressing that.
It isn't. Aside from a whole lot of work that is not possible to be done from home only, I have yet to see the tie between working from home and competency. Unless there is something weird going on, WFH only people tend to run the same scales of competency as those who will come to a workplace. The main difference is WFH only pe
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> The problem is that way too many people in here seem to have the idea that competence is directly tied to demands to never go to an office. Or at least they keep expressing that.
No, you have misunderstood. Let me try to explain.
- You have 4 employees,
-- AH = A-class employee who will only work from home
-- AO = A-class employee who will only work in the office
-- BH = B-class employee who wants to work only from home, but won't risk losing a job
-- BO = B-class employee who wants to work only from office,
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Indeed. That is pretty much what happens and basically has always happened. The good ones will often only have to stop saying "no" to job offers. And they can make WFH now a hard condition and be done with insulting management "educations".
Incidentally, AOs will see how easily the AHs found new jobs and they will be bummed out bu the now worse co-worker mix they have to deal with. Probably quite a few of them will leave longer-term as well.
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You're losing your talent
An obvious solution is to make exceptions for the best people. Give them individual permission to WFH while requiring the expendable people to RTO.
If people quit, the company doesn't pay severance. That's a big saving.
Except that's unrealistic, and only covers the people who can do their entire job from home. Though I think you might have been being sarcastic.
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Way to create a "prestige" class and make WFH the hallmark of the "good" employee. Because if you were good, they'd let you work from home, but since your boss obviously thinks you suck, he thinks he can force you into the office.
If you do that, even people who'd be ok with going to the office will insist in working from home because being at the office becomes the stigma of the "bad" employee who can't get a WFH pass.
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That's true for any layoffs, that the best people will start looking for a new job quickly. If you can bully employees into quitting, that means you can avoid publicity of layoffs and there are no severance packages and such.
Many people have observed the same thing:
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/1... [cnbc.com]
https://www.worklife.news/cult... [worklife.news]
https://www.hcamag.com/us/news... [hcamag.com]
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Stupid? Yes. But also traditional. No-clue "management" is the norm, not the exception.
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Some become manager because they were useless "in the field", others because the can be utter assholes dealing with personnel.
But sometimes you get a manager that knows what is required and he is able to make his department shine because he is enabling and inspiring.
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True. But these exceptions never make it all the way to the top.
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But this is the stupidest way to do layoffs. You're losing your talent,
Pick something BoA likes better
1) Talent
2) Profits
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Indeed. This move is irrational. Longer-term, enterprises that just do away with costly property for offices will simply have a lot lower running costs.
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The people who are really good at their jobs, able to work from home to do it entirely effectively and able to walk into another job with an employer who realises that WFH is a valuable perk not to be messed with, will leave.
And no, this policy isn't going to save the commercial property sector from melt down.
And the bank will thank them for voluntarily leaving because that directly helps the Bank's bottom line number.
An employee voluntarily departing does not qualify for severance pay or other "parting gifts" unless they have an employment contract that says otherwise.
An employee that is laid off typically gets some form of severance, or maybe just a payout of unused time off, and possibly COBRA medical coverage.
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Taking my own post and extending it a bit.
As another poster stated, some WFH employees might willingly come back to the office for whatever reason, possibly because they like to be at the office or they simply want--need the paycheck.
Some WFH employees will grudgingly come back to the office, then carefully & strategically practice "quiet quit" or "minimum work Mondays" of "F**K Off Fridays" while still collecting a paycheck. That's called playing the game.
Some WFH employees will simply quit the job and
Re: How to lose your best staff (Score:2)
Re: How to lose your best staff (Score:2)
Re: How to lose your best staff (Score:2)
Re: How to lose your best staff (Score:2)
Haha you are a pathetic, miserable bootlicker.
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> 4 years ago very few people worked from home. Nobody was complaining about it and nobody was threatening to quit if they couldn't work from home. This has nothing to do with the alleged "benefits" of working from home. This is a workforce full of spoiled, entitled brats who throw a temper tantrum whenever they don't get their way.
Oh look. Someone who can't do their job from home and is envious and not a little bitter.
Maybe if you'd studied a little harder, you'd have a real job.
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4 years ago very few people worked from home. Nobody was complaining about it and nobody was threatening to quit if they couldn't work from home.
Four years ago, people hadn't moved out of expensive cities during the work-from-home period and bought homes in Montana. Four years ago, workers hadn't experienced working remotely, and didn't realize just how nice it is when people only call meetings or interrupt you in person if they really need something beyond what can be worked out with asynchronous chat or email messages.
This has nothing to do with the alleged "benefits" of working from home. This is a workforce full of spoiled, entitled brats who throw a temper tantrum whenever they don't get their way.
This has nothing to do with the alleged "benefits" of working from offices. This is an executive team full of spoiled, entitled b