They say this now. But in 12 months (or the next layoff period), they will move from hybrid to full RTO.<p>Still a shitty move to mandate RTO. Most people (IT folks) have spoke with do this routine:<p>0) daily routine to prepare for day
1) 1 hr commute to shitty office
2) login to computer, do calls with cross regional (and international) teams over Zoom/Teams/Webex or whatever conferencing system
3) teleconferencing with boss or manager
4) teleconferencing with company stakeholders
5) work on features and push code to remote systems (VCS, CI/CD…)
6) eat shitty food at nearby places, or use the low quality vending machines or cafeteria
7) logoff
8) 1 hr commute back home<p>There are _some_ roles which may require in-person. But those were mostly sales folks. Some IT folks that deal with physical assets did require RTO (ie, data center / network engineers).
I go to the office almost everyday by choice. Free food, snacks, and coffee, gym, and medical clinics on campus. And it's just nice to get dressed and leave the house.<p>But it's really nice to have the flexibility to WFH when I need to, especially just mornings to skip traffic.
I know multiple people who worked at Amazon (I say worked because they've recently quit) who would log two of their three weekly badges by going in the office at 11:59pm, and again at 12:01 am. Their team, managers, and collaborators never actually expected them at their desks. It was all to appease this mandate.<p>It's not surprising that Amazon has moved to 5 days a week despite so many people gaming the system and not actually caring about being in person. There's likely some algorithm driving this entire movement that doesn't take into account any of the real nuance that team dynamics requires, let alone taking into account that there are tangible benefits to remote work.
What I've found quite surprising in seeing these WFH vs RTO debates play out over the past couple of years is that even the WFH stans argue in terms defined by the employers.<p>The most obvious example of this is citing evidence that WFH makes people more productive, but there are various other arguments that try to position WFH as beneficial for both employers and employees.<p>I have opinions on many of the points made by both sides, but honestly it strikes me as the wrong argument to be having. The reason I want to be able to WFH is because I prefer it. I don't care if it's better for my employer or not, the same as I don't care whether working on Saturday and Sunday is better or not - I simply won't do it.<p>I know I'm in a privileged position to be able to say "I won't work in an office" and others have obligations that undermine their ability to show RTO employers the finger.<p>I guess I'm just surprised that people demanding WFH, simply because they want it, seem to be in the minority, judging by HN comments (fraught, I know). Perhaps this is a culture clash? I'm British, and this might be a US-centric thing.
Google has been shedding office space in the bay. They probably don’t currently have enough desks, and they don’t feel like spending on the office space.<p>They’ve also been aggressively moving teams overseas. My guess is they won’t RTO, or at least not until their headcount matches desk count in core regions.
RTO is effectively a cut to your hourly wage since you need to commute. I think people would be less sore about it if Amazon and others extended an olive branch of “commute time pay” or something.<p>(And no, free food and snacks don’t count. Amazon doesn’t have that anyways.)
RTO is going to be brutal for us in 3rd tier cities like PDX<p>The tech scene here SUCKS, but I much prefer the lifestyle to a large city ( plus, I can buy a house here. )<p>Not sure what will happen if the days of remote work ends. How will I get a gig?<p>There was a time in the mid 2010s were they were obsessed with "servant leaders" and "leading from the front"... those days are long-fucking-gone. Guarantee the executive class will not be forced into office.
I'm the MD of a small company. My attitude towards WFH prior and post pandemic could not be more stark. I am probably a bit more chilled out in general but that is another matter.<p>MSP is a reasonable description of my firm. We have a helpdesk etc and provided calls/jobs/projects are fixed/process within SLAs etc then all is fine. I am now a lot more chilled about where people work from. In return, I know I get a lot back.<p>However, collaboration in person is useful and no amount of email or webrtc is going to replace that. We loosely require two days per week in the office.
There's going to be a significant exodus of Amazon employees once the mandate kicks in fully. A percentage aren't able to come into the office every day, due to unrealistic commute logistics. Google making this headline sets them up to catch a lot of talent at once, to the point that I suspect this may be part of the policy's intent.
Hybrid is RTO. If I can’t live where I want to live and work from anywhere, it’s a non starter for me.<p>In my little neck of the woods - cloud consulting/professional services - Google is worse than Amazon where I just left last year.<p>AWS ProServe never had a RTO mandate and from former coworkers I’ve talked to, still doesn’t.<p>Google’s Cloud Consulting division does force a hybrid office schedule which is really dumb considering the work is both customer facing and requires a lot of travel
I applaud Microsoft and Google for not going with a full RTO. But hybrid work still requires you to live near an office. True remote work enables an economy that is spread out, resilient, and lets people live the way they want. We have this capability so why not do it?
Companies should be forced to pay some sort of commute tax every time they force someone to come into an office. Driving an hour to the office and back home, in your car has an impact on everyone and everything around them, it's time they pay up.
I love this.<p>My bias is that returning to office is best for the company. But that doesn't mean I'm right. Here we have a poorly controlled but real-life way to see which one is better. I get that we don't have optimal test conditions, but if Google switches back in a year like /u/xyst suggests, then I assume it failed. Not sure if companies have a reason to discourage working at home if it is equally likely to produce good results.
I wish this commitment had some kind of actual teeth, maybe something like adding "if we ever require RTO for you to keep your job, and you don't want to, we'll give you 2 years' severance with full benefits" to every remote employee's employment contract.
My prediction is that good companies will eventually let you graduate to WFH. Beat the RTO group by X% to win WFH, stay Y% above to retain it. Eventually, the remainder RTO pool will be made up of slackers and people who live nearby. Just adjust X and Y as needed to retain quality employees.<p>The problem is that not all jobs are suited to objective performance metrics. The other problem are the PHBnazi middle managers who are insisting on RTO for personal aggrandizement reasons. They won't always win the day.
Google will most certainly wind down office time on short-term leased offices or those expiring soon. There are likely many around the country/world they have. These could also be smaller offices or areas where they think they could possibly take a wash with a sublease in the current commercial real-estate environment.
RTO Mandates are just attempted power moves by greedy CEOs.<p>We have people living on space stations and promising nuclear fusion, but we still have to be in the office to be productive? Gimmie a break.
Dang, can we get a filter for RTO submissions? The discussion hasn’t changed in years. There is nothing new to say about RTO itself. If someone has insights about a particular company and their policies then fine, but we are approaching the fifth year since the original WFH shift.
make commute time count as work time and remote work will be embraced by companies. Those who can't work from home at least will have the benefit of less traffic on the road.
>Employees at the tech giant were concerned about losing their hybrid work schedule after Amazon mandated that staff return to the office five days a week.<p>Can someone explain why employees at the freaking google are concerned when amazon is mandating something? Like they are at their friday gtfo or something meeting seriously discussing "Yo amazon just dropped this mandate, should we follow it here at google?". These AI articles are getting out of hand...
Google and AMZN on the phone: You going RTO? Yeah, sure totally going RTO.
ANZN announces RTO. Google poaches all AMZN talent that leaves. Google goes RTO a year later.