Zoom CEO might have said "employees must return to offices"

[mMontana]

Summary

According to Business Insider, CEO of Zoom, Eric Yuan, should prefere in-company workers, rather than connected via services.

 

 

Quote

"Quite often, you come up with great ideas, but when we are all on Zoom, it's really hard," Yuan said. "We cannot have a great conversation. We cannot debate each other well because everyone tends to be very friendly when you join a Zoom call."

 

My thoughts

If Zoom it's not good enough for Zoom itself, maybe it's not good at all?

 

Sources

https://www.businessinsider.com/zoom-ceo-employees-return-to-office-2023-8

[Holmes108]

28 minutes ago, mMontana said:

My thoughts

If Zoom it's not good enough for Zoom itself, maybe it's not good at all?

 

 

Seems like a bit of a leap. I think often the benefits of having an in person team is immeasurable. Because of that, I think it's very reasonable for any employer to want in person employees. 

 

It will of course vary wildly from industry to industry, company to company, and even team to team. If everyone from the bottom up is happy with remote work, who am I to argue.

 

But somehow, somewhere over the pandemic a certain subset of people got this idea that it should somehow be some sort of "right" to work from home, and I really couldn't disagree more with that mindset.

[mMontana]

Truth most of the times it's in the middle. 

Force you "in place" rather than "from home" can enforce and make you remember who's the boss. Who wants to work, work from any place and do not feel that bad using phone, remote assist tools, videoconferencing, forums and so no.

 

Slackers, instead...

[Fasterthannothing]

13 minutes ago, Holmes108 said:

 

Seems like a bit of a leap. I think often the benefits of having an in person team is immeasurable. Because of that, I think it's very reasonable for any employer to want in person employees. 

 

It will of course vary wildly from industry to industry, company to company, and even team to team. If everyone from the bottom up is happy with remote work, who am I to argue.

 

But somehow, somewhere over the pandemic a certain subset of people got this idea that it should somehow be some sort of "right" to work from home, and I really couldn't disagree more with that mindset.

I agree in some ways. I think a lot of times requiring everyone in the office is the stupidest thing ever. However for  some meetings it is better to be in person however I think it's far from mandatory. Me personally I love hybrid I get to enjoy not commuting my life away, I save gas, I get to live out in the country away from the chaos of the city and I'm able to tolerate a long drive since it's only a few days a week. But if I do feel something needs face to face collaboration I still have those few days in the office to accomplish that.

[Holmes108]

54 minutes ago, Fasterthannothing said:

I agree in some ways. I think a lot of times requiring everyone in the office is the stupidest thing ever. However for  some meetings it is better to be in person however I think it's far from mandatory. Me personally I love hybrid I get to enjoy not commuting my life away, I save gas, I get to live out in the country away from the chaos of the city and I'm able to tolerate a long drive since it's only a few days a week. But if I do feel something needs face to face collaboration I still have those few days in the office to accomplish that.

 

Most of the work from home benefits are obvious, and they are definitely numerous. However I do think people who hate being in the office blind themselves to a lot of the benefits of in person collaboration. If a hybrid model can work, that's an excellent compromise. 

 

My wife works remotely for a company that doesn't have a local office, so it's not an option for her. She personally finds the pros outweigh the cons in her case, but some of the negatives are pretty big.

 

One big one is that she doesn't feel like her manager "knows" her in a way in which they historically would have in an in person environment. There has been more than one occasion where she was mistaken for someone else (in a manner which would not have been good for her), that never could have happened if they interacted face to face every day. The fact that she's caught this a couple times also makes her wonder if it's ever happened without her catching it.

 

No doubt someone will just chalk that up to a bad manager, which can be true to a degree. But the point is it's just one example of many where the dynamics are not just different, but VERY different than an in person, daily collaboration.

 

People just become names on a screen.

 

The more video interaction you can have, the more this particular issue can be mitigated. But not everyone's job can account for video conferencing on a daily or even weekly basis.

 

I'm very very glad to see us moving to a more flexible environment in general. It's fantastic that there are more opportunities than ever to work remotely.  I just think some people have a rather close minded sense of entitlement to these things sometimes. I don't think offices that require (or even just want) an in person team are inherently bad employers, as some would have you believe.

 

Edit: I think that very last sentence basically sums up my entire stance on the subject really. Otherwise though, I think there are lots of benefits to remote work and I'm certainly not against it. I've just seen a lot of Reddit type rage in comments under headlines such as this thread, and that blows my mind.

[Taf the Ghost]

When one of Yahoo's many CEO's came in, they pulled an analysis of the WFH logs and found a lot of employees were not exactly working even their normal hours.  Some job types can work remotely without much issue, but it really depends on the personality types that job class tends to attract.  The employees have to be comfortable working as a remote team, or the work is fundamentally a single person contractor type.

 

The reality for a lot of companies is that employees aren't worth the same salary in a WFH situation.  Team coordination projects can be far slower and lots of little time losses add up when you can't quickly interact with everyone.  It's also a lot harder to manager personnel remotely in a number of industries. (And that's before dealing with the very impersonal nature of most digital communications.)

 

Now, if only high flying companies didn't view having an office in the most expensive commercial real estate locations in the region as a "prime" location, we might start to see a lot more logic involved in dealing with hybrid models, haha.

[Phyntom]

I've worked at my company (A large global bank) for 12 years now. During the pandemic, I chose to move roles and take on a home working role like many people.

 

For me, my office is too far away for me to commute. They have just started to enforce hybrid working policy whereby 60% of your time must be at a work office location. (Doesn't affect people exclusively on homeworking contracts like myself)

 

Whilst home working is the epitome of convenience, I do find it challenging in many ways. 

 

• Productivity - I would summarise I am less focused working from home than I would be in the office, as there is always the potential for distractions. (If you live alone, this may not be an issue)
• Social element - I cannot emphasise enough how vital this is to the lifeblood of a workforce. It helps form relationships with colleagues and connect on a level that you simply cannot do digitally. This is one I've struggled with most over the last 3 years, I do not feel as personally connected with my team or manager...
• Collaboration - whilst connecting digitally means everybody is effectively one email, or zoom call away. It doesn't feel the same. Messages are sent and received differently, sometimes out of context and it usually takes far, far longer to get something done when you can't just have a face to face chat or get together with your team.

I think hybrid working is the way forward. It allows people who want the best of both worlds to win. Of course, there's always going to be outliers and people who need exclusively homeworking, but companies are now seeing that most job roles will benefit from face to face interactions. If I could logistically commute to the office 3 days a week, I would love that.

[mMontana]

2 minutes ago, Phyntom said:

it usually takes far, far longer to get something done when you can't just have a face to face chat or get together with your team.

IMVHO this is most due to lacking procedures.

[Phyntom]

1 minute ago, mMontana said:

IMVHO this is most due to lacking procedures.

I agree, but it depends on the job role.

 

For me, I work iteratively within project management and business continuity, so we're constantly trying to create new stuff. Brainstorming isn't as effective through a computer IMO.

[wanderingfool2]

2 hours ago, mMontana said:

If Zoom it's not good enough for Zoom itself, maybe it's not good at all?

It's not a black and white issue.  Zoom, aside from all the issues I have with it in regards to the privacy aspects, does have it's place and time for use.  When lets say it's an impromptu meeting or one that spans a vast majority of faculties I think it can work out well.

 

Where it doesn't work out well is in some of the general meetings about lets say a certain project; where sometimes things just happen better when everyone can talk in person.  You can't beat in person meetings, but realistically having all in person meetings is often impractical (like in one situation where I was developing an inhouse program and some of the key people that would be using it were back east...no way the company would spend a few thousand flying me out for a simple meeting).

 

1 hour ago, Holmes108 said:

If a hybrid model can work, that's an excellent compromise. 

I agree, although I do think it's nice having people in the office always.  I agree with pretty much everything you said though; work from home has pros and cons.

 

The biggest pro I've noticed from working in person is the ability to just ask a question, or bug the person beside you for information.  It's a lot harder when your boss or other colleagues are a lync and you have to message them to quickly get additional information.   Multiple times I just happened to be in the office and noticed something wrong with someone's computer; and they literally told me, "oh I thought that was normal" or "I didn't want to bug you"...while in my office I have replacements for their issue.  Or the general of them coming and asking "how do I do this" or "is there a better way to do this".  Literally, one of the people I shared the office with would do a task each day that took 4 hours of work; and because I was there they asked if there was a way to automate it...an hour of my time later and the entire process was automated and he no longer had to come in at 5am to get the data ready for the 9am meeting.

 

In general I find in person stuff, as much as I hate it, far outweighs the cons (in terms of productivity achieved) and the intangible bits that you can't get by someone behind the camera.  (Like future employee development)

 

Personally, I think Monday - Thurs work at office; and Friday is optional work from home is great.  It gives the flexibility of having a relaxing Friday where you just concentrate on work; while saving time not commuting and it has everyone working in the office as well

 

One critical note as well though  with work from home, it's just bound time before a laptop is stolen; or an employee stored things on an USB and it was stolen.  While drive encryption is great, lots of employees have a nasty habit of writing their password on post it notes

[Holmes108]

31 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

 

In general I find in person stuff, as much as I hate it, far outweighs the cons (in terms of productivity achieved) and the intangible bits that you can't get by someone behind the camera.  (Like future employee development)

 

Agree with your whole post, especially the quoted bit. 

 

I find it interesting, the people that want to deny/minimize the benefits of being there in person. It seems not at all controversial to talk about the negatives of the internet and social media, and how different we are to our fellow humans when online, dealing through text. 

 

Yet somehow, we don't want to admit that this is also the case with many aspects of remote work. I think it's mostly because many of us selfishly (and understandably) want to skip the commute, work in our pajamas and have a little less oversight. 

 

I realize the internet/social media example isn't perfect, as it adds full anonymity to the equation, which ramps it up x1000, but the basic premise is the same. You might not deal with your coworkers exactly the same, if you have to look at them in the eyes vs firing off an email.

 

Plus the added trouble of misunderstandings of tone through text, etc . I mean it just goes on and on.

 

But usually the comment sections are just filled with people claiming "I'm 10X more productive when I'm home unsupervised!" which just cannot be true for everyone lol. (although it can certainly be the case sometimes).

 

 

[Brooksie359]

2 hours ago, Holmes108 said:

 

Seems like a bit of a leap. I think often the benefits of having an in person team is immeasurable. Because of that, I think it's very reasonable for any employer to want in person employees. 

 

It will of course vary wildly from industry to industry, company to company, and even team to team. If everyone from the bottom up is happy with remote work, who am I to argue.

 

But somehow, somewhere over the pandemic a certain subset of people got this idea that it should somehow be some sort of "right" to work from home, and I really couldn't disagree more with that mindset.

Employees have a right to have preferences just like employers. If you want to require to work in person then you can do so but just know that you are competing with companies that do allow remote work and people will often times choose to work for those companies instead. For me I don't see anything other than highly collaborative work being better in person than remote. Also I think most places do hybrid which is a good middle ground. I go into work once a week and I feel like that is probably a good middle ground so that people can see each other in person once in awhile but also not making me spend 1 hour each day commuting to work when I can just work from home. 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, mMontana said:

Summary

According to Business Insider, CEO of Zoom, Eric Yuan, should prefere in-company workers, rather than connected via services.

 

 

 

My thoughts

If Zoom it's not good enough for Zoom itself, maybe it's not good at all?

 

Sources

https://www.businessinsider.com/zoom-ceo-employees-return-to-office-2023-8

They only have to be in the office 2 days per week if they live within 50 miles of the office. That's more than reasonable.  

[Montana One-Six]

I think employees should be able to voice their preference but the same should be true for employers. Which naturally calls for a compromise. I think what zoom does is only fair.

 

I personally hate working from home mainly because of 2 reasons.

1. I am much more focused and productive at work vs working from home.

2. I like coming home without work related stuff floating around. If I am home I am home and I don't want work stuff to "ruin" my time off.

[Brooksie359]

6 minutes ago, Montana One-Six said:

I think employees should be able to voice their preference but the same should be true for employers. Which naturally calls for a compromise. I think what zoom does is only fair.

 

I personally hate working from home mainly because of 2 reasons.

1. I am much more focused and productive at work vs working from home.

2. I like coming home without work related stuff floating around. If I am home I am home and I don't want work stuff to "ruin" my time off.

Honestly a good way to fix this is by having a dedicated work space that is only used for work and once you are done with work you can leave work in that workplace. It can be hard to use locations where you have been conditioned to be relaxing places to be used for working. Your issue is super common and it's just a psychological issue that we can trick to fix. 

[Montana One-Six]

20 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Honestly a good way to fix this is by having a dedicated work space that is only used for work and once you are done with work you can leave work in that workplace. It can be hard to use locations where you have been conditioned to be relaxing places to be used for working. Your issue is super common and it's just a psychological issue that we can trick to fix. 

I know. I used to work on a separate Laptop and table and everything. Still wasn't as productive as if I were at work. Plus there was still stuff at home that was work which occasionally made me think about work during my time off. I tried a lot to make it work which really didn't do much. I quit working from home entirely as soon as I could and I'm really glad I did because I really don't think about work after work until I drive onto the parking lot the next day.

 

There is also another psychological thing that you have to travel a certain distance from and to work to completely cool off and be disconnected from work. So I think that that is much more important in my case than a separate workplace at home because it is still at home. At least that is how I feel.

[SansVarnic]

-= Topic moved to General discussion =-

Tech news must have a strong relation to Tech. A tech company's internal policy on its employees does not fall under this prerequisite.

[m9x3mos]

8 hours ago, mMontana said:

Summary

According to Business Insider, CEO of Zoom, Eric Yuan, should prefere in-company workers, rather than connected via services.

 

 

 

My thoughts

If Zoom it's not good enough for Zoom itself, maybe it's not good at all?

 

Sources

https://www.businessinsider.com/zoom-ceo-employees-return-to-office-2023-8

I know if I try that at my company that wouldn't go well either. Developers live working from home and productivity has increased with them since we started work from home. 

They all say there are less distractions from their work this way. 

[NavyEmt]

5 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Honestly a good way to fix this is by having a dedicated work space that is only used for work and once you are done with work you can leave work in that workplace. It can be hard to use locations where you have been conditioned to be relaxing places to be used for working. Your issue is super common and it's just a psychological issue that we can trick to fix. 

What you are describing is a home office, and for US tax purposes such a thing CAN NOT be used for any other thing besides work.

The bigger problem with work from home is distractions be it a pet or child or the ability to have the tv on. You are being paid to work and that is what should be done. Some people can shut those things out but not most. Also I could see business decreasing sick time, if you are feeling ill you can work from home. Why pay sick time?

[Brooksie359]

38 minutes ago, NavyEmt said:

What you are describing is a home office, and for US tax purposes such a thing CAN NOT be used for any other thing besides work.

The bigger problem with work from home is distractions be it a pet or child or the ability to have the tv on. You are being paid to work and that is what should be done. Some people can shut those things out but not most. Also I could see business decreasing sick time, if you are feeling ill you can work from home. Why pay sick time?

I guess I have to disagree on some points. I hate when people come in sick because they aren't sick enough to not work but still sick enough to spread that to others especially more vulnerable workers that are older in age. I get sick time but I would rather save it for when I actually need it rather than when I have a mild cold which is fine for me but potentially deadly to some. Also I feel like people think that people can't work and listen to things at the same time. Depending on the work I don't see why you can't listen to the news or podcasts. Obviously there are certain tasks that require more focus and you need to turn thar stuff off but anyone can do the job how they see fit and the performance will speak for itself. For me I work more effectively on tedious tasks. When I need to do more complicated work I tend to turn off everything or listen to music. 

[smcoakley]

The company I work at went all in on remote work last year and shut down the local office in my area. For for me at least, there is no office for me to commute to. But I have been working from home 100% since 2020 and have experienced many of the pros and cons on remote work. Here are some of my takes.

 

Meetings take twice as long: I'm not sure if we're just bad at it, but in my experience it seems like a meeting over Zoom take about twice as long to accomplish the same amount of objective as an in-person meeting. Less non-verbal communication I think is a factor, so that it is just ever so slightly harder to understand someone's explanation of something and thus requiring more discussion time to comprehend. And of course technical glitches such as lag, freezing, or talking over each other by accident adding small delays in a discussion that add up.

 

Another reason I think is that Zoom and other meeting software like it are usually designed around a single "speaker" at a time. In person, in a meeting with 4 or more people, it is possible for two people to have "side channel communication" without interrupting whoever is talking. Whether it is just a brief exchange of words with someone else, or just completely nonverbal communication in reaction to the speaker. It is basically impossible to do this in a Zoom meeting because you can't tell who is looking at whom.

 

Productivity varies: It depends a lot on each person. For me, I live alone and am very self-disciplined (I work 9-5 every day even though which hours I work don't really matter to my employer) so I have no problem getting work done. In fact, I think that I am more productive working at home than at an office, for various factors. But I am the kind of person who will work overtime purely by accident because I was so focused on a task.

 

The big one here is interruptions. This depends on your home environment, and your office culture. In my former office culture, interruptions were common. There were often legitimate interruptions of juniors asking for help, or sometimes just people wanting some small talk. But these are interruptions all the same, and in my case I don't have any interruptions at home. But it might be different for someone else, who has constant interruptions at home but has a fairly interrupt-free office culture.

 

Lack of team connection: It is very difficult for remote teams to bond. In an office setting it is something that usually happens organically, but now that most of us are remote it is something we have to actively work at. Because except when we are in meetings, we don't see or talk to each other. Well we do on Slack, but that's harder to count. It counts for something but it isn't the same.

 

More home time: This is a major pro for remote work. Being at home, it is often easier to (1) take (appropriate) breaks, (2) eat healthy, and (3) take care of your home. For those with families, simply being around your family for more hours in the day is a much healthier environment rather than being absent for a majority of every day. It also means no commute, which is basically a waste of time, sometimes many hours a week depending on where you live or work.

 

Bad Internet: This is a con for sure. At the office we used to self-host a bunch of Internet infrastructure. We haven't since we moved everything into the cloud, but we did keep our nice fat dedicated Internet pipe (actually 2 since we had a failover from another ISP). File transfers were a breeze and everything was fast. Now all our team members have to rely on their own personal Internet connections, which range from decent to crap, and we have to have everything go through a VPN. An of course having decent Internet would probably make Zoom calls more stable too. Where I am currently I can't get more than 40 Mbps upload speed from any ISP even if I were to pay for the absolute highest price. And I don't even live out in the boonies or anything, its just a larger-sized town not too far away from a major city. Just a wonderful benefit of the ISP oligopoly in most of the USA I suppose...

[Erioch]

10 hours ago, mMontana said:

If Zoom it's not good enough for Zoom itself, maybe it's not good at all?

All of my Zoom meetings take place while I'm in the office.