Snap is ordering employees back to the office 4 days a week

https://fortune.com/2022/11/29/snap-return-to-office-four-days-a-week-memo-evan-spiegel-default-together/

by wootland • 4 years ago

33 39 4 years ago

hunglee2• 4 years ago

mission creep always the risk with hybrid. Best workers can hope for (outside of the US) is a compromise to a 4 day week on 5 day pay. Looks like a decent number of UK companies will end up doing this

dbish4• 4 years ago

Remote is only going to be the new normal for a few companies in the end based on these trends. Mostly in office is on the way back and it’s no longer a seller’s market so companies have more power to make these demands. Especially for smaller companies, I think in person has a lot of value to move fast and build a deeply connected culture that I have not seen remotely or even hybrid if hybrid is only a day or two a week.

autotune3• 4 years ago

Going to need some stats on that. Every gig I applied to in the last two job searches was fully remote. The gig I landed on this last month is fully remote. It is still easy to ignore the low paying, contract, in office nonsense from employers who think they have the upper hand right now.

dbish4• 4 years ago

All the big tech are heading this way. I don’t have stats on small companies, but I would bet on the in office startups any day over the remote ones in 99% of the cases. https://twitter.com/sama/status/1590832457431281668

claudiulodro• 4 years ago

For senior specialist tech roles, I think remote is here to stay. There simply aren't enough qualified people for e.g. a whole team of smart TV developers or even really good WordPress developers in any one mid-size city.

badpun• 4 years ago

The premise is that, these specialists will have to move to the few cities where jobs requiring given rare specialty are concentrated. That’s how it works in the non-tech job world already.

vineyardmike• 4 years ago

I don’t know if I agree fully…

I do think that “remote work” is the new “satellite office”. If you’re a walk street bank, why open a NJ office for low-importance work when you could just hire remotely.

But I’m not convinced there is a willingness to return to office. Snap, the company in question, isn’t in good shape. Can they attract enough talent willing to be in office?

I vaguely agree that “for smaller companies, I think in person has a lot of value to move fast and build a deeply connected culture”. But the issue seems to be with getting any big corp back.

If you pay enough, people will move to you. We’ve seen that across all of human history. But can you pay more than remote companies? Do you gain enough productivity to offset the cost (either salary or missed talent)? If you hire a mixed team, you hired a remote team.

asdff4• 4 years ago

What a great loss to the environment then forcing all of this commuting and useless office building construction and maintenance. I will never forget how crystal clear the air was during lockdown, and how these supposed 'thought leaders' have forced us away from that.

angryasian2• 4 years ago

it was a great loss to a lot of things. people's personal mental heath, family time, ability to move to areas with affordable housing, a dissemination of people & money to states that need diversity, overall its a big loss

spookthesunset• 4 years ago

I dunno why anybody thought otherwise. This whole Covid thing was a temporary measure. Society will revert right back to the mean… even if some people go kicking and screaming back.

Grimburger• 4 years ago

it’s no longer a seller’s market

US unemployment is at historical lows, some people really lose sight of the bigger picture and get caught up in news headlines.

In my country everywhere is clamouring for workers.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate

adam_arthur• 4 years ago

I think quite the opposite.

Over time the companies that force in-person work will find it much more difficult to hire and retain talent vs those that optimize for a remote first workforce.

I mean the efficiency gain in broadening hiring pool, not having to do relo packages, smaller office footprint, cost of commuting, lower comp/higher QoL are just far too great.

Nobody wants to be trapped in the bay area and forced to pay $2m for a house an hour away from their office. They largely did it begrudgingly (myself included)

orangepurple• 4 years ago

It's the new way to do layoffs

Tepix• 4 years ago

My thoughts exactly.

yucky• 4 years ago

I wonder if that says more about the companies or the employees.

postalrat• 4 years ago

The better way. Get people who want to work in the office together and get people who want to work from home away from the office.

otagekki2• 4 years ago

Sort of.

If remote is efficient, they'll outsource the position to a low-income country.

If remote is not efficient, they'll urge people to go back to office and whoever fails to comply will be let go.

clpm4j• 4 years ago

I don't think it's that straightforward. Remote US employees are not (in any scenario I've witnessed or been part of) equivalent to Remote Low-income Country employees. A person who previously worked in Snap's LA office who relocated to, say Scottsdale, is likely still going to be a much more valuable employee than an offshore person.

compiskey2• 4 years ago

Timezones and language barriers eat into the profits fast.

What’s with the idea though that 300 million people can just be ignored? Me thinks you’ve let yourself get lost in the economic philosophy and detached from reality.

There is no just shutting down the US economy because economists can’t make fiat currency math work. Such ideas are ludicrous.

tylerhou• 4 years ago

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33781563

kbcool• 4 years ago

Snap is trying to generate headlines in a desperate attempt to stay relevant.

This has nothing to do with WFH. Just a sorry attempt at trying to piggyback on Musk's just as desperate attempt to get attention with his 996 proclamation.

angryasian2• 4 years ago

Snap is struggling they are under $10 now. Ending WFH wouldn't be the right move to recruit talent.

coolbreezetft22• 4 years ago

I've been wanting to go back to the office, at least part of the week, as I feel pretty isolated and detached from my team and miss some of the traditional office amenities like coffee and nearby restaurants. But every time I tell myself I'm gonna go to the office I never follow through. By the time I drop my kids off at school I'm just like "ahh f it, don't feel like commuting 30-40 min" and I end up working from home. Ultimately the conveniences of wfh for someone with family responsibilities are tough to shake now that I've gotten into this habit

yrgulation• 4 years ago

Farm the cattle back to the stables.

Snap is ordering employees back to the office 4 days a week

Related Stories