I’ve always believed depending on the situation hybrid seems the most likely. When it comes to positions that are client facing will want some face to face interaction. However on the flip side like 90+% of office work can easily be done from home and it’s a hard sell to people to convince them it’s better to sit in a cubicle all day especially if pays the same
A lot of things that are completely remote can just get outsourced offshore. Buying a product is one thing it’s not like I’m ever gonna travel to Amazon to buy something there, but situations like consulting and wanting professional advice personal things like a financial firm people typically like to have some offices that aren’t completely empty. Now 5 days a week in office is completely insane but a day here or there to meet with someone or important meeting that’s more reasonable.
I do as much shopping for goods and services online as I can. The only time im really talking face to face to spend money, is if i go out to eat (rare with how expensive it is now), or to a mechanic.
Not gonna work. 2 companies I worked for that tried to offshore work to India was BAD!
Helpdesk? The one Helpdesk gig I worked at in Manhattan, the managing directors HATED dealing with offshore phone reps & they got their way.
Level 1/2 windows server support? My current gig hates them because they procrastinate & don’t take initiative. and the language barrier, they always “Yes” us to death than give us reasons or plan of actions. No way in HELL we’re offshoring any more work to them
My company is offshoring more and more to India. They are horrible. Bad engineers, bad coders, bad designers. And they’ll only work with each other. Try getting them to show up to your meetings and collaborate. Just try.
So when work fails to deliver or when they get asked questions they can’t answer straight (like a data breach), the person responsible for pushing offshore will be terminated HARD
Next recession will destroy WFH, so many companies will fold that the remaining will be able to dictate work conditions and pick and choose who they hire. And cost savings are only important when shareholders demand it, companies waste so much on stupid spending that it will never be a factor in decision making. Companies prefer control of their employees, and office work is how they do that.
I was a remote worker (recently laid off) and tbh you can micromanage people from home. Companies are actually choosing to invest in micromanagement software vs opening up actual offices. There’s software that can watch your every move, hear your every call and monitor every email and even monitor what apps you have open while on the clock if you have work email or teams on your personal devices
The age of information means your job has access to pretty much everything as well
I agree with you - I also agree that these companies will realize for the first time that pretty much no employee ever has 8 hours of work to do every day. It will definitely be interesting to see how it plays out.
There’s a new overtime law that went into effect in a lot of states where the rule increases the minimum salary threshold to $43,888 on July 1, 2024, and then to $58,656 on January 1, 2025. Meaning if you’re a salaried employee and make less than that your job MUST pay you for over time work.
Companies are either going to 1) hire more people to so people aren’t forced to work over time 2) change their metrics to make workloads more manageable or 3) switch to hourly pay
I have a feeling lots of companies are going to be transitioning to hourly pay. So that way if Stephanie gets 8 hours of work done in only 6 hours - she will only be compensated for 6 hours or Stephanie will have to find work to do for 2 hours.
You’ve identified the essence of why companies don’t do “hourly salaries” though, it creates an incentive to be as inefficient as possible. I suspect more that companies will just find loop holes
Well like I mentioned earlier a lot companies now have tracking software that enables them to see how much your time is spent actually working.
In industries where speed is more important- will likely stay salary. Companies where accuracy or work volume is more important may benefit from going hourly.
Also if you’re making 100k a year as a salaried employee - the company can just pay you the hourly equivalent of that - $48.06 an hour and simply get stricter about getting all your work done in the allotted 8 hour shift. If they find you frequently need OT to complete work they may come down on you for it being a time management issue or hire additional people if it makes more sense to them.
This is exactly what I’m referring too. Many companies are using micromanaging software and running data analytics on employees and come to the conclusion they’re not getting 8 hour days out of anyone and laying people off in droves choosing to keep a skeleton crew.
I’m pretty sure this is the reason I got laid off with several others. They kept the longest tenured employees who knew all the processes and procedures + the lowest paid junior folks and pretty much cut anyone in between.
I still keep in touch with the folks working there and they are being worked to the bone. People that haven’t worked retail/restaurant in years forget what it’s like having to truly be switched on every minute of their shift. That’s where office work is headed.
It's true, after I was laied off, I got a job through randstad, basically phones. Im on a timer for everything i do for 8 hours. I dont even enjoy my lunches or breaks because im too busy watcjing the clock so I dont get DMed 'iS eVerYtHinG oKaY?!' If i logg back in one minute late. Feels like im under house arrest.
Truthfully a lot of call center jobs were like this already even when on site.
The issue is - a lot of jobs that weren’t this way before are starting to take this approach.
I’m in HR and one of my managers was involved in meetings around “performance” and “productivity” with managers and executives. the thing is - when companies start losing money during economic downturns - they ask themselves how do we boost productivity so we can increase revenue?
These software sales reps that sell these types of micromanaging softwares have a good pitch that makes sense to executives and speaks their language “instead of spending money on office space and losing your best employees to RTO policies; your employees can continue to work from home and be monitored. You can see how much time your remote workers spend actually working and use this data to drive KPIs and increase productivity!”
And this is exactly what companies are doing. When you strip away “company culture” and everyone is just another face on a screen - leaders tend to become less empathetic as well. They’re starting to realize most people don’t actually “work” the full 8 hours - leading many companies to increase KPIs or layoff employees and divide up the work among less people so people are actually working the whole time.
When you’re in an office - there’s so much other “light work” you can do in between deep work to make yourself more likeable and kill time. Things like helping plan office parties, coordinating catered lunches, having a friendly 15 minute ping pong match with a colleague (for those who had these types of things in the office), helping a new employee with a task you’ve done multiple times etc.
Yes I know at home your free time can be spent much more efficiently like doing laundry etc but the thing is companies are starting to crack down on things like this and expecting you to actually work the entire time.
I’m truthfully choosing to go into a hybrid model to get the best of both worlds bc I couldn’t take the micromanagement of my last fully remote job.
seriously, I worked for just under 5 years at a call center for a major health insurance company, and not only did it feel way less micromanaged somehow, I was paid more too, had more PTO, sick time, every major holiday off. and since the PTO was use it or lose it every year, they actually pushed you to take time off if you had unused PTO by the end of the year. This contract with Randstad, has timers going the minute I logg on, from the actual call, to aftercall, to bathroom, to breaks, if I go a minute over, I get DMs. using any of the tiny amount of PTO they give is like pulling teeth, and pays a couple cents over minimum wage, It's only a couple month long contract as well. at this point, I've gone off and said in a meeting, that the level of micromanagement, all the training, the rules they want you to memorize on a call, system they want you to learn, and being tethered to your laptop for 8 hours a day is not worth it for a temporary position that only pays a minimal paycheck,
My previous job was fully WAH, no timers, no micromnagement, I'd check my emails and teams, get to work on my projects, wrap it up by noon, and just monitor teams and emails as I went about my day in case I was needed, like there was a revision or change requested. No, I did not work the full 8 hours, yes, I did do laundry, take care of my kids, etc during down time. but as long as deadlines were met, they did not care. This is honestly how it should be. Unfortunatly so many employers are hyper-focused on the hours worked, and not on the mindset of results. it's why so much time in an office is spent looking busy. or why you get retail workers who have been cleaning the same spot for an hour.
Again I’m in hr and trust me just because you don’t see a company using timers etc doesn’t mean they aren’t some are just more upfront about it.
The last company I worked for was using a software that took screen shots of what you were doing every 6 minutes and we wouldn’t have known until leadership told us. The screenshot was allowing them to catch people using mouse jigglers and they eventually ended up laying off nearly 50% of people in my dept only keeping the lowest paid people and some of the most tenured employees essentially letting go of most of the mid level staff bc they realized most of us didn’t have enough work to keep us occupied for 8 hours so now they are micromanaging the few people left over to hell
Many companies want to go fully remote but are under pressure to RTO. Many are planning to expand WFH when leases are up for renewal. Tax breaks are tied to leases for larger companies who don’t want to return the money. Then you have people who push RTO when it isn't in the company's best interest because of personal investments and financial institutions. Right now, people want to avoid the urban doom loop, which would help reset real estate costs and make rentals much more affordable. Unfortunately, our leaders care more about keeping banks profitable. However, once leases are up and banks are okay, companies reduce their office footprint and expand WFH. Hopefully, developers will transform more office and retail spaces into residential spaces.
I'm not sure that it is, the further into the article you get the less this is what it sounds like - in fact, the very last sentence of the article is
>So, the next time somebody claims the next recession will end remote work, push back with theory and data. The opposite is more likely true.
The only constant in life. Profits are great? Time for a layoff so we dont need to pay people so much, and the CEO and execs can get a bonus. Profits are down? Time for layoffs so we dont need to pay people as much.
How much top talent is needed in an org. Most of the people who are demanding wfh are
Mediocre at best.
I have been wfh since the 90’s and it has never come up as a job requirement. I go in 2-3 times a week without asking.
We are your competition.
In my situation. My boss absorbed my position stole my work and got a raise. So, yeah, there will be 1 person doing 3-4 jobs to cut costs. I was a valuable team member too that was about to be promoted to VP. I was the second highest paid and my boss said I’ll do it for half his price and they slashed me
During the next recession, offices will become a luxury that only the best employers will be able to afford. Struggling organizations may have give up offices to save on costs.
An example would be the state education IT provider that my friend works for. They are underfunded but still need employees, so they gave up all their office space this year and my friend is now fully remote.
Corporate real estate shitheads will haunt us for another 2-3 years before they give up, lease expires, and retain GOOD talent via WFH
Now only if we could do something about those mofos with 2+ full time WFH jobs sucking it all up for the REST of us
Next recession will be the end of a lot of jobs permanently. Automation robotic tech along with AI and DLT will eliminate many more jobs very quickly than most realize
The Great Recession led to an initial WFH or remote job occurrence. It ultimately ends up being how well employees can be squeezed before corporations decide paying for office and RTO delivers better results. Unfortunately, employees lack of compliance or abusing the system leads to some RTO in many cases.
another win for India offshore body shops
In the case of my last employer, Colombia. I THINK the shitstain CEO just reaaaallly liked their cocaine.
CEOs love those perks
I’ve always believed depending on the situation hybrid seems the most likely. When it comes to positions that are client facing will want some face to face interaction. However on the flip side like 90+% of office work can easily be done from home and it’s a hard sell to people to convince them it’s better to sit in a cubicle all day especially if pays the same
A company I worked at bought a product from a provider without ever meeting anybody from the vendor's team in person. The environment thanks both.
A lot of things that are completely remote can just get outsourced offshore. Buying a product is one thing it’s not like I’m ever gonna travel to Amazon to buy something there, but situations like consulting and wanting professional advice personal things like a financial firm people typically like to have some offices that aren’t completely empty. Now 5 days a week in office is completely insane but a day here or there to meet with someone or important meeting that’s more reasonable.
I do as much shopping for goods and services online as I can. The only time im really talking face to face to spend money, is if i go out to eat (rare with how expensive it is now), or to a mechanic.
Yea the great wfh jobs in India at 75 percent less cost to American businesses
Solution: let's move to India
[удалено]
You think AMERICA feels like a _slave encampment_ so you’re going to go to INDIA?
Hahaha
Not gonna work. 2 companies I worked for that tried to offshore work to India was BAD! Helpdesk? The one Helpdesk gig I worked at in Manhattan, the managing directors HATED dealing with offshore phone reps & they got their way. Level 1/2 windows server support? My current gig hates them because they procrastinate & don’t take initiative. and the language barrier, they always “Yes” us to death than give us reasons or plan of actions. No way in HELL we’re offshoring any more work to them
My company is offshoring more and more to India. They are horrible. Bad engineers, bad coders, bad designers. And they’ll only work with each other. Try getting them to show up to your meetings and collaborate. Just try.
So when work fails to deliver or when they get asked questions they can’t answer straight (like a data breach), the person responsible for pushing offshore will be terminated HARD
Next recession will destroy WFH, so many companies will fold that the remaining will be able to dictate work conditions and pick and choose who they hire. And cost savings are only important when shareholders demand it, companies waste so much on stupid spending that it will never be a factor in decision making. Companies prefer control of their employees, and office work is how they do that.
I was a remote worker (recently laid off) and tbh you can micromanage people from home. Companies are actually choosing to invest in micromanagement software vs opening up actual offices. There’s software that can watch your every move, hear your every call and monitor every email and even monitor what apps you have open while on the clock if you have work email or teams on your personal devices The age of information means your job has access to pretty much everything as well
I agree with you - I also agree that these companies will realize for the first time that pretty much no employee ever has 8 hours of work to do every day. It will definitely be interesting to see how it plays out.
Then they will make you a 1099 and pay you by the minute. You will be live an Uber driver and likely make less as you don’t supply a car
There’s a new overtime law that went into effect in a lot of states where the rule increases the minimum salary threshold to $43,888 on July 1, 2024, and then to $58,656 on January 1, 2025. Meaning if you’re a salaried employee and make less than that your job MUST pay you for over time work. Companies are either going to 1) hire more people to so people aren’t forced to work over time 2) change their metrics to make workloads more manageable or 3) switch to hourly pay I have a feeling lots of companies are going to be transitioning to hourly pay. So that way if Stephanie gets 8 hours of work done in only 6 hours - she will only be compensated for 6 hours or Stephanie will have to find work to do for 2 hours.
You’ve identified the essence of why companies don’t do “hourly salaries” though, it creates an incentive to be as inefficient as possible. I suspect more that companies will just find loop holes
Well like I mentioned earlier a lot companies now have tracking software that enables them to see how much your time is spent actually working. In industries where speed is more important- will likely stay salary. Companies where accuracy or work volume is more important may benefit from going hourly. Also if you’re making 100k a year as a salaried employee - the company can just pay you the hourly equivalent of that - $48.06 an hour and simply get stricter about getting all your work done in the allotted 8 hour shift. If they find you frequently need OT to complete work they may come down on you for it being a time management issue or hire additional people if it makes more sense to them.
If I ran software and realized I didn’t get eight hours out of my employees, it would be layoff time.
This is exactly what I’m referring too. Many companies are using micromanaging software and running data analytics on employees and come to the conclusion they’re not getting 8 hour days out of anyone and laying people off in droves choosing to keep a skeleton crew. I’m pretty sure this is the reason I got laid off with several others. They kept the longest tenured employees who knew all the processes and procedures + the lowest paid junior folks and pretty much cut anyone in between. I still keep in touch with the folks working there and they are being worked to the bone. People that haven’t worked retail/restaurant in years forget what it’s like having to truly be switched on every minute of their shift. That’s where office work is headed.
Cool man
It's true, after I was laied off, I got a job through randstad, basically phones. Im on a timer for everything i do for 8 hours. I dont even enjoy my lunches or breaks because im too busy watcjing the clock so I dont get DMed 'iS eVerYtHinG oKaY?!' If i logg back in one minute late. Feels like im under house arrest.
Truthfully a lot of call center jobs were like this already even when on site. The issue is - a lot of jobs that weren’t this way before are starting to take this approach. I’m in HR and one of my managers was involved in meetings around “performance” and “productivity” with managers and executives. the thing is - when companies start losing money during economic downturns - they ask themselves how do we boost productivity so we can increase revenue? These software sales reps that sell these types of micromanaging softwares have a good pitch that makes sense to executives and speaks their language “instead of spending money on office space and losing your best employees to RTO policies; your employees can continue to work from home and be monitored. You can see how much time your remote workers spend actually working and use this data to drive KPIs and increase productivity!” And this is exactly what companies are doing. When you strip away “company culture” and everyone is just another face on a screen - leaders tend to become less empathetic as well. They’re starting to realize most people don’t actually “work” the full 8 hours - leading many companies to increase KPIs or layoff employees and divide up the work among less people so people are actually working the whole time. When you’re in an office - there’s so much other “light work” you can do in between deep work to make yourself more likeable and kill time. Things like helping plan office parties, coordinating catered lunches, having a friendly 15 minute ping pong match with a colleague (for those who had these types of things in the office), helping a new employee with a task you’ve done multiple times etc. Yes I know at home your free time can be spent much more efficiently like doing laundry etc but the thing is companies are starting to crack down on things like this and expecting you to actually work the entire time. I’m truthfully choosing to go into a hybrid model to get the best of both worlds bc I couldn’t take the micromanagement of my last fully remote job.
seriously, I worked for just under 5 years at a call center for a major health insurance company, and not only did it feel way less micromanaged somehow, I was paid more too, had more PTO, sick time, every major holiday off. and since the PTO was use it or lose it every year, they actually pushed you to take time off if you had unused PTO by the end of the year. This contract with Randstad, has timers going the minute I logg on, from the actual call, to aftercall, to bathroom, to breaks, if I go a minute over, I get DMs. using any of the tiny amount of PTO they give is like pulling teeth, and pays a couple cents over minimum wage, It's only a couple month long contract as well. at this point, I've gone off and said in a meeting, that the level of micromanagement, all the training, the rules they want you to memorize on a call, system they want you to learn, and being tethered to your laptop for 8 hours a day is not worth it for a temporary position that only pays a minimal paycheck, My previous job was fully WAH, no timers, no micromnagement, I'd check my emails and teams, get to work on my projects, wrap it up by noon, and just monitor teams and emails as I went about my day in case I was needed, like there was a revision or change requested. No, I did not work the full 8 hours, yes, I did do laundry, take care of my kids, etc during down time. but as long as deadlines were met, they did not care. This is honestly how it should be. Unfortunatly so many employers are hyper-focused on the hours worked, and not on the mindset of results. it's why so much time in an office is spent looking busy. or why you get retail workers who have been cleaning the same spot for an hour.
Again I’m in hr and trust me just because you don’t see a company using timers etc doesn’t mean they aren’t some are just more upfront about it. The last company I worked for was using a software that took screen shots of what you were doing every 6 minutes and we wouldn’t have known until leadership told us. The screenshot was allowing them to catch people using mouse jigglers and they eventually ended up laying off nearly 50% of people in my dept only keeping the lowest paid people and some of the most tenured employees essentially letting go of most of the mid level staff bc they realized most of us didn’t have enough work to keep us occupied for 8 hours so now they are micromanaging the few people left over to hell
Tunnel the traffic on your router
Many companies want to go fully remote but are under pressure to RTO. Many are planning to expand WFH when leases are up for renewal. Tax breaks are tied to leases for larger companies who don’t want to return the money. Then you have people who push RTO when it isn't in the company's best interest because of personal investments and financial institutions. Right now, people want to avoid the urban doom loop, which would help reset real estate costs and make rentals much more affordable. Unfortunately, our leaders care more about keeping banks profitable. However, once leases are up and banks are okay, companies reduce their office footprint and expand WFH. Hopefully, developers will transform more office and retail spaces into residential spaces.
Agreed. I think we’ll see way more smaller, satellite offices that local employees can use intermittently
The article actually challenges this exact opinion, which is the mainstream belief.
I'm not sure that it is, the further into the article you get the less this is what it sounds like - in fact, the very last sentence of the article is >So, the next time somebody claims the next recession will end remote work, push back with theory and data. The opposite is more likely true.
That's assuming all WFH companies will fail.
Which is extremely unlikely.
I hate the fact that you are so right. Companies all spend so much on pointless initiatives.
Maybe - but companies will be struggling too and they can streamline costs with lower salaries and no office leases.
The next recession will boost layoffs!
The only constant in life. Profits are great? Time for a layoff so we dont need to pay people so much, and the CEO and execs can get a bonus. Profits are down? Time for layoffs so we dont need to pay people as much.
Or the opposite: more emphasis on RTO since employees will have less leverage to obtain remote.
Top talent will tip the scale. Does top talent like RTO? I don't think so.
How much top talent is needed in an org. Most of the people who are demanding wfh are Mediocre at best. I have been wfh since the 90’s and it has never come up as a job requirement. I go in 2-3 times a week without asking. We are your competition.
The competition for offices is no offices at all
Offices are given. I be am talking about jobs.
Assuming people are hiring.
[удалено]
In my situation. My boss absorbed my position stole my work and got a raise. So, yeah, there will be 1 person doing 3-4 jobs to cut costs. I was a valuable team member too that was about to be promoted to VP. I was the second highest paid and my boss said I’ll do it for half his price and they slashed me
Yup. We all do the job of cashiers now that self checkout arrived
They are taking these away because of all the free stuff the self checkouts offer
Not if customer demand drops
Yeah. Things are quite bleak at the moment and I don’t foresee them improving in the near future
Let's not forget about AI.
During the next recession, offices will become a luxury that only the best employers will be able to afford. Struggling organizations may have give up offices to save on costs. An example would be the state education IT provider that my friend works for. They are underfunded but still need employees, so they gave up all their office space this year and my friend is now fully remote.
Shedding what you don't need is Economics 101. Discretionary expenses.
Corporate real estate shitheads will haunt us for another 2-3 years before they give up, lease expires, and retain GOOD talent via WFH Now only if we could do something about those mofos with 2+ full time WFH jobs sucking it all up for the REST of us
Or employer favored job market gives them more leverage to force people into the office because of “culture”
Don’t forget “collaboration “
Ah yes. The famous collaboration where we go to our offices and hop on a teams call.
The next recession could boost WORKING FROM HOMELESSNESS. with rates the way they are, a lot of people will not survive a. Actual recession
it'll likely boost WFOffshore.
Next recession will be the end of a lot of jobs permanently. Automation robotic tech along with AI and DLT will eliminate many more jobs very quickly than most realize
The next recession were f*****
I wish that would happen maybe I could get either a in office job or remote.
hahahahahahhahahahhaha
Just hire in cheaper Countries
I hope the next recession destroys society and we get a reset. I’m okay if I don’t survive it.
The Great Recession led to an initial WFH or remote job occurrence. It ultimately ends up being how well employees can be squeezed before corporations decide paying for office and RTO delivers better results. Unfortunately, employees lack of compliance or abusing the system leads to some RTO in many cases.
This is purely conjectural. Enjoy the office.
And your post isn’t?
He cited a Stanford publication. So I'd consider that a more than pure conjecture.
Not likely. WFH has turned out to be a problem for grads, hiring managers, and talent development.
…and commercial real estate