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When I was hired, my firm had its main office in the suburbs. I felt pretty good about the location and environment and purchased a house nearby. At that time, many employees and managers lived in the area. Since then, the firm has changed hands, and the original office space, as part of an ineffectual cost-saving move, has been reduced in half. Ineffectual because the new lease no longer included utilities. The "savings" were spent opening a new office in the city, and a bunch of young sales hires were made for a small bullpen type office. There are no cubicles in the city, and the few offices are reserved for a handful of lucky first movers. Now they are looking for cost savings again. The firm's plan is to shut down the office in suburbia because "having everyone in the same location inspires the best ideas."
Can someone point to some research (e.g., from HBR [Harvard Business Review] or similar) indicating that R&D teams may be best served by being in distraction-free environments separated from the gossip and hubbub of sales? Or that accommodating workers who want to be away from the city may save on labor expenses and employee turnover?
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday August 16 2017, @10:41PM
If they cared about constructive feedback, they would have asked for it in advance. Unless you're absolutely sure you can reach out in private to a manager that's high enough up the chain to reverse this move, there's nothing for you to gain from opposing this in the open. Either play it safe by saying nothing or take a little risk by supporting management by saying it won't hurt trying for a few weeks:
Openly resisting the move will only win you the hate of sales and most of management since no one rewards an "I told you so". However, supporting the move, bidding your time, and handing over your resignation a few weeks later over personal reasons once it's clear the move is finalized and conditions are truly intolerable will leave you with some decent references citing what a great team player you are and how sorry they are to see you leave the company.
Overall, good ideas are rewarded but uselessly opposing bad ideas won't win you any friends or benefits. If you want to play it safe then just say nothing.
p.s. A more likely explanation for this terrible decision is that management are aware it's a bad idea. But either want to placate someone in sales by giving it a try or are working their own angle: That's to say, once the complaints from both the devs and sales build up as productivity takes a dive, they'll step in to mitigate between the two camps and save the day by offering a "compromise" at the expense of the devs and possibly even sales.
Alternatively, they're planning to outsource development and won't need an in-house dev team... But that's not worth considering since there's nothing anyone can do about it :/
compiling...