Tech CEOs predicting WFH will be permanent, and many employees will never come to an office again

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm on the executive team for a fairly large Reston tech company. We are officially not renewing our lease (we have grown substantially) and are moving to a hotel type modified office a bit further our near the Loudoun border. That office will be mainly conference rooms. We have 259 people in this area and will have seats for 50. None permanent. We too have seen productivity skyrocket. People are very happy at home and it is working despite many having kids underfoot.

The people with kids are absolutely miserable. They won't admit this to you, but they are underwater and need schools to reopen ASAP.

Speak for yourself. I have two elementary school age girls. We have a strict schedule and are doing great. I am already planning to adjust my life to permanent WFH except 2-3 days a month.

+1. I feel for people with young kids or kids with learning challenges, but my elementary schooler and middle schooler are very capable of focusing through the online learning. I WFH a lot anyway, but not having to commute AT ALL has been great, and DH only worked from home 2x a month or so, so it's been great losing his commute to. His team is going to switch to regular WFH days when all this passes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course productivity is still good.. Comparing notes with my colleagues, we easily work an extra 3 hours a day now. Breaks have become a rarity too.

This. My steps have dropped to sub-1,000. This is an unhealthy reality for me. And I need to find time to make a change.

I'm definitely working harder (business is booming), but I walk from 6:30-7:30, Pelaton 45min at Lunch, and walk again after dinner. I'm getting in over 10k steps a day and have never been healthier.

If you wanted to make time you would. 1k steps is pathetic. I'd hate myself if I were that sedentary. Plus my work output would be terrible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Network contacts at Square and Shopify also confirm pay cuts for those who WFH and relocate.

Some of you are not looking at this long-term. I predict not only salary cuts of 40% but also serious benefit cuts. No more 6-month paid childcare leaves, no free breakfast, lunch and dinner 7 days a week (obviously), no free medical care (FB has onsight medical doctors) and much crappier health insurance, and most important I think they will sneak in much smaller 401K matches and stock options.

You can move to Ohio if you want to, but its the person who had daily face-to-face with Zuckerberg and Sandberg who are going to get the promotion and stock benefits.

No offense but your post sounds completely made up, do you actually know anybody at these companies? The number of people who have even monthly face-to-face meetings with Zuck and Cheryl is way less than 1% of Bay Area employees and therefore irrelevant for almost everybody.

DP. You are missing the point. Physical face time with execs leads to greater advancement, and almost zero physical face time increases stagnation. Especially once you hit a certain level of seniority. People who had been working remotely for years prior to the pandemic know this is true.

Even what you are saying is true, I have a feeling that some folks are OK with that or are willing to make that tradeoff for better standard of living.

What I have noticed is that there is a huge number of employees who phone-it-in while working IN the office. They are the ones who are desperate to WFM. They do the minimal of work they can to avoid getting fired. Imagine all these types working from home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ITT: Terrified SFH owners in dense urban areas who are afraid they'll lose a lot of value in their homes once jobs decentralize and people flee high tax states/cities and high COL areas. Bring on the decentralization. Can't wait to leave this overpriced area with soul crushing traffic.

Lol! Basically the posters on here. Fuc&ed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course productivity is still good.. Comparing notes with my colleagues, we easily work an extra 3 hours a day now. Breaks have become a rarity too.

This. My steps have dropped to sub-1,000. This is an unhealthy reality for me. And I need to find time to make a change.

I'm definitely working harder (business is booming), but I walk from 6:30-7:30, Pelaton 45min at Lunch, and walk again after dinner. I'm getting in over 10k steps a day and have never been healthier.

If you wanted to make time you would. 1k steps is pathetic. I'd hate myself if I were that sedentary. Plus my work output would be terrible.

I'd have major back issues if I was that sedentary. Ugh. I recommend the PP get out for walks, and take advantage of all the free or very cheap online workouts. My yoga and barre places are doing zoom classes and they are awesome. I have no excuse not to join a morning class now that i'm not commuting ever!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“I would leave this area in a heartbeat if I were guaranteed permanent WFH. I'd much rather retire faster by saving more money also not have to deal with horrific traffic in this area.”

Once this happens, the salaries would readjust to reflect the lower cost of living areas where many of the employees reside combined with potentially larger pool of potential applicants / employees who otherwise may not have applied for specific positions if they had to physically move.

Not only that, it would be even worse for employees since it’s costly and a PITA for a company to register and conduct business in another state—which they would need to do if employees are stationed there even if WFH. They would need to comply with employment laws, too. So, they would cut loose employees and rehire them as temps or contractors. That means say goodbye to your benefits!

Trust me, corporations are already identifying ways to cut costs and the end result will benefit the employer, not the employee.

Why do people assume that when the tech workforce goes remote, that this will not just ramp up their number of non-US employees? You think you are facing wage competition from workers in India now? Just wait until it's no longer a job requirement that you be located near a company office.

Have you ever hired foreign tech employees? If not that explains why you think this.

I was think the same thing. I have zero fear of losing my job to offshore. A division did that in my company and the results were chaos and pandemonium. The 3rd world work standard was in direct conflict with American cultural norms. Those jobs we back in 18 months. Something likemputting together an iphone or gluing sneakers together works well, but critical thinking and making sound business choices (oh I dunno, like NOT trying to brine a client) was not in the cards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ITT: Terrified SFH owners in dense urban areas who are afraid they'll lose a lot of value in their homes once jobs decentralize and people flee high tax states/cities and high COL areas. Bring on the decentralization. Can't wait to leave this overpriced area with soul crushing traffic.

Lol! Basically the posters on here. Fuc&ed.

Nope. Realist. I WFH and have for 5 years and own homes that I split time between in 2 states.

All of you hoping to keep high 6-figure salaries are not listening to what these Tech CEOs are saying. It hasn't even been a week and 2 CEOS have confirmed reduced salaries for WFH and 3 more have announced in-house.

Are you kidding? They are about to slaughter salaries and benefits and you'll be crying in your soup when you get to North Carolina or Texas to find out that $275K salary with stock options just became 65K with half-vesting and a side of 'We still expect you to video share in meetings on PST time!'

Welcome to less pay and 5AM Zoom calls in Dallas because you stupidly decided to relocate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tech CEOs announcing pay cuts left-and-right for WFH, job listings also drying up. I think SV has been waiting for a way to reduce salaries and benefits. This is it.

Job listings at Microsoft from Aug 2019 until May 2020



https://media.thinknum.com/articles/job-listings-at-microsoft-hav-dropped-by-more-than-60-since-march/

OmG you are a genius! Hiring is down? I wonder why? I hope you did not pay much for your business school.

[Anonymous]

I'm not even in Tech, but know of three people who work for companies whose tech department went entirely to India. None of those have come back. This is anecdotal evidence, sure, but so are other PP's.

Everyone here has an agenda and each poster is cherry-picking anecdotal evidence to support that agenda.

As with all of this, none of us know what the fallout will be other than there will be fallout.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tech CEOs announcing pay cuts left-and-right for WFH, job listings also drying up. I think SV has been waiting for a way to reduce salaries and benefits. This is it.

Job listings at Microsoft from Aug 2019 until May 2020



https://media.thinknum.com/articles/job-listings-at-microsoft-hav-dropped-by-more-than-60-since-march/

OmG you are a genius! Hiring is down? I wonder why? I hope you did not pay much for your business school.

Tech companies aren't being negatively affected by the downturn at all. You think Microsoft has lost a single contract or business opportunity?

In fact I think the feds might even be fast-tracking that $10 billion JEDI contract they won last year. With 90% of the federal workforce WFH in the D.C. area, online security threats just tripled for U.S. intelligence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“I would leave this area in a heartbeat if I were guaranteed permanent WFH. I'd much rather retire faster by saving more money also not have to deal with horrific traffic in this area.”

Once this happens, the salaries would readjust to reflect the lower cost of living areas where many of the employees reside combined with potentially larger pool of potential applicants / employees who otherwise may not have applied for specific positions if they had to physically move.

Not only that, it would be even worse for employees since it’s costly and a PITA for a company to register and conduct business in another state—which they would need to do if employees are stationed there even if WFH. They would need to comply with employment laws, too. So, they would cut loose employees and rehire them as temps or contractors. That means say goodbye to your benefits!

Trust me, corporations are already identifying ways to cut costs and the end result will benefit the employer, not the employee.

Pure fear mongering from a home owner or RE agent afraid values will tank in dense urban areas that get hit with de-densification. Like companies don't have sales reps based all across the country who almost never step foot in HQ. Psshhhh, not that much different at all .

Do they have a presence in the state already? Are those salespeople FTEs or contractors?

There are legal and tax implications of doing business in a state, and having FTEs WFH remotely triggers that. There are workarounds, but not if your entire workforce goes remote. That would definitely result in companies changing the work status and cutting benefits.

[Anonymous]

Facebook just said that remote WFH employees will now have their salaries updated to reflect local COL. This is a fact.

So the people saying salaries would decrease by 20%, try 60%!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ITT: Terrified SFH owners in dense urban areas who are afraid they'll lose a lot of value in their homes once jobs decentralize and people flee high tax states/cities and high COL areas. Bring on the decentralization. Can't wait to leave this overpriced area with soul crushing traffic.

Lol! Basically the posters on here. Fuc&ed.

Nope. Realist. I WFH and have for 5 years and own homes that I split time between in 2 states.

All of you hoping to keep high 6-figure salaries are not listening to what these Tech CEOs are saying. It hasn't even been a week and 2 CEOS have confirmed reduced salaries for WFH and 3 more have announced in-house.

Are you kidding? They are about to slaughter salaries and benefits and you'll be crying in your soup when you get to North Carolina or Texas to find out that $275K salary with stock options just became 65K with half-vesting and a side of 'We still expect you to video share in meetings on PST time!'

Welcome to less pay and 5AM Zoom calls in Dallas because you stupidly decided to relocate.

Don't care if there is salary cuts.

Reduced taxes in other states and less traffic alone is worth a salary cut. F sitting in NoVa, DC, MoCo - Baltimore region traffic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“I would leave this area in a heartbeat if I were guaranteed permanent WFH. I'd much rather retire faster by saving more money also not have to deal with horrific traffic in this area.”

Once this happens, the salaries would readjust to reflect the lower cost of living areas where many of the employees reside combined with potentially larger pool of potential applicants / employees who otherwise may not have applied for specific positions if they had to physically move.

Not only that, it would be even worse for employees since it’s costly and a PITA for a company to register and conduct business in another state—which they would need to do if employees are stationed there even if WFH. They would need to comply with employment laws, too. So, they would cut loose employees and rehire them as temps or contractors. That means say goodbye to your benefits!

Trust me, corporations are already identifying ways to cut costs and the end result will benefit the employer, not the employee.

Pure fear mongering from a home owner or RE agent afraid values will tank in dense urban areas that get hit with de-densification. Like companies don't have sales reps based all across the country who almost never step foot in HQ. Psshhhh, not that much different at all .

Do they have a presence in the state already? Are those salespeople FTEs or contractors?

There are legal and tax implications of doing business in a state, and having FTEs WFH remotely triggers that. There are workarounds, but not if your entire workforce goes remote. That would definitely result in companies changing the work status and cutting benefits.

Companies will do the math. They can avoid millions in high taxes in coastal states and cities like SF, Seattle, DC, and NYC. They can save millions in facilities costs by not paying rent and for heating/electricity. They can even cut salaries to reflect reduced COL. They can use arguments too like it is better for the environment, which is true with people driving so much less. They'll do the calculus and deal with some legal hassles they have lawyers for anyway while saving millions in overhead costs. Workers are chomping at the bit to get the hell out of Seattle, San Francisco, NYC, or DC because no one can afford housing anymore and traffic sucks. Middle class people are sick and tired of needing millions of dollars to buy a home just to raise a family or are sick of paying $3800 rents for a crappy 250 sq ft apartment in NYC or San Fran.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ITT: Terrified SFH owners in dense urban areas who are afraid they'll lose a lot of value in their homes once jobs decentralize and people flee high tax states/cities and high COL areas. Bring on the decentralization. Can't wait to leave this overpriced area with soul crushing traffic.

Lol! Basically the posters on here. Fuc&ed.

Pretty much. I’m noticing this too. That and the ones who bought expensive condos in the city. Yikes. Be prepared for your value to plummet in the next year.