AGHouston11 said:

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Eliminating actual human interaction isn't necessarily a good thing.

The next step is remote humans will not be needed when AI can do the exact same thing but better.

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1. Hybrid is the way. You need in person relationship building.
2. if you don't adapt and stick to some form of hybrid, your company is going to fail. You will only be able to hire those that can't keep a job elsewhere and fail to produce anyway.
3. the good employees know this and can go wherever they want.

I work in downtown Houston and am on a hybrid schedule, T-W-TH in the office. It's great and all but still drive into the office on my WFH days because my wife seems to think that I can take a break every 5 minutes.

I work for an engineering firm. We allow employees to work remote 2 days per week. Same consistent two so clients and managers know where to find them or meet. A lot of our design business involves teaching and training. We also are consultants so a lot of our business revolves around personal relationships. Teaching, training, and personal relationships cannot be forged remotely. At least not efficiently.

my wife works for one of the big four accounting firms. They thought they were going to be hybrid or remote forever, but that has changed on a dime. Their competition has started requiring employees to come back to the office, and finally hers did as well. Training, teamwork, mentoring, senior Leaders interacting with junior employees. None of those things were affective remotely. At least not efficiently. Again, consultants. Hard to forge relationships with employees or clients remotely.

A good friend is a banker with city. They are now requiring them to come back in the office and they actually check how they login.

So many people bragged about how much more productive they were while working from home. I think the cat is out of the bag, and for the most part that is false. From a mental health and work life balance, I also think it hurts to not have a defined line between work and home. This started, obviously with cell phones and beepers, but working from home absolutely erases any division that was left.

Huh... A recruiter told me the work from home fad was over now and people were going back to the office.

I have heard the same thing and I have a lot of friends in Dallas and commercial real estate and they are doing very well. Our office of over 100 employees just moved and I can tell you there were very few deals out on the market. If demand was dropping so precipitously, I would expect some of the pricing to soften up as well. It does not seem to have done that.

AGHouston11 said:

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Eliminating actual human interaction isn't necessarily a good thing.

The next step is remote humans will not be needed when AI can do the exact same thing but better.

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Hoping that we can rediscover community. Workplace interaction doesn't offer that to the extent we all need. There is a void that needs filled just not sure the office is the best place for it.

We sold our office and went fully remote. We rent out a small satellite office for certain situations. Our company and other cybersecurity firms haven't skipped a beat.

I saw the WSJ article mentioned above. I also saw another article where full WFH is dying. Companies are clawing back their employees to at least a hybrid schedule which should be a reasonable position for most people and job functions. Like almost everything, moderation is key and hybrid is moderation.

If you insist on being 100% remote then you better be able to back it up with performance, your job fits that model, you plan on being a job hopping mercenary, or you are financially independent. Big corporations are just not going to allow 100% WFH for everyone. That is suicide and stupid if you want to have any semblance of culture. That's why they are all pulling everyone back in...even Big Tech who led the way with liberal WFH policies and then reversed course when they realized its not a viable option.

And I say all of this as a 100% WFH employee.

To add, most SMBs (depending on business type) can probably get away with 100% remote because you can maintain inertia and alignment simply because of your smaller numbers. We are a startup which is why we have been able to do this.

However, if we grow like we think we can at some point there will need to be some in office time because some level of centralization will need to happen to keep the organization functional. This is basic behavioral and organizational dynamics.

Really interesting topic though. We are cleaning out our house right now and I was going through some of my old B school textbooks. Ran across my Managerial Economics book and was scanning it. The Organizational Design section will need to be thrown out of that book and re-written.

AGHouston11 said:

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Eliminating actual human interaction isn't necessarily a good thing.

The next step is remote humans will not be needed when AI can do the exact same thing but better.

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Where meaningful social interaction takes place is not limited to work:

1. Get involved in a Bible believing Church
2. Get yourself or your kids involved in recreational sports.
3. Take up martial arts like Jiu Jitsu
4. Get involved in a local food bank or charity
5. Hang out at the American Legion post or a similar organization.

I'm in oil & gas and working a hybrid schedule. T-W-TH in office and M-F remote. I'm also on a 9/80 so I get every other Friday off. Schedule is great and I don't see us going back

oldag941 said:

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I have heard the same thing and I have a lot of friends in Dallas and commercial real estate and they are doing very well. Our office of over 100 employees just moved and I can tell you there were very few deals out on the market. If demand was dropping so precipitously, I would expect some of the pricing to soften up as well. It does not seem to have done that.

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Commercial RE in Dallas varies. Rental rates aren't coming down much but landlords are giving more concessions. Flight to quality is real - A and AA buildings are doing well with low vacancy but B and C buildings are struggling. For those companies ardently trying to bring employees back to the office, they need a "cool" office to draw them back - which pushes them to nicer buildings, better amenities, better submarkets, more walkable, etc.

It's crazy how much things have changed with this. I'm an engineer at an LNG plant working 4 10s and working from home once per pay period. That was unheard of just a few years ago.

4-10s are amazing. Truly miss that schedule. 9-80s is cool and all but have y'all heard of having a three day weekend? EVERY weekend??

It's magical.

Biggest problem with remote work is your young people never develop. They never learn how to be in a real meeting. They're not exposed to people who know more than them around the water cooler etc. they also don't build relationships with each other. When they don't know how to do something they just ping their supervisor and say that they can't do it instead of what generations before did and ask the guy in the next cube.

I think it screws your middle mangers who's direct reports are all effectively stuck as 22 year olds for life

Eliminatus said:

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doubledog said:

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AGHouston11 said:

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Eliminating actual human interaction isn't necessarily a good thing.

The next step is remote humans will not be needed when AI can do the exact same thing but better.

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If you can work from home, you can be easily be replaced by anyone anywhere... Think about that.

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What an absurd statement. Our program manager is WFH in another state and it is a commonly held belief our entire operation would die in apocalyptic fire after just one day if he wasn't doing what he was doing. I would even go so far as to say he is the hardest working person in our organization, period. Or at least tied for first. Truly indispensable.

Man, TA has succumbed to this constant "all or nothing" extreme statements like yours. CAN it be true for some? Of course. But why try to pass it off as pure gospel when it isn't?

People here REALLY need to brush up on their qualifying statements.

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You are kidding yourself if you think that you are the very best and least expensive person that can do your remote job.

Yay, its the monthly remote work thread again.

Eliminatus said:

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4-10s are amazing. Truly miss that schedule. 9-80s is cool and all but have y'all heard of having a three day weekend? EVERY weekend??

It's magical.

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I had 9-80s for a while and the 3 day weekends were great. The problem was the 7-5 schedule along with a commute made it difficult for midweek kids activities. That's where the hybrid schedule has been nice.

But I really miss the flex Friday while my kids were at school, it was a whole day to knock out chores.

doubledog said:

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Eliminatus said:

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doubledog said:

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AGHouston11 said:

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Eliminating actual human interaction isn't necessarily a good thing.

The next step is remote humans will not be needed when AI can do the exact same thing but better.

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If you can work from home, you can be easily be replaced by anyone anywhere... Think about that.

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What an absurd statement. Our program manager is WFH in another state and it is a commonly held belief our entire operation would die in apocalyptic fire after just one day if he wasn't doing what he was doing. I would even go so far as to say he is the hardest working person in our organization, period. Or at least tied for first. Truly indispensable.

Man, TA has succumbed to this constant "all or nothing" extreme statements like yours. CAN it be true for some? Of course. But why try to pass it off as pure gospel when it isn't?

People here REALLY need to brush up on their qualifying statements.

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You are kidding yourself if you think that you are the very best and least expensive person that can do your remote job.

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Everyone is replaceable. I don't care how good you think you are or someone else is. There is always someone bigger and badder than you and they are probably right around the corner.

When I left corporate, my boss was about to have a heart attack over it. Was completely beside himself.

I told him he wouldn't even know I was gone within two weeks. It's a big company. Someone will step in better or not and fill the gap. The boss gets distracted and moves on. In my case, I had done true succession planning for my department so I was 100% confident that the gal replacing me would be a seamless transition. And depending on the topic/function, she was smarter than me anyway.

I was right and he hasn't missed me other than having a friend at work, someone to shoot the **** with, and to lament corporate politics,

1-2 days remote a week seems to be a good balance that keeps most employees happy and gets things done at work as well.

The vibrant office culture and personal connections I miss out on working from home

Eliminatus said:

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doubledog said:

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AGHouston11 said:

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Eliminating actual human interaction isn't necessarily a good thing.

The next step is remote humans will not be needed when AI can do the exact same thing but better.

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If you can work from home, you can be easily be replaced by anyone anywhere... Think about that.

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What an absurd statement. Our program manager is WFH in another state and it is a commonly held belief our entire operation would die in apocalyptic fire after just one day if he wasn't doing what he was doing. I would even go so far as to say he is the hardest working person in our organization, period. Or at least tied for first. Truly indispensable.

Man, TA has succumbed to this constant "all or nothing" extreme statements like yours. CAN it be true for some? Of course. But why try to pass it off as pure gospel when it isn't?

People here REALLY need to brush up on their qualifying statements.

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He didn't suggest everyone is replaceable.

But it sounds like most of your entire operation is replaceable except for this one guy.

In Texas companies like USAA and HEB have brought and are bringing back their corporate office attendance the majority of the week.

Companies like Valero never went home for long.

Sleepy Joe said COVID is over. Get back to the office.
Here's a list of major companies requiring employees to return to the office

When I started seeing offices look like this:



I worried salespeople would not get out into the market and meet clients.
That worry was unfounded.

Our company is slowly transitioning back to in office work. I work in the plants, so we never worked from home. The outrage from the WFH folks is laughable. If anything, there have been a lot of inefficiencies found within our organization as a result of WFH. I have no pity for them.

Unless you're a SW programmer who stares at his screen all day, there are benefits to being in the office at least a few days a week. However, employers have not done themselves any favors by going to completely open spaces and hoteling arrangements.

Is there a book on building a strong, remote culture company?

It really depends on the kind of work you do and how you work. I am a lead for technical work at project sites all over the US, and I work with teams made up of people from all over the country. When we started going back to the office after Covid, I was typically the only one from my team in our small office of 8 people on the days I was in the office, and I did the same thing I did at home. I sat in my office and worked remotely with groups of people in other offices and met one-one or in groups via Teams when needed.

What I found was that I was getting no benefit from being in the office and was losing 1.5 hours per day commuting to and from the office. So it was a no-brainer to setup a remote work agreement that allowed me to move to Bastrop when my wife got a good opportunity in Austin. I work from home 100% now and so do most of the people I work with. We travel to sites when needed, we use Teams when needed, and very little has changed.

We're a hybrid office, and I'm completely remote. It works much better than i ever thought it would but there are some drawbacks. For my team, we had excellent report, knew each other pretty well, so working remotely was a smooth transition. However, we've had a tough time with new folks who joined the dept in this remote world. Teamwork, trust and culture have taken a bit of a hit. It's amazing how much more easy and quickly it is to bond and build trust in person - just the drive by greetings, water cooler talk, etc. Zoom meetings definitely make remote working work, but you find yourself ONLY interacting with people you directly work with. So in a company of hundreds, you only engage with 20 or so people. That tends to create silos and a company of strangers. I do miss seeing and chatting with coworkers that aren't in my day-to-day work circles. Working remotely or hybrid is here to stay, but nothing is ever cut and dry.

StandUpforAmerica said:

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Unless you're a SW programmer who stares at his screen all day, there are benefits to being in the office at least a few days a week. However, employers have not done themselves any favors by going to completely open spaces and hoteling arrangements.

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Open spaces is the worst idea ever. Classic management blind spot to the realities of it. They don't have to deal with it so it doesn't impact them.

I will never work in an open space environment if I can at all help it.

poundstone said:

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You realize talking over zoom is still human interaction

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It is not. People turn off their camera or are not on screen. A very important part of working as a team is reading body language. If you can't see the client you are missing very valuable information. Only sitting across the table will give you that information.

TxTarpon said:

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Is there a book on building a strong, remote culture company?

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yes, but not available online. its in the fiction section of barnes & noble

BMX Bandit said:

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TxTarpon said:

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Is there a book on building a strong, remote culture company?

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yes, but not available online. its in the fiction section of barnes & noble

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