Rise of remote work

[wtburnette]

Employers have had DECADES to come to grips with remote work and to figure things out. Instead they stuck their heads up their butts and all but ignored it. Now there is a commercial real estate problem. No, really? Companies could have been saving MAJOR money by letting as many people work from home as possible. Of course, that would require good management that know how to actually manage people, which most companies don't have. Like DD said, I'm more productive working from home than I ever was in the office. There are certain positions that really benefit from working remote and they always will no matter how management tries to force things otherwise. Plus, the cat is out of the bag. People were forced to work from home for at least a year with COVID and know that it's a valid option, no matter how badly management wants it to not be true.

 

[bigretic]

What happens in office has as much to do with the corporate culture as it does with the setup of the office and the management style of the department heads. I will continue to be of the opinion that the majority of staff does not have the discipline for remote work when it comes to an acceptable level of production and also collaboration for the company. If anything, remote workers in whole avoid collaboration and contact. Of course your mileage may vary as well as the line of sight. I've been on both sides personally and deal with both kinds of workers. Amazon itself is massively data driven in all aspects. If you honestly think they decided this just kicking it around in a few C-level meetings, i'd venture to say that is inaccurate.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

What happens in office has as much to do with the corporate culture as it does with the setup of the office and the management style of the department heads. I will continue to be of the opinion that the majority of staff does not have the discipline for remote work when it comes to an acceptable level of production and also collaboration for the company. If anything, remote workers in whole avoid collaboration and contact. Of course your mileage may vary as well as the line of sight. I've been on both sides personally and deal with both kinds of workers. Amazon itself is massively data driven in all aspects. If you honestly think they decided this just kicking it around in a few C-level meetings, i'd venture to say that is inaccurate.

With things like Teams and Skype, I see no reason for face-to-face "collaboration". I have no issues with collaborating, but to stop working to go sit in a stuffy conference room for an hour or two isn't productive in my view. I've found very few meetings that couldn't have been handled with a well-worded email or memo or two. Failing that, a conference call on Teams or Skype accomplishes the same, and instead of trying to stay awake in a conference room, I can actually be working on other things, some of which may actually be germane to the subject of the meeting.

 

[KLB]

What happens in office has as much to do with the corporate culture as it does with the setup of the office and the management style of the department heads. I will continue to be of the opinion that the majority of staff does not have the discipline for remote work when it comes to an acceptable level of production and also collaboration for the company. If anything, remote workers in whole avoid collaboration and contact. Of course your mileage may vary as well as the line of sight. I've been on both sides personally and deal with both kinds of workers.

I guess my company is just full of extraordinary people then. Especially in IT, which requires a lot of collaboration. There are over 1,000 people on an average day doing it.

Amazon itself is massively data driven in all aspects. If you honestly think they decided this just kicking it around in a few C-level meetings, i'd venture to say that is inaccurate.

Possibly. It is just as possible that one person made the decision based upon their biases. We had a CIO that was against working from home. Sounded a lot like you actually. He was working to make people go back to the office. Thankfully he went to Germany to fix the parent company's IT and the new CIO had the exact opposite opinion.

 

[Ingomike]

This thread s so enjoyably funny and predictable. A few points.

Not everyone is cut out to work from home. Some will not be productive, some need live work social interactions, some need the discipline of supervision, and many have no place to actually work from home. I doubt more than 25% of employees are more productive at home.

What we have here is an echo chamber of established employees that are the cream of the work from home crop, not the young new employees that need to be nurtured along or others I mentioned above. This thread is going to be very active as companies end work from home.

AI will be along shortly to do any of those jobs you guys are doing on a computer from home anyway…

 

[KLB]

This thread s so enjoyably funny and predictable. A few points.

Not everyone is cut out to work from home. Some will not be productive, some need live work social interactions, some need the discipline of supervision, and many have no place to actually work from home. I doubt more than 25% of employees are more productive at home.

What we have here is an echo chamber of established employees that are the cream of the work from home crop, not the young new employees that need to be nurtured along or others I mentioned above. This thread is going to be very active as companies end work from home.

This is your experience talking?

Some people aren't made out for technical jobs, or desk jobs, or physical labor, or whatever job. That does not make any job viable or not.

AI will be along shortly to do any of those jobs you guys are doing on a computer from home anyway…

More of your experience talking I guess. Someday an AI may be able to do my job, but it will be long after I am retired.

 

[miguel]

I think, and I could be wrong, for any loss in productivity for an averagely attentive employee, the cost is likely offset by not having to have a physical location and the costs associated with it. If Bob, Mary and crew screw around for an hour a day, their $X salary lost to the company in productivity is likely (not always) covered by not paying the lease and attendant expenses. Good managers, in an office or managing remotely, tend to get the best out of their people, like a good NCO or sports coach.

 

[Brian Ski]

Not sure if it was mentioned. On the news last night Amazon said they are eliminating work at home jobs as of the beginning of the year. I did not catch if it was all or just most.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

Not sure if it was mentioned. On the news last night Amazon said they are eliminating work at home jobs as of the beginning of the year. I did not catch if it was all or just most.

Yep, that's why I bumped this thread yesterday. I saw it too.

 

[bwframe]

I'm sure the Amazon bean counters are hard at work?

I just found (via a driver) a few months back that they are transitioning to contract services for a lot of their delivery service.

 

[wtburnette]

This thread s so enjoyably funny and predictable. A few points.

Not everyone is cut out to work from home. Some will not be productive, some need live work social interactions, some need the discipline of supervision, and many have no place to actually work from home. I doubt more than 25% of employees are more productive at home.

What we have here is an echo chamber of established employees that are the cream of the work from home crop, not the young new employees that need to be nurtured along or others I mentioned above. This thread is going to be very active as companies end work from home.

AI will be along shortly to do any of those jobs you guys are doing on a computer from home anyway…

I will agree that not everyone is cut out for remote work. That's why managers need to know how to manage to know who to hire/let work remote. Certain positions will never be remote positions, just due to the work that needs to be done. Some positions don't make sense being in the office. We just let a young mid-20's lady go. Nice young lady, but this was her first position and a year after she started COVID hit and everyone went WFH and we never went back to the office. She couldn't adjust to the demands of working from home and eventually we had to let her go.

For people just starting out, working from home a day or two is fine, but more than that is problematic for most workers. It's usually the more established workers who can handle the discipline needed to work from home and continue to be productive. My team is more productive working from home than we were in the office. That's directly from the CISO that is in charge of our area. Some people and positions just work better that way. Not advocating it as a one size fits all solution. My issue is that corporate America is a bunch of knee jerk morons. Instead of picking the correct team/individuals who can and do work best from home, they want to bring everyone back in. Same thing happened when I worked at Anthem years ago.

 

[miguel]

I think, and I could be wrong, for any loss in productivity for an averagely attentive employee, the cost is likely offset by not having to have a physical location and the costs associated with it. If Bob, Mary and crew screw around for an hour a day, their $X salary lost to the company in productivity is likely (not always) covered by not paying the lease and attendant expenses. Good managers, in an office or managing remotely, tend to get the best out of their people, like a good NCO or sports coach.

I meant to add, of course there is always some idiot working from home who is posting on forums mid-morning and afternoon, but those people are rare.

Oops...

 

[sapper83]

Didnt go back through the thread yet!!! But where the hell can my wife get these so called remote jobs instead of sitting on her ass at home! Ahe has a bachleors in IT and can't find gainful employment.

 

[sapper83]

This is your experience talking?

Some people aren't made out for technical jobs, or desk jobs, or physical labor, or whatever job. That does not make any job viable or not.


More of your experience talking I guess. Someday an AI may be able to do my job, but it will be long after I am retired.

Same guy told me bc i don't tip more then what i make per hour, that a server is more skilled than a power lineman. Just ignore him he argues and degrades everyone!

Now is your company hiring? My wife worked for Amazon but they laid her off amd she has been struggling to find another work from home gig in IT. We have a little one that needs tending to, i see how work from home is steller fo those that don't have to pay half their income to child care.

 

[wtburnette]

https://careers.iuhealth.org/jobs/14784072-information-security-analyst

As I said, we just laid someone off and are hiring for that position. The preference is for direct InfoSec experience, but may consider someone with IT background who is detail oriented, documents well and can work within an SLA. The work isn't hard, but it's complex. It's an analyst position analyzing the security and compliance for solutions used at the hospital. Can be anywhere from cloud based software that is assessed, to a piece of life saving medical equipment.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

Same guy told me bc i don't tip more then what i make per hour, that a server is more skilled than a power lineman. Just ignore him he argues and degrades everyone!

Now is your company hiring? My wife worked for Amazon but they laid her off amd she has been struggling to find another work from home gig in IT. We have a little one that needs tending to, i see how work from home is steller fo those that don't have to pay half their income to child care.

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[rhamersley]

https://careers.iuhealth.org/jobs/14784072-information-security-analyst

As I said, we just laid someone off and are hiring for that position. The preference is for direct InfoSec experience, but may consider someone with IT background who is detail oriented, documents well and can work within an SLA. The work isn't hard, but it's complex. It's an analyst position analyzing the security and compliance for solutions used at the hospital. Can be anywhere from cloud based software that is assessed, to a piece of life saving medical equipment.

Just FYI, I was going to forward that on to my son, but it says the listing is no longer active.

 

[wtburnette]

Well shoot. I've been out on PTO the last 2 days and it's possible they hired someone...

 

[Ingomike]

Same guy told me bc i don't tip more then what i make per hour, that a server is more skilled than a power lineman. Just ignore him he argues and degrades everyone!

You cannot even tell the truth. I said that by sitting at a restaurant table and ordering food you are agreeing to participate in the system that waiters are paid by tips and that 15% of what you spend is for average service. You are the one acting like an elite, saying the peasants that serve you should not be tipped more than you make an hour, no matter how much you spend. A server may just have more skills than a power lineman though they obviously are different skills.

 

[bwframe]

Same guy told me bc i don't tip more then what i make per hour, that a server is more skilled than a power lineman. Just ignore him he argues and degrades everyone!

Now is your company hiring? My wife worked for Amazon but they laid her off amd she has been struggling to find another work from home gig in IT. We have a little one that needs tending to, i see how work from home is steller fo those that don't have to pay half their income to child care.

I wonder if the smarter move for your wife would be to abandon the IT thing and take in a half dozen kids. I hear childcare pays extremely well these days?