I work in IT for a company that does roughly 2.2B revenue annually. We're growing at, what seems to be, a healthy rate. We've acquired some smaller companies and have our sights set on some more. The ingestion of the smaller companies is primarily a means of gaining access to their clients (of course), their engineering staff and certifications, and also any proprietary products.

So far so good.

In the last couple years, I've seen us swerve quite heavily into the "work from home" or "work remotely" side of things. I really don't want to rehash WHY that is here. We all know.

I don't understand how, long term, this can possibly be prosperous for companies.

First of all, 90 percent of the employees/users that are remote are not accessible. We use Slack as an instant messaging system internally and these remote users may be online during the day, but never before 9:30AM (their time) and NEVER past 3PM (their time). Meetings are always expected to take place between these hours, and even though its not a stated policy, users do reject meetings that "start too early" or happen "too late in the day".

What's worse, this is bleeding into the culture as a de-facto start time for people that actually do live in town, near a corporate office. One of my coworkers, on my team, rolled in at 9:40 this AM and he only lives 10m away. No one, and I mean NO ONE, will challenge him on this. No one will ask what the first two hours of his salaried day looked like. No one cares, except maybe me.

Second, everything takes longer. Whether this is dove-tailed into the first issue of accessibility, or just the fact that there are more distractions or fishing opportunities when working from home or remotely, the result is the same: Projects, tickets, and workflow of all types is now taking obscene amounts of time.

One of the projects on my plate was to scoop up the data of a recently acquired company, and push it from their file servers, into the cloud (BOX). I have the Box Shuttle app (Cloud Fast Path - a tool Box acquired and has yet to brand as their own - see my entire post here for reasons as to why that's probably the case.) and I have all 500 gigabytes copied to Box. I'm running delta syncs daily and I can see that there are many users still using the old file servers.

I've repeatedly asked what the hold up is for making the cut-over happen. I keep getting told that "people aren't ready". As it turns out, everyone involved in making decisions on the project never accepts meetings. Their calendars have oodles of free time, but they won't commit any time to it. Sure, one person on PTO here and there, but this is an entire swath of the company dropping off the radar with no PTO, no "West Coast Operations Huddle", nothing. Just fizzles.

Finally, the culture (at least in my own company and circle of friend's companies) is rotting. No expectation of excellence, no attention to detail, no spark or drive for accomplishment. Why? What the holy hell happened?

As it happens I've also been the liaison between IT and HR for many years here. I, almost single-handedly, facilitate onboarding new hires and making sure that the technology they receive from our department meets the new user where their role hits the real world. This is important to me because I know that if a user doesn't have the technology tools to do the job they were hired to do, that they will find their technology to be more of a hurdle and frustration as opposed to a useful tool to achieve outright victory where ever they're looking to win.

So Human Resources here is lagging on background checks, delays on notifying IT of any incoming hire, outright misspelling names and email addresses. Shit the number of tickets that I've had to push back on because the information IT receives from HR (that should LEGALLY be correct) is bogus or garbage, has ballooned considerably over the last year alone. No one in the HR department ever receives reprimands, recourse, or remedial HR classes for that matter. It's sloppy, lazy, and sluggish work that they're doing now. New hires receive notices late, HR communications go to their personal email even months after the users have asked to have communications go to their work email. Shoot, one user spent over a month waiting on a document so he could buy a house, and HR couldn't be bothered to print anything to PDF for the guy to take to his bank.

I know our HR team is FULL of lazy sloths, but I also know this isn't just my company. It seems like every person I know (ultimate anecdotal evidence I get it) and talk to is having the same problem. Corporate culture and corporate excellence all seem to be melting into a pool of icky dreck. No one cares.

How can this be prosperous for anyone in the coming years?

What's your experience since the most recent "work remote to stay healthy" became a thing?

quote:

One of my coworkers, on my team, rolled in at 9:40 this AM and he only lives 10m away. No one, and I mean NO ONE, will challenge him on this. No one will ask what the first two hours of his salaried day looked like. No one cares, except maybe me.

The bold section is the key part... He's a salaried employee.

The real question here is: "Are his work tasks getting done?" (And that's a question for his boss, not his coworker.)

A salaried position means you work until the work is done. This can often mean working over 8 hours a day/40 hours a week without overtime pay, but the flip side is that there are times when you have the flexibility to work less than 8 hours per day/40 hours per week, provided all the work is being completed.

In addition to all of those concerns, I've been waiting for all of these municipalities to start getting more interested in charging companies with at home employees for permits to do so.

Many places around the country have a permit (with associated fee) for conducting business out of a residential address.

With as lazy as people seem to be getting nowadays, I don't see it being sustainable. Work ethic seems to be more of a an attribute of previous generations.

I lived in Italy for several years, courtesy of Uncle Sam. The Italians would siesta every business day and IIRC, it was between noon and as late as 3 PM. What you describe reminded me of the siesta. I guess more and more people in this country are losing sight of what once was called a work ethic.

I run a program where everyone is remote.

I expect everyone to be available 9-5 if someone rejected a meeting during business hours without good reason, I would either fire them or have them moved off my team.

Firing would be up to HR, not my job.

On the flip side, I don't care what they do all day if my deliverables are met and we are on time and on budget.

We are on time and on budget, my client is happy and my bosses are happy and no one cares what I do all day as long as we stay on time and on budget.

As a fellow IT Pro I fully understand the concern.
Remote work should be an extension of the job not a replacement.
Additionally it improves collaboration and communication.
I always enjoyed working remotely but recognize the discipline of going into an office is more productive.
Sometimes you need to compromise based on circumstances but it is hard to be the same cohesive, productive team when nobody is together.
A lot does depend on the nature of the job and business too.
You can't beat good fundamentals of business and remote work 'just because' is not one.

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:
In addition to all of those concerns, I've been waiting for all of these municipalities to start getting more interested in charging companies with at home employees for permits to do so.

Many places around the country have a permit (with associated fee) for conducting business out of a residential address.

I ran my company out of my residence for around 20+ years and the town required a permit to do this legally, so I did. Wasn't bad, though, $35.00/year and they didn't want any traffic in and out of the house, which worked fine for me.

quote:

I know our HR team is FULL of lazy sloths

Isn't that the truth.

I know someone who picked up a second job because it is so lax at their original job. Probably works approx the same total hours but gets two paychecks.

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Originally posted by 1s1k:
I know someone who picked up a second job because it is so lax at their original job. Probably works approx the same total hours but gets two paychecks.

I know several IT software engineer guys that are doing this. They are working for more than one Tech company at the same time since there is little to no oversight. If and when they have a big deadline at one company and need to buckle down, they have taken personal leave from the other company in order to meet the project deadline. Otherwise they aren’t putting in anywhere near 40 hours at either company.
They claim they are in the drivers seat as there aren’t enough software people, and if management asks them to come in to the office full time, they just threaten to leave and the tech companies are scared of losing workers.
It’s not my field of work, but there are a lot of them doing this in my neighborhood.

Lots of people have been working remote since long before the recent hysteria.

I believe it’s all about personal work ethic. I do what it takes to get my job done because that’s what expected - for me to do my job.

If I can get it done in 7 hours that’s great. But sometimes it takes 9 or 10.

I don’t commute to an office. No wasted time in traffic. I don’t spend money on gas or meals away from home which are unreimbursable. That’s money in my pocket. I do t get gouged to park my car. And I don't have to fight traffic to come home at the end of the day.

I’ve been working remote for almost 8 years now and other than some personal discipline, I have my home office and at 5pm I close the door and that room doesn’t exist until 8am the next day.

For the better part of 15 years I lived to work. Nights and weekends. No one cared. Finally I just work normal business hours. No one cares. I now have a life that doesn’t revolve around a job.

If we don't need a gathering place for the ‘social’ aspect and the water cooler gossip, why pay rent on a building?

Is the company profitable? No longer my problem as I’m no longer an owner. I really don’t care. I’m not being paid to care. Do I reject meeting invites? Yes all the time. If I’m not going to get anything out of it, then it’s a waste of my time. Send me the cliff notes. I even reject attending 30 minute video calls once a month for company updates. I’m not interested in listening to the sales team pat themselves on the back telling each other how great they are. I don’t watch the academy awards on tv, this is just the same thing. I no longer care.

My day is 8 hours long, not 11 hours. You want more? Pay me more. But I’ve decided to have a life and the company will survive with or without.

I think working remote is the best thing to ever happen and should have been the norm once computers came into the mainstream.

I do Program Management and work from home for the bulk of my time.

A couple points: Fixed Facilities costs are decreased when 80% of your work force are at-home employees.

I like to show my status as "offline" in order to get work completed.

If I need to visit a supplier, I contact them, cancel meetings as required, and go.

Many folks have shifted to unique hours. Ie., present for the six core hours, knock off for dinner, then work an additional four hours in the evening. Rinse and repeat the next day.

A decrease in the commute time allow the employee to be better rested too.

Overall, we (I am in one of the Big Three aerospace companies) are seeing a decrease in costs and schedule for about 10% of the projects.

I does require discipline on the individuals' parts but as noted, my company is seeing the dedication

My company has really started to crack down on the remote/WFH thing as I think they found out a lot of people abused it during the pandemic and the people that run the facilities started to panic because without butts in seats, they will start losing square footage and buildings.

What’s really ironic is I recently found out that our (government) customer, many of them are still on WFH and have no desire/intention of coming back in to the office as long as the DOD lets them do it.

Managing WFH en bulk is a new thing. I suspect companies will be implementing more metrics based management systems as this continues. Put the points on the board and a worker is fine. Not, and they'll have problems. Think Amazon's strategy.

And let's not pretend that there aren't big savings in this for the companies. Not having to rent and maintain as much office space will reduce their expenses considerably. Being able to hire lower cost workers from cheaper areas, without having to set up a physical location there could also be a big win. And WFH is popular, so offering it can get them a bigger worker pool to choose from.

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:
In addition to all of those concerns, I've been waiting for all of these municipalities to start getting more interested in charging companies with at home employees for permits to do so.

Many places around the country have a permit (with associated fee) for conducting business out of a residential address.

This shit really frosts my biscuits. I have always understood the reasons for this if I had a physical address for the conduct of business with the public.

I am completely at sea as to why this is appropriate if I conduct business from my home. With a physical location used by the public, I put certain strains on public infrastructure, and am obligated to certain public safety, and public accommodation laws, and my facilities can be inspected to ensure compliance with these things. Think, ADA, etc. But so long as I don't see the public at my home location, or otherwise affect the public space (noise, light, dust, smells, etc.) the public, and therefore the .gov has no interest.

There is no difference to the state, county or municipality if I am typing a post on SigForum or writing an email to a client. The various levels of .gov have no interest in what I do in my own home, unless those activities somehow otherwise affect the public. [/rant]

I knew folks in previous jobs who were working two salaried jobs from home. One had to choose which job she wanted to keep and which she wanted to lose when both jobs required her to be at company events on opposite coasts on the same days. Another guy, who was exceeding his goals, stalled and dodged his boss's multiple requests to come visit him and go on client visits together. She finally flew out there and door knocked him one day. Not home. She called and he said he was at his desk. She told him to come to the front door. He was on the beach somewhere else. Fired. But he was above 100% of goal.

For what it's worth, one of my clients that is an application developer, reports greater productivity from their dev staff then when they had a physical space, and have only leased temporary conference room space for meetings with clients and teams, and have not gone back to the office.

I.e., the combination of reduced cost and enhanced productivity has directly benefited their bottom line.

The other thing I did to make life much more pleasant is I removed my work email from my phone. The company doesn’t pay for my phone, they stopped subsidizing my costs for it. So in response my emails goes to my computer and if I’m away, we’ll it sucks but why should I have to foot the costs for a multi-million dollar company? You want communications, then pay for it. Cost of doing business.

As a “remote worker” for nearly 25 years… All I can say is it isn’t for everybody. It requires a special personality. I also spent a lot of time on an airplane because business needs to be done face-to-face.


But as others have mentioned, it was all deliverables-based and I managed myself. My bosses were always at least 1000 miles away.