Ask HN: Why aren't more UK companies offering WFH friendly jobs?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36964614

6 13 3 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'm a software developer in London and am looking to change jobs for the sole reason that my employer forces me to be in the office 3 days a week. However, looking at the job market, there are still many jobs advertising roles with a minimum of 3 days a week in the office. I'm very surprised by this.

I had naively assumed that in a capitalist economy (where the thing that businesses/employers apparently care the most about is making more money) that WFH would be popular with employers.

If I were an employer, I'd be thinking that the following things would help me make more money:

1. Some employees may be more productive WFH. This is based on my own personal view and skimming through the top results on Google for statistics wfh employee productivity - https://www.google.com/search?q=statistics+wfh+employee+productivity.

2. Increase employee retention.

3. Attract job seekers/steal good employees from other companies.

4. Office space is expensive and if employees are WFH more then we could cut down on office space (albeit after the current contract runs out).

WFH is also good for the environment, but that may not be a priority for an employer who only cares about money and for whose business Public Relations (PR) isn't a key factor. So, I have left that out of the list above.

The only plausible counter argument I have heard is that employers may lose tax breaks from the government if they don't force employees into the city where they might spend some money. But, I have not seen any evidence for this line of argument. Then again, wouldn't the government then be afraid of losing voters for this kind of policy.

I know my personal biases may be preventing me from seeing the facts. So, I'd particularly love to hear from people in leadership roles/recruiters or people otherwise in the know about why making employees go to the office is so important for employers.

It can't just be blind belief that the next big idea is going to come from water cooler talk, could it?

necovek2• 3 years ago

Answers to your questions are in the questions themselves.

Yes, some people will be more productive WFH. Some will be less productive.

While I enjoyed remote work for 15+ years, I've looked for a hybrid environment in 2022: lockdowns really burned me out (it's one thing to be remote and then travel the world for team meetups a few times a year, and another to be remote period).

Now leading a team of people in combination of work setups (WFH, in office, in another office remote), it's clear that you need a big enough office for your entire team for when they do show up, whatever team gets most of their members showing up in the office, starts having WFH members excluded from conversations, decision making and even social events. The solution is mostly to behave as if you are fully remote.

So some of the benefits you list do not really exist: you have to keep paying the office space, yet you also lose the high bandwidth of in person communication even for people sat next to each other (or you start excluding people who are not).

Basically, one could look only for people who need no daily interaction with their colleagues, but that goes exactly against your 2 and 3.

CollegeSea95182• 3 years ago

Yes, some people will be more productive WFH. Some will be less productive.

Agreed. Which is why some office space is good.

it's clear that you need a big enough office for your entire team for when they do show up

That may be true for small companies - although equally they could all just go to the same shared space. For large companies though, this is not true. A company with 1000 employees could do a poll to understand what's the max office space they might need at any one time and add a buffer on top. Alternatively, they could have policies whereby team A and B shows up on Mondays, team C and E shows up on Tuesdays etc.

faangiq• 3 years ago

It’s a jobs program for middle managers.

bruce5112• 3 years ago

I'm an employer.

While your points are valid, they are only part of the picture.

Firstly, to answer your question directly, there are lots of companies that have adopted full remoteness. They have no offices, and everything happens online. These companies (collectivly) hire tens of thousands of workers.

Naturally remote means their workers can live anywhere. And it turns out that people who can live cheaper will work for lower salaries. Salaries that are a tenth of what you need.

So yes, there are lots of remote jobs, but they are not being advertised in London. If you're going to live in London (one of the more expensive places) then you should be trading hard on your proximity to office not full remoteness. Being fully remote, but needing a London salary is the worst possible combination for an employer.

Now, to your point about the advantages of bring in the office. We were 100% office before Covid, 100% remote with really short notice, and since lockdown ended a sort of hybrid (most people at home most of the time.)

We've had to keep our office space. Partly for lease reasons , partly because space in our building is hard to get so giving it up is a very permanent decision we're not ready to take yet.

It's hard to demand folk to come back (time and commute cost) but at the same time I can see the negative effects being remote is having on people. Productivity is fine, but professional growth is non existent. Product knowledge is hard to disseminate and its hard to figure out where people lack knowledge and skills.

In other words its easier face to face to see where people are struggling, where they are bored, where processes are hurting not helping. It's harder to identify leadership potential. It's easy to ignore promotions or even know who wants them.

Remote work turns workers into a commodity, and really that's not good for either side.

I say all this not to convince you of anything, merely to point out that the issue is a lot more nuanced than you're seeing.

CollegeSea95182• 3 years ago

So yes, there are lots of remote jobs, but they are not being advertised in London. If you're going to live in London (one of the more expensive places) then you should be trading hard on your proximity to office not full remoteness. Being fully remote, but needing a London salary is the worst possible combination for an employer.

Yeah, that's a fair point. I do also plan on moving away from London once I have a more remote friendly role. But, yes, will have to adjust my expectations on pay.

Product knowledge is hard to disseminate

I haven't felt that. I think the combination of documentation, and being able to video conference my teammates is equivalent to seeing them in person and having the same conversation to share knowledge.

its hard to figure out where people lack knowledge and skills.

Wouldn't these sort of things be evident in a weekly 1:1 with manager and in conversations on a team channel etc.

It's easy to ignore promotions or even know who wants them.

Again these are things I'd speak with my manager on a weekly basis regardless of whether we were in a room or on a call.

Overall, I feel like the latter points could be easily addressed by establishing communication mechanisms that don't rely on physical monitoring of a person.

bruce5112• 3 years ago

> Overall, I feel like the latter points could be easily addressed by establishing communication mechanisms that don't rely on physical monitoring of a person.

You're certainly not alone in feeling this way. But communications online and inoffice are different.

For example, when I skype an employee there's an automatic formality to it. "The boss is calling". If I bump into an employee in the office (even if I deliberately bumped) it's a lot more relaxed. They can read my body language and I can read theirs.

I'm not saying we can't communicate online clearly we do. But the quality of the communication is impaired.

Regarding promotions, there's formal stuff (you've been here 6 weeks so you're now a senior developer) and the informal (hmm new project coming up, I'm wondering who to make team leader..) In the latter case it's easier to choose someone you know, have observed, seen their interactions with teammates etc.)

That doesn't mean you have to be in the office, but its really hard to do the informal stuff over the Internet. And that stuff -really- matters.

mejutoco• 3 years ago

Being fully remote, but needing a London salary is the worst possible combination for an employer.

Salary is only one of the axes. Qualifications is another one. You can get the same qualified candidate for less salary, or you could get a much more qualified candidate for the same salary.

screwturner684• 3 years ago

Here's my take on WFH in general, I've been WFH for over 22 years so I have a little perspective. One thing we learned from Covid is that remote learning has pretty poor results, ask any school teacher and they will tell you that their students lost a step or two during the lock down. Why do I bring up learning, because that's what is expected of all entry level employees their job is to learn the job and it's very hard to do via zoom calls. Even seasoned workers need to learn the new job and pre-WFH the general consensus was that it two 6 months for a new employee to be useful, I would venture to guess that time has now doubled and that is really expensive. Finally since the senior people are also WFH they have a lot less interaction with the new people and because of this a lot of their institutional knowledge is not being passed down as in the past. This used to be pretty informal, seniors would invite juniors to join them for lunch and now this informal mentoring is gone.

Last thing as others have mentioned, because their is no longer a location requirement it's opened up lots of work but it's also increase the pool of available workers and for those of us who live in expensive countries we have a massive disadvantage, why hire someone for 100K when you can hire someone for 20K. I deal with this internally every day where I have to meet or beat or offshore teams to do the same service, what makes you ten times better than the guy charging ten times less.

necovek2• 3 years ago

I think you are right on average about learning, but I am sure you have learned a lot from your colleagues in 22 years of WFH: I sure did in my 15+ years.

I think the main difference is between fully remote companies and semi-remote, semi-colocated employees: this is probably the worst of all worlds (depending on the distribution of people who are remote and who's in office).

Having recently moved into an office, the one thing I hate the most is lack of a personal office (open space, urgh): moving away from my desk and back the whole day for any calls with people outside the office. I might as well take one of those "phone booths" to myself.

screwturner684• 3 years ago

I do consulting so I often go to customer's offices but I haven't seen one of my companies offices in about 6 years, I enjoy a little office time every now and then. That said, the "open office" and the hot desking is a nightmare, no wonder people want to work from home it's like working at the airport.

I'm going to add one more thing and that is that (at least in my 20's and early 30's) work was very social, lots of friendships were fostered over beers after work. I know statistically 1/3 of all people meet their mate at work so socially not going to work is really a bad thing -maybe that's why every 20 something is so lonely and hate their jobs so much, it's all work and it didn't used to be that way/

moneywoes• 3 years ago

How do you show that value Over off shore candidates?

screwturner684• 3 years ago

Mostly I do it by getting the job done significantly faster. I help with our bidding and usually the off shore team bids want 3-4 times as many hours as I would take. I just had one project on my desk this week and they said it was going to take 4 months and I came back and said I could do it with 2 weeks of prep and two long weekends onsite.

My company is very much opposed to doing onsite work but it's often cheaper to send me onsite than it is for me to build and configure my equipment at my house and have it shipped so I have the benefit of "touch". It's a constant fight but I have 7 years left so I might make it across the finish line but I'd guess the odds are 50/50

Ask HN: Why aren't more UK companies offering WFH friendly jobs?

Related Stories