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https://arstechnica.com/features/2020/08/ars-readers-take-on-the-present-and-future-of-work/
Over the past few weeks, we've been talking about how best to manage the current state of work and what companies will need to do in the near and not-too-distant future to adjust to post-pandemic reality. As expected, our readers had some opinions on these topics, too—ranging from insightful to inciteful.
So, in the interest of better surfacing the wisdom of our particular crowd, I've curated some of the thoughts of the Ars community on the topics of working better from home and what our shared experiences have taught us about the future of collaboration technology and the future nature of the corporate office. As always, we hope you'll share additional wisdom in the comments here, as they may guide some future coverage on issues related to the realities of future work.
[...]
Aside from responding with protests of post-traumatic stress after I mentioned Lotus Notes in our article on the future of collaboration, our readers had some on-point thoughts on the current strengths and weaknesses of collaboration technology—particularly in the face of current circumstances. And one of the problems is collaborating across companies effectively.
[...]
Other readers noted that work-from-home wasn't an option for them, but only because of management's whims. RCook wrote that his employer had brought everyone back into the office, "partly because we're located in Iowa where the Pandemic didn't happen according to our Governor and partly because the company President has some stupid control issues."
[....]
However, the company president is working from home. And while RCook "made sure the IT infrastructure was ready and capable of handling the [work-from-home] VPN load" during the company's initial lockdown, "I was actually asked at one point how management could effectively spy on employees to gauge productivity."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @03:16PM (1 child)
Without HR, who would Fwd: you emails about online training? Who would hand you the promotion packet to be filled in yourself? Who would return said packet requesting you to reorder the time-line from earliest-latest (or whichever the other way is from what you've done)? Who else would refuse to let you leave blank the section on Contributions to Diversity? And Community Outreach? And how you have accomplished the department's aspirational message?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday August 26 2020, @05:53PM
All true and good points, but that's why you have to apply to lots of places and pass over the annoying ones. That and do your best to connect with actual employees at said company. I've had some pretty inspiring coaching from jobsearch experts who give many ways to find out who works in a given company, and often you have some common acquaintance or ex-coworker. LinkedIn is supposed to help with that, and they do, but I've refused to join since the beginning because I saw it as spying. That and someone, I don't know who, started a profile for me there, but it was lame, and I had no control of it. I tried to contact LinkedIn and guess what- big surprise- there's no phone number! There's NO street address! There's an online form that gets ignored, and I'm going back 13 years or so. Now that M$ p0wns I mean owns them, I know not to trust them.