Microsoft Exec Tells Staff There Won't Be an Amazon-style Return-to-Office Mandate Unless Productivity Drops (yahoo.com) 56
Microsoft won't impose a new return-to-office mandate unless management concludes that productivity has dropped, a high-level exec has reportedly told workers. From a report: The software and cloud-computing giant currently allows employees to work remotely, with many new hires promised the flexibility of working from home at least half the week. But that isn't written in stone. According to two anonymous sources that spoke with Business Insider, executive vice president Scott Guthrie recently told staff at his Microsoft's Cloud and AI group, which includes Azure, that a policy change isn't on the cards at present -- so long as workers stay productive.
While no statement has been provided as of press time, Microsoft told Business Insiderthat the company's work policies have not changed. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy's bombshell decree has roiled tech employees across the sector, many of whom dread a return to hours wasted in traffic jams on the long daily commute.
While no statement has been provided as of press time, Microsoft told Business Insiderthat the company's work policies have not changed. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy's bombshell decree has roiled tech employees across the sector, many of whom dread a return to hours wasted in traffic jams on the long daily commute.
Waiting for next week's headline: (Score:5, Insightful)
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beat me to it.
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Working from home is a privilege, not a right.
Unless I was hired, as the summary indicates, under the agreement that it would be 50% wfh. And this is the "meat" of my complaint with this mandatory-return-to-office crap. If I had taken a job where the agreement was that I didn't have to drive in half of the time I might be willing to expand the distance I'd be willing to commute. Meaning I likely wouldn't have taken that particular job had wfh not been an option. Now I'm stuck with a shitty commute every day because some middle-manager decided we're
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Equally annoying when people carry water for corporations with continuous shitty behavior.
Okay but, I would disagree that return to office is a shitty behavior. They have lots of shitty behaviors. That's not the one I'd pick out.
Flat out people will work other jobs from home if they can make themselves look busy enough or it's hard to measure productivity.
I've known people personally on WFH jobs that will literally sleep but great at waking up and faking being busy if called and other things like that.
I don't think it's equally as annoying for corporate shitty behaviors in this particular case.
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Be mad at that the people abusing WFH, ruining it for those who can handle it.
I'm good at multi-tasking. I can be mad at both groups, the idiots that treat wfh as a good day to get their laundry done (or worse, as you described) AND shitty companies changing a work agreement because they weren't able to squeeze enough blood out of the turnip last quarter, simultaneously.
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the idiots that treat wfh as a good day to get their laundry done
I'm self-employed. If I know I have a full day at home, I'll wash all the laundry. Because it's just moving stuff into one machine and another every hour or so. Folding and putting away is for after hours. But it actually increases my productivity to be forced to get up and walk around regularly and also to have one less thing on my mind.
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Absolutely, but that doesn't fix the problem, does it?
If you're a manager, and your teams productivity is dropping, and you keep finding slackers in your WFH causing this, you can fire them, hire more, and have the same problem. Why? Those kind of slackers are strongly, strongly attracted to WFH, it creates an environment to do that.
You can argue it's not fair to punish everyone, but what I need as a manager, is not you complaining, not the status quo, but actually fixing the problem. Do you have a fix for
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It's also why calling out any one specific behavior as an example generally won't work.
Back when I worked remote from home after moving away from an employer, I'd sleep until start of my work day, clock in, and go back to sleep. That would sound like really bad behavior - my boss would think so too. But I also worked some later hours several nights a week and was pretty much expected to answer the phone even on weekends, despite being hourly. I considered it a fair trade.
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For sure, but sefl-employed puts you at the top of the food chain right? That's not a low-mid position with no risk. You're taking all the risk and you're in charge of your contract rates, and being paid. You set your hours and terms and do what's needed to be successful. You answer to yourself, and decide what's good for your business.
Higher level positions are similar, and we do the same thing, it 's not an impact to productivity to make a coffee at home, swap laundry over, that kind of thing. That's not
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I can understand the frustration about changing the work agreement, I look at it differently so it doesn't bother me so much.
I can be replaced easily under most situations. If it's convenient and a better deal for a company, I will likely be let go, for various made up reasons if necessary if they can't make me quit. They'll do what's good for the business, even if I've been a hard worker and contributed a lot for a long time, for 20-40 years etc.
With that in mind, the company I work for, is absolutely some
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I can be replaced easily under most situations...The company I work for, is absolutely something that can be replaced.
Don't get me wrong, I have the same sentiment. I'm not QUITE as laissez-faire about it, but I get it. I'm getting to the point in my career where I could pack my shit up on Friday and have a new place to put my box by Monday, but I'm probably gonna be pissy about it.
If it's convenient and a better deal for a company, I will likely be let go, for various made up reasons if necessary if they can't make me quit.
This is the crux of what gets stuck in my craw. It's something you primarily see in bigger companies, where the manager responsible for actually managing work is quite disconnected from the guy 3 levels up who is only responsible for managing m
It's a chance for everyone else to snag talent (Score:2)
If I had taken a job where the agreement was that I didn't have to drive in half of the time I might be willing to expand the distance I'd be willing to commute. Meaning I likely wouldn't have taken that particular job had wfh not been an option.
Still not a right, as stated in the summary. However, don't take my word for it...you either have legal case, or you don't. If there's a signed contract, I am sure a lawyer can get you a nice settlement in accordance with the laws of your country. However, I have never heard of an employer agreeing to do so in a legally binding manner, for good reason. Also, Amazon didn't hire these people as remote employees. They hired nearly all of them to come into the office and then a global pandemic hit. Micro
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Again, I am neither a lawyer nor a judge, but we do have a legal system in place to handle scenarios where MS violates a contract.
I'm not talking about the legal contract. I'm talking about the social one. If I was hired at 50%, that's the social contract. If they decide that "contract" no longer applies because some arbitrary benchmark wasn't met, and they want my ass in a cubicle? That's entirely their prerogative, as it's their company. That doesn't mean it's not shitty behavior. And that doesn't mean I'm going to automatically bow down, kiss the ring, and thank them for allowing me to continue to work there.
You were cynically stating that they'd do shitty behavior in the future
Forgive me for assuming
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No it's not. If you're given five tickets to complete and at the end of the week none of them have been touched, what were you doing? Or, if you were given some code to write and three weeks later you're just starting on it, what were you doing?
Productivity is not subjective when you're given specific tasks to complete. This applies to any job.
Equally annoying when people carry water for corporations with continuous shitty behavior.
So every corporation? B
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Productivity is not subjective when you're given specific tasks to complete. This applies to any job.
Any job? Are ya sure about that? If you have a job stamping out widgets, absolutely it's not subjective. If you're "stamping out" tickets? It can get a lot more subjective, depending. If my job was to reset user passwords, and other "level 1" kinds of tasks? Yeah, easy enough to quantify with a fair bit of confidence. If my job was more of a "level 2" or "level 3" type of environment? Some weeks I'll close a dozen tickets, some weeks I'll close 2. What week was I more productive? Well, as my boss, do you
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Well, as my boss, do you have the time to go through each ticket and understand why one got closed in an hour and one took me 16?
In our departments that work with tickets, that is exactly their boss' job. Their productivity is very much objective. The value of it is subjective.
I'm happy to no longer work under a middle manager. Even for me, though, answering just to the CEO, I'd say my productivity is still objective- just very hard to quantify.
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I'd say my productivity is still objective- just very hard to quantify.
I'm not arguing to be a dick, I just don't understand this comment.
If it's very hard to quantify, doesn't that by default make judging your productivity subjective? From a random Internet source: "Objective means verifiable information based on facts and evidence. Subjective means information or perspectives based on feelings, opinions, or emotions" If you can't readily quantify it, what facts or evidence do you use to objectively quantify your productivity? If the CEO came up to you and told you your pro
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If it's very hard to quantify, doesn't that by default make judging your productivity subjective?
No- it makes it hard to be objective, just as it says- but it absolutely can be objective.
Doesn't mean it can't be subjective- anyone is free to judge someone else's -anything- subjectively rather than objectively. And there's certainly an argument that the harder it is to do it objectively, the greater the incentive to do it subjectively.
Expect funny headline - Commuting Causes Pollution (Score:2)
Speculation: Some scientist or another will come up with an environmental impact of X thousand Microsoft employees needing to commute 5 days a week when 5 day in office happens..
Some scientist will then try to figure that into Microsoft's net zero claim they had for years (?) but dropped (Sep 2024?) because cloud AI brings in too much revenue.
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It's a job, not adult day care. It's honestly annoying to hear people whine with such a sense of entitlement.
Actually, it's difficult to make the case that it's a job when you're treating your employees like children. If you can't trust your employees to actually get work done without being in the office (for professional positions, of course), might I suggest hiring adults?
If these large companies could hire professionals, they'd know that RTO mandates are pretty much useless because if a professio
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..Also, not sure you want to bitch about this. Working from home is a privilege, not a right.
Oh really? Tell me more about that whole “privilege” of putting a few million tailpipes back on the roadways every day is. I’m sure the environmentalists screaming about our poisoned planet have a few things to say about those social constructs and the future.
Also, employers might not want to bitch. A 1-hour commute (average with traffic), equates to an entire 40-hour workweek wasted every month commuting to an office building. Not to mention sucking tailpipe fumes the whole time your
You're like a homeless person washing a windshield (Score:2)
I wish your logic was c
Hypocrisy 101. (Score:2)
Your argument is akin to a homeless person washing a windshield at a red light then asking for money. Look, you're demanding to do the job on your terms in the manner you think adds value.
Wrong. If you had comprehended my complaint, what I am actually calling out is the blatant hypocrisy coming from those “adult” employers who want to brag to the tax man about how they’re so “green” with their tax-deducting environmentalist initiatives, while also dragging employees back into an office made obsolete years ago, harming both the employee and the environment pointlessly. Don't talk to me about how they’re so “mature” as an employer when they are
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OK, I was hired to write software for blackberries (Score:2)
You are missing that a lot of amazon employees were hired during the pandemic and promised they could work remotely. They are pulling the ole switcharoo and will find out the the people that you don't want to leave doing this kind of mandate are almost all the ones that are going to leave. It will take a year or so to feel the effect, but expect stuff to start breaking.
2 points. #1, I agree with your second point and I tried to make it myself, to some extent. This is market dynamics....if Amazon wants to anger their employees and Microsoft wants to hire angry Amazon employees, that's the market at work...they will vote with their feet and Amazon will feel the effects. IBM has long been regarded to be a shit place to work with high turnover...and thus...most of us are amazed they're still in business. Certainly, it's rare for top talent to turn down the major players fo
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Next weeks headline: "Microsoft management determines productivity has dropped, announces return-to-office mandate."
This. The influential power of the middle-earth management cube farmer, cannot be ignored.
Many of the elder farmers retired with COVID. But as the return to office slowly happened for most they were replaced with a different breed of managementae, belonging to the sub-species of mega-ego-strokers.
The good news is cube farm walls will be 2 feet shorter, but will come in limited edition baby-shit-seafoam green and anti-gun grey. Furniture orders will drop at midnight, open for 3 minutes via Ticketmaster.
Re: Waiting for next week's headline: (Score:2)
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Microsoft isn't that crazy... they'll wait for at least a couple of quarters before they "announce" their lower productivity numbers and force more people back to the office. They will have poached whatever Amazon talent they could have by then.
Smart man (Score:3)
"Unless productivity drops" - so workers will now fear for their remote work, and push themselves harder to keep productivity up. Now he can gain a bump in productivity which may help improve the next quarter or two, and *then* dump the return-to-office mandate on everyone. This guy knows how to executive.
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"Unless productivity drops" - so workers will now fear for their remote work, and push themselves harder to keep productivity up. Now he can gain a bump in productivity which may help improve the next quarter or two, and *then* dump the return-to-office mandate on everyone. This guy knows how to executive.
It is called "carrot & stick" motivation management; a variation of "manage by objective" or MBO. Tell people what you expect of them. And tell them what will happen if they don't achieve it.
The /. slacker / whiny mob would simply call it a different version of "The beatings will continue until morale improves." /s
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Snappy Answers to Smart Men. (Score:2)
"Unless productivity drops" - so workers will now fear for their remote work, and push themselves harder to keep productivity up. Now he can gain a bump in productivity which may help improve the next quarter or two, and *then* dump the return-to-office mandate on everyone. This guy knows how to executive.
(The Executing Executive) ”The fuck do you mean our best workers quit?! Dammit, we have deadlines!”
(HR) ”Well..the competition is still fully supporting WFH..”
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"Unless productivity drops" - so workers will now fear for their remote work, and push themselves harder to keep productivity up.
Do you think that knowledge workers are like digging trenches, where one can simply "push" themselves and productivity can go up? You have the makings of a PHB.
Remote workers have better productivity because they avoided roughly 2 hours of exhausting commute everyday, and can have a nice and fresh homemade lunch in their own kitchen instead of whatever junk food is available near the office.
Not to mentioned that even if you are working in office, you could be fired if your productivity drops, so you are th
What is this?! (Score:2)
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RTO is code for silent layoffs these days. Basically they're just culling people and doing it by calling RTO to get people to quit so they don't have to pay for them.
Of course, it has the effect that people in hot fields, like AI, know they can quit and be hired 5 minutes afterwards by competitors.
Microsoft is trying to pick up Amazon's AI people - Amazon's AI group is getting poached by companies like Microsoft and OpenAI.
Confirmed. Productivity is the same as before. (Score:2)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/d... [forbes.com]
I Interviewed at Amazon (Score:4)
10 years ago, I interviewed with Amazon in Toronto. They had a bunch of floors high up in an expensive tower overlooking Lake Ontario. When I entered they gave me a little gift bag with a notepad and pen, some breath mints (honestly), and a bottle of water. I interviewed with with 3 different groups. 2 came into the room, the other came in remotely on the big-screen. (A little ironic in this context, but not really). At the time, there was lots of talk about the great salaries at Amazon. During my process, I learned a bunch of that awesomeness came in the form of benefits, so it's wasn't quite as amazing as I had hoped. Some colleagues who worked there also told me they put in a lot of hours and worked very hard. In the end, I took a position elsewhere.
Today, the word on the street is that the salaries are awesome only if you're a superstar, but the hours are still long and a lot of hard work is still expected no matter who you are. And now they're doing the Return To Office silliness.
I've come to three conclusions:
- working at Amazon isn't the awesome thing it used to be
- they're confusing "on-site" with "productive"
- Microsoft is probably receiving applications today from Amazonians looking to bail
Amazon is regarded as a shitty employer (Score:3)
10 years ago, I interviewed with Amazon in Toronto. They had a bunch of floors high up in an expensive tower overlooking Lake Ontario. When I entered they gave me a little gift bag with a notepad and pen, some breath mints (honestly), and a bottle of water. I interviewed with with 3 different groups. 2 came into the room, the other came in remotely on the big-screen. (A little ironic in this context, but not really). At the time, there was lots of talk about the great salaries at Amazon. During my process, I learned a bunch of that awesomeness came in the form of benefits, so it's wasn't quite as amazing as I had hoped. Some colleagues who worked there also told me they put in a lot of hours and worked very hard. In the end, I took a position elsewhere.
Today, the word on the street is that the salaries are awesome only if you're a superstar, but the hours are still long and a lot of hard work is still expected no matter who you are. And now they're doing the Return To Office silliness.
I've come to three conclusions: - working at Amazon isn't the awesome thing it used to be - they're confusing "on-site" with "productive" - Microsoft is probably receiving applications today from Amazonians looking to bail
Can confirm. I interviewed and thought they were a total shitshow...they were offended when I didn't want to go in for a follow-up...sorry...someone else made a better impression on the interview, has a better reputation, and is offering me 25% more pay...so...kindly kick rocks.
I have a few friends who went there and said it's not as bad as everyone says....so...not sure what to believe. They don't "seem" happy...but can't tell if that's because they're working at Amazon or merely getting older...age mak
That's great until... (Score:2)
...And that "until" is some hacker breaks the encryption used by Cisco AnyConnect, especially if that hacker is a "state actor." Just that would cause so much panic that you could see a large fraction of remote work disappear almost overnight because if someone can hack AnyConnect, they could easily hack all of its competitors out there, too.
Costs about $13,000 plus 10 hours a week of life (Score:1)
If you had a choice between making $20,000 more at the office instead of WFH, you would actually make about $7,000 *per year* in your pocket after paying federal and local taxes, social security taxes, and the costs of working (gasoline, extra miles on car, eating out for lunch, "feel good" products like starbucks, dry-cleaning).
Plus the risk of getting into car accidents (1 per 8 years on average). So that's about $28 dollars per day in exchange for 2 hours per day of your life.
And it doesn't include nee
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Childcare has gotten *extremely* expensive since 2020.
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Oh, I wasn't talking about owning a car. I was talking about how frequently you had to replace the car.
For most folks, if you work from home, you will likely drive 4,000 to 6,000 miles per year. Your car will *easily* last 20a years.
If you drive to the office, you will be using 8,000 to 12,000 more miles per year. And I'm being conservative... for many jobs, 18,000 more miles per year. Your car will last between 6 and 8 years. That's an extra $36,000 ... twice over 20 years (replacing your car every 7
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Also... many routes to work now have tolls each way. So that's another $4 per day to drive to work.
Right about now (Score:1)