As a side note, it does feel really good telling recruiters I'm not interested in a job with an on-site requirement and hearing their disappointment because it's the Xth time this week they've received the same feedback from other potential recruits.
offshoring roles to Málaga, [Spain], Romania, India, and other countries, and having some colleagues on legacy contracts based at home in the UK
I share your sentiment, also I can actually show you what I mean on two separate screens, rather than us huddle over a tiny desk pointing my pudgy fingers at something and hoping you remember.On the topic of in-person networking -- you can't network if you don't interact. As a junior employee, I tended not to reach out to superiors, even down the hall, for fear of interrupting them, looking foolish, etc. Sure, that's a Me problem, but I don't think it's that uncommon.
Now that I WFH, reaching out to someone on Teams is so much easier. I don't feel like I'm interrupting, I can take time to frame my questions clearly, and I can see our conversation history. It's so much more compatible with my workstyle, and I believe it would have worked for me when starting out as well.
These days we have Teams and Zoom, and with the right culture (that ensures there's frequent calls, no formality and good documentation), there's no reason someone should miss out on that regardless.I'm torn on RTO value. On the one hand, I've been working from home for a decade now, and have turned down job offers with even partial in-office requirements since. On the other hand, the first 7 years of my career were in an office setting and I would not have survived in my field had I not had the positive influence of a few mentors who eventually became peers who guided me and pushed me.
It's just different when you're remote, and I don't think I'd recommend it for many who are just starting out in their career. But now that I'm established, I'm never going back.
You say that but I trained two programming apprentices remotely and they both went on to very good careers. It is entirely down to company environment. If the company embraces Remote working then mentors can be just as effective remotely as they are in person. In fact more so sometimes. For instance I was able to talk to the Apprentices far more than if I was in person as I could just have them on a call while we both independently worked and they could get hold of me all the time. In an office I would likely have been in one of the millions of useless meetings managers put on to make themselves feel important. Or not necessarily able to speak so candidly due to office politics. I even worked in one office where talking was banned!! (Total silence is strangely oppressive).I'm torn on RTO value. On the one hand, I've been working from home for a decade now, and have turned down job offers with even partial in-office requirements since. On the other hand, the first 7 years of my career were in an office setting and I would not have survived in my field had I not had the positive influence of a few mentors who eventually became peers who guided me and pushed me.
It's just different when you're remote, and I don't think I'd recommend it for many who are just starting out in their career. But now that I'm established, I'm never going back.
My first thought was work the last 8 days of a month and the first 8 days of the next month in office, then WFH for the next 5 weeks, and repeat. It's not ideal if you want full WFH but not a terrible trade. It'd be better if I could work the weekend days so I don't need those 16 in office days to span four work weeks, but I doubt most employers would be that flexible.Hmmm. 8 days a month? I could come in for 8 straight days and work the rest from home.
Or I could work almost 5 straight months and work the rest of the year from home.
Thank you for this. I was reading through the comment thread, noting the dearth of responses recognizing the eye-watering cost of commuting in the UK, and thinking about how to add it. You got there first.Just for context, a rail season ticket between London and Newbury, the kind of not uncommon London area commute, costs £5857.20 ($7550) per year for 2 days a week and £6356 ($8200) per year for full time. So that's the level of de facto pay cut - add 20% or 40% as it'll come from post tax income (40% if earning more than £50k)
Self imposed recessionGoing into a recession? Probably the cash, unfortunately.
Not if your labor agreement specifies that bonuses are not guaranteed and the amount, or the entire bonus, is contingent on factors that include whether or not you comply with company policies - i.e., a company RTO policy that mandates a minimum number of days per month in the office.Withholding agreed upon compensation is theft.
Well, it's a bit more complicated than that. The main problem is that we have a railway network built for about a million people to commute into London every weekday, and now many people aren't doing it but all the fixed costs remain. So the railway is losing a lot of money, even more than it was losing pre COVID. The ~2-3% profit skimmed off by private operators is in the noise.Thank you for this. I was reading through the comment thread, noting the dearth of responses recognizing the eye-watering cost of commuting in the UK, and thinking about how to add it. You got there first.
Though it should be additionally noted that the escalating expsense of rail commuting in the UK is pretty much a direct consequence of the selling off of previously nationalized rail services to private interests in the Thatcher era, which was, not coincidentally, rooted in a short-sighted "profit first!" mindset very similar to what's now driving the poorly considered RTO policies.
A former coworker used to work at a place (as an engineer) that 70%+ of his compensation was a profit-sharing bonus. He quit after two years because of the inconvenience of taxes and just monthly budgeting. He'd be paid the salary equivalent of $30k a year in the midwest, and then at the end of the year get a $60k+ bonus. They made asphalt plants (the mobile ones), so some years they'd sell only 2 machines and other years they'd sell 10 machines. Often your better off assuming no bonus when weighing job offers.It depends on how reliably the company pays, and how much. At my company you'd give up an average of 21% of your income by not taking the bonus. That includes the worst performance year the company ever had where the bonus paid at 16%, a bunch of years at-target (20%) and quite a few years in which the company overperformed and overpaid the 20%.
Counting card swipes, as you put it, provides hard evidence on non-compliance if management docks the bonus, issues a written warning, or lays off an employee and the affected employee files a complaint with HR or a lawsuit.If you can't tell the difference between RTO employees and "cheaters" without counting the card swipes, does it really matter? Or is it just a power play?
This is false, and actually the opposite of reality.Good, work from home workers have been shown to be less productive. The department of labor has had this information available since it began during COVID. The less productive people at a company don't get bonuses. Bonuses aren't wages, they aren't required to give you a bonus. Now, if you have a contract, and they're withholding something from your contract? Go ahead. However, almost nobody does.
Trying to put off sharing any pricing is pretty common in B2B too - whilst it sounds ridiculous, it's fairly central to "value-based pricing". That's certainly not to say that it is /good/, but it perhaps doesn't stand as an example of your point."Don't point out that we're only as competitive as we actually are, why aren't you lying for us on our behalf!?"
The things HR and management will say can be so absurdly unhinged but they never even bother to self reflect. It's just a regurgitation of exploitative corporate norms that actually harm themselves. Like, the HR employees, personally.
I think about it like this: take a given norm for employer/employee interaction and ask if it would be acceptable in a B2B negotiation setting.
"We won't share salary info until we're pretty sure you'll work with us."
"We won't share product pricing with you until we're already pretty sure you're committed to buying from us."
You'd literally be laughed out of the room (or off the call). It would be considered very unprofessional and would completely burn that bridge.
But for an employer? "You should be so lucky as to get an offer!"
vs "you should be so lucky to get us as a vendor!"
Yeahhhh no.
WRONG.Good, work from home workers have been shown to be less productive.
Sure. Nothing is guaranteed from an employer until the money is in the bank, save for past work done and promised payment for. People would do well to remember that this is the cruel and ruthless world of business where the company rarely cares for the employee anymore.And they make up those standards.
Bonus money isn't real until the check clears. It can be yanked back because the company's financials came in under expectations, or because your division came in under expectations, or because the company expects poor results next year, or because your performance evaluations weren't sufficiently glowing...
Trading work from home for the possible hope of a future bonus payment seems like a lousy deal.
Malicious Compliance.
Everyone come into the office on Monday.