by aaronchall on 6/12/22, 3:15 PM with 77 comments
by daenz on 6/12/22, 3:48 PM
The first is a flimsy premise because companies simply don't have the power to take WFH away and I think they know that. If they did, they would. But the collectivization for WFH, brought by lockdowns, is far too powerful. So powerful, in fact, that it's a hiring advantage for your competitors if you attempt to bar WFH.
The second point is just lazy. Billing for fractional usage is not impossible nor difficult, and you can bet if a company was billing a customer for fractional usage, they would have it down to an exact science. In fact, the resistance on this point shows the weakness of their position from the first point.
I do have some sympathy for the people who like to go to an office and interact with people face to face. But we've been operating with their preference as the default for a long time, so they can learn to adapt now.
by motive on 6/12/22, 3:36 PM
It will be interesting to see whether the courts see a difference between incremental expenses vs things the employee was already purchasing (e.g. internet vs electricity)
by mmastrac on 6/12/22, 3:45 PM
by kkfx on 6/12/22, 5:29 PM
But that's not a thing to be discussed in court. It's a thing to be publicly discussed in political terms to arrive at a CLEAR and defined norm for WFH. In some country such norms already exists but are a bit old, meant for another tech era, in some others do not exists at all.
For instance in Italy there are two norms, the ancient clear but hard, a new one opaque and obscene. The first is for "teleworking", it MANDATE an empty room, inspectable by a public body responsible for safety at work, locked, furnished by the company, with dedicated services provided by the company etc. The second is "smart working" witch essentially state that workers and companies agree a kind of place-less, by-target works no one surveil, the company just provide a craptop and a crapphone and all are f** and happy. Clearly both norms are not good at all.
For instance we need to separate time-defined jobs (like call centers, banking, ...) to potentially async ones (like development) and so regulate them accordingly. We need to define "a home workspace" but without exaggerations like the Italian "telelavoro" laws etc. To do so discussing is mandatory, and courts are not a good place to discuss and negotiate...
by philliphaydon on 6/12/22, 3:39 PM
by kodah on 6/12/22, 3:36 PM
Offices cost money, much more money than configuring an enterprise for remote work. There's always that minor percentage of employees who cannot develop successful patterns to work from home. As the pandemic showed, these folks are the minority today.
Under this paradigm, as long as remote work costs less than a building then remote work should be attractive to a company. Yet, many companies are chasing hybrid models even though that direction causes a good bit of attrition as well (people want the whole thing).
My personal hypothesis is that companies are doing an organized, long term pull out of offices, but are resisting doing it all at once because they'd impact each other's commercial property values. This confusing state we're in is purposeful.
by tibbydudeza on 6/12/22, 3:57 PM
I remember when we went WFH and I was so cheesed over the disruptions in Teams meeting when colleagues used those shitty $10 Chinese made earbuds - asked management to at least supply everybody with a Plantronics headset so we don't waste time.
I was told - we are professionals (we need to buy our own shit) - end of story
by hiyer on 6/13/22, 6:50 AM
As an aside, here in India, most companies do reimburse internet charges. But then broadband internet is quite cheap here - my 300Mbps connection only costs me around $25/month.
by spfzero on 6/12/22, 4:49 PM
by dixie_land on 6/12/22, 4:27 PM
by stevenalowe on 6/12/22, 6:59 PM