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An interesting article over at PCMag that is worth the read as this brief summary cannot do the topics justice. It discusses the issues with getting employees back into the office after two years of working remotely.
[...] The 2022 Microsoft Work Trend Index reported that 50% of mid-level managers said their companies are making plans to return to in-person work five days a week in the year ahead, but 52% of employees are considering going hybrid or remote.
[...] While the pandemic has exposed the many challenges of working remotely, it has also made the benefits clear. People are unwilling to lose hours of their day to the things they find most frustrating about work, such as commuting and the drudgery of office life. [...]
[...] While offices are a collective place of work, they're experienced individually. And for some individuals, that experience is not as welcoming as it is for others. This is reflected in women, people of color, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and those with disabilities being less inclined to want to return to the office than others.
[...] In-office employees have found themselves spending time commuting only to sit in an office and spend the day not interacting with anyone there and having a Zoom meeting or two. Meanwhile, those still working remote can feel ignored when they're logged on to a Zoom meeting and see their colleagues in a conference room having side conversations that they're not a part of.
[...] There have been some unpleasant new realities faced by those returning to the office. Lots of workplace perks have disappeared in the pandemic. Fully stocked kitchens are a lot barer since they have to feed a much smaller fraction of a workforce. Free gym memberships didn't make much sense when gyms were closed and the benefit at some companies didn't return when their doors reopened.
[...] But there are some perks that have evolved into ones more suited to remote work. Companies, particularly at the beginning of the pandemic, set up stipends to outfit home offices. Childcare, which has always been a concern for working parents, became more of one. And benefits have expanded to include longer paid leave for parents, more flexible schedules, backup childcare services, and even tutoring stipends. [...]
[...] Companies would do well to set up an outreach system for employees of all levels to really check in on their individual needs and concerns. Forego formal surveys for a more human touch of a one-on-one chat by phone or Slack. Because no matter how remote we might be from one another in our workplaces at present, we've all lived through a trying time and could benefit from some connection.
Have your working environments changed, and if so, has it been for the better or worse (or neither)?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by IndigoFreak on Tuesday May 10 2022, @02:11PM (12 children)
You might not benefit from face to face interactions, but work culture, is not built around you.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Barenflimski on Tuesday May 10 2022, @02:21PM (8 children)
I always hear this. "Work Culture." What on earth is that?
Every single place, and I've worked at a lot of them as an employee and a consultant, is the same, boring, generic, vanilla culture, striving to 'do better.' Ugh. Typically what that means is you get some ass clown who thinks they're god who calls themself the C-level something, SVP something, or even director something and then dictates to everyone else how to act so it makes them happy. To fix that, you get agile, which just eats up valuable time with ridiculous checkins.
Every office I go to strives to be the same; Don't bug me and I don't bug you. Don't stink and I'll try not to stink for you. Don't talk politics or religion and we won't fire you. Here is another list of things you shan't do, and then we'll review the way you acted and find umpteen reasons why you'll either be put on the list to leave immediately or won't get another raise.
Work culture? Total bullshit once you've aged out of thinking that work is an extension of your college days.
(Score: 2) by IndigoFreak on Tuesday May 10 2022, @02:32PM (4 children)
Work culture: "Work culture is a collection of attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that make up the regular atmosphere in a work environment." I googled it for you. Companies do differ in work culture. If you look at Wells Fargo a few years ago, their sales work culture said it was ok to sign people up for programs that customers never ask for or wanted, or were even informed that they were now getting. It was(may still be) a culture of hit your metrics by any means necessary.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Tuesday May 10 2022, @02:42PM (2 children)
So if the attitudes, believes and behaviours, and hence the atmosphere, suck and are actually toxic to the people having to endure it, maybe it should be aired out for something more suitable?
(Score: 2) by IndigoFreak on Tuesday May 10 2022, @02:50PM (1 child)
If that is the case, then yes. It would be appropriate to change the work culture.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Tuesday May 10 2022, @03:52PM
You actually know a company where that isn't the case?
And, are they hiring?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Barenflimski on Tuesday May 10 2022, @03:05PM
Makes me feel better that you had to look that up too. I was starting to feel like maybe I missed something in my 400 years on planet earth.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Mykl on Tuesday May 10 2022, @11:52PM (2 children)
I'm a people manager, and work culture is a big thing for me.
According to research and my own personal experience, people don't want to just work for the highest paycheck (though that is of course an important factor). They want to be a part of something, to feel that their work matters AND IS APPRECIATED, and that their workplace cares for them and supports them. These are not things that just happen automatically - you have to work at this to make them happen. Perhaps the companies you've worked for have all been the same, but there is definitely a big difference in work culture between employers. Micro-management vs autonomy. After-work drinks vs pay-your-own. Guided training and career paths vs hiring and firing based on the supply and demand of the day. Work a balanced day vs more hours are better! There are many other aspects like that that combine to create a culture.
Most of my team work for our clients either remotely or at the clients' site, so it's super-important for us to keep our people connected in a positive way. This is much harder to do when everyone is working remotely. At the moment I'm walking the tightrope of encouraging people back in without forcing them.
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Wednesday May 11 2022, @03:28AM
I appreciate your view from a managers perspective. I think you might be a manager I'd hire.
We run our shops in such a way that either you're self sufficient which means that for the most part you follow the project plan you and your PM work out. If we attain this, we are perfect. Our motto might as well be, "You do you. Just make sure you're smart at the meetings."
Cheers! Good luck.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday May 11 2022, @10:53AM
I guess I'm easy to please in this regard. To make me feel appreciated, give me a task that I'm good at (since that overlaps mostly with my job description, that's fairly easy to do), make sure the red tape that I hate to deal with is out of the way (you know, that whole "human interaction" thing managers like so much), make sure I have the resources I need to do my job, and fend off all the distractors that try to get in between me and my work.
If you do that, it shows me you appreciate my time and energy enough to ensure I can put it to the best effect and I can produce the best product possible.
I have such a manager at my disposal and he is the reason I work here. It certainly ain't the paycheck.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Tuesday May 10 2022, @02:40PM
You might want to explain "work culture" to me. Because it obviously is neither built around me, nor any of my coworkers, so who the fuck is it built around?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @03:17PM
How many other people disagree though? My job involves a lot of redoing what the other incompetent morons leave me to deal with. Working from home, leaving work for me would be a challenge.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 11 2022, @11:28AM
My experience of "work culture" is that first and foremost it is about enabling office politicians who create nothing to stomp on and distract the people who do the work to keep the company running. Some examples of this:
1. Pulling lots of productive employees into pointless meetings.
2. Convincing higher-ups to make stupid process changes without justification.
3. Demanding hours of reporting and other extra work for the sole purpose of providing a 10-second argument in a meeting somewhere that they should do things their way.
4. When a productive employee or team does something cool, office politicians rush to send out an email thanking them for it to a very large number of people so it looks like they had something to do with it. If they're really good at this, the productive employee / team gets no credit at all for what they just did, affecting who gets raises or promotions out of it.
But first and foremost, "work culture" is about putting on a front that is both bland and cheery: Nobody has opinions on anything more consequential than professional sports, and everyone pretends that their life is good even if they're screaming on the inside.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.