let's talk about general terms, not the narrow hyper specialized sector that is tech.
many companies (I would argue most) would stop working if people are not reminded every day what their job is and asked what is the ETA for the task they were assigned to.
it's a real problem, people are usually not super smart, they are average, and tend to learn nothing on the job unless they are required to, trained regularly and their advancement measured in some way. They do not think about their work outside, they hardly do it while at work, they do not experiment, they do not hypothesize, they simply wait for the paycheck at the end of the month in exchange for a portion of their lifetime.
if WFH was really such a boon for productivity, while also costing less to both companies and workers, everyone would have jumped on board immediately and pieces like this one would not exist.
> if WFH was really such a boon for productivity, while also costing less to both companies and workers, everyone would have jumped on board immediately and pieces like this one would not exist.
Perhaps, if it weren't for confounding variables like companies trying to justify the big shiny new buildings they spent a fortune on prior to the pandemic, middle managers working to keep themselves relevant, and forces in the commercial real estate market trying to mitigate price crashes from reduced demand for offices.
> companies trying to justify the big shiny new buildings they spent a fortune on prior to the pandemic
that's another problem entirely.
I am.not from US, I work for a rather large insurance company (> 12,000 employees) they invest in building because they need to have a capital reserve by the law.
Now if their buildings are worth less due to WFH, they will start buying other more valuable kinds of properties,with the consequence that prices will rise for everybody else.
you are not fighting the system by simply shifting where the money come from.
also: in my country usually people have between 21 and 28 paid holidays, paid sick leave and paid hourly permits. not exactly the worst end of the workers' rights spectrum.
WFH made people ask for less holidays, because they will use their absence from the office to fix issues that before required a day off or can actually go on holiday while also working a bit, if everyone is working from home, nobody actually checks if someone is working or not (ape shall not kill ape). if we don't use our holidays the company must pay for them (effectively paying those days double) so we are now required to use all the holidays and permits, no exceptions.
Meanwhile I am still fighting to get java 17 supported, we are stuck with 11 programmed like it is 8.
My job is exactly to bring people up to speed with modern technologies and am very well compensated for it, but with WFH the attention span has dropped dramatically.
Not my problem, honestly, but they don't understand the damages that are inflicting to their future self.
many companies (I would argue most) would stop working if people are not reminded every day what their job is and asked what is the ETA for the task they were assigned to.
it's a real problem, people are usually not super smart, they are average, and tend to learn nothing on the job unless they are required to, trained regularly and their advancement measured in some way. They do not think about their work outside, they hardly do it while at work, they do not experiment, they do not hypothesize, they simply wait for the paycheck at the end of the month in exchange for a portion of their lifetime.
if WFH was really such a boon for productivity, while also costing less to both companies and workers, everyone would have jumped on board immediately and pieces like this one would not exist.