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Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: ‘It’s probably not going to work out’
(www.theverge.com)
this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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I’m anything but a soothsayer, but we’re already seeing remote work become a pretty important factor in people choosing employers, and it seems like most of the larger players in their respective industries are the ones trying to force people back into the office.
I could see this become a huge boom for low-mid tier companies that are able to put in more affordable offer packages but with work from home options attached and pry away talent from the high tier companies.
This could go a long way towards hopefully rebalancing the scales for quite a few things and hopefully reeling in some of these companies who have been able to take so much for so long.
Big companies pulling employees back to the office isn't pulling them back to the office. It's laying off higher wages and making room for lower wages.
All it does for the industry is lower the barrier for entry. Id take a pay cut to keep working remotely, no problem. 100k jobs at 80k remote means smaller employers can compete.
Being forced back to the office is a paycut itself. It adds commute costs (fuel, wear and tear if you drive) and wastes more of your time you could spend doing other things. It also increases pollution and traffic for no good reason.
I had a headhunter come to me with what they thought was an aggressive offer to pry me away from my current company, but they believed in full office time all the time.
I calculated the commute time + gas + wear and tear into my calculation and it came in under my existing pay.
Went back to him and said unless you’re willing to do much better or move on the remote situation I’d be losing money by taking your offer.
I’ve heard from him a few times since asking if we can discuss it and I always ask, what’s the remote situation? “Oh maybe we can do a couple days a month.” Yea. No. Thanks for the offer, not interested. I recommend your company takes a second look at their office attendance requirements to stay competitive.
I know I’m not the only one as well. And I’m really hoping people start taking the opportunity to stand up to these useless requirements.
US companies have much more "freedoms" to rob their "workers" from benefits. By law we have the following benefits
I could tell a similar story about our healthcare (much cheaper and better)
The US has no law mandating paid time off and you can be fired for being sick unless you're out on FMLA.
FMLA => unpayed
Our leaves => payed
And our healthcare, things you pay a lot for in the US, are actually free here.
Exactly this. Companies that offer remote work are going to get their pick of employees, while companies that live in the past are going to subsist on what's left. Remote work can easily substitute for a huge amount of pay, because for a lot of employees that pay cut is less than what they'll save by not having to live in, say, San Francisco.