Btw, don’t get me wrong. As we all know , companies are pushing for people to come back. Things might look very different by the end of the year. We will find out in 3-6 months.
Talk bearish like @manch. Slower growth rate i.e still growing 
6% is pretty good.11% is not sustainable.
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Lol I was just bothering you 
It’s either the end of the era of flexibility around where work takes place — or the beginning of outright rebellion.
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Whichever company can manage the hybrid model efficiently is the future $10T market cap stock
Incumbent companies have complicated issues because can’t fire existing employees that don’t agree with corporate directions. Can select future employees with the right attitudes.
The coming recession will solve the “hybrid work issue” fast.
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The hybrid work issue extends beyond stock price. Since this is a RE forum, the implications for RE are:
Steady State:
If back to physical office only: Prices of homes in zoom towns could collapse 50%+
If hybrid model: Will be fun to see how prices of homes adjust.
If fully remote: Prices of homes in previously premier neighborhoods could go into a secular downtrend
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You might want to be careful what you wish for with return to work. Imagine your team if the high performers leave, because they want a more flexible or completely WFH arrangement. You’ll be stuck with all the mediocre and below performers. It’s much better to manage out low performers and maintain flexibility that top talent wants. It’ll never work if some people are allowed WFH and others aren’t. It’s a far too visual as a representation of performance. Pay raises, bonuses, and stock grants are all private.
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I’m fine giving top performers some extra flexibility. They’re usually management/senior management (it’s not an industry like software where IC’s can earn 7 figures). The problem is when everyone expects the flexibility to WFH and the bottom 50% becomes impossible to manage.
Every company has a bottom 50%. If you can’t tell who they are, take a good look in the mirror.
- You believe the bottom 50% performs better when at office vs home?
- You’re still keeping them and not replacing them, means they’re useful and you need them?
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Remote work+WFH is irreversible and will only gain steam going forward. Will be clear not in a year but in a decade. Covid has accelerated it.
To me it’s like watching movies at home via streaming vs going to theaters 10 years back. I can watch on Demand movies/shows on my 83" OLED at home taking multiple breaks with a great surround sound system and food and drinks. Going to theaters is so passe today. Per capita sales of movie theater tickets have been steadily going down and Covid has accelerated it.
To be clear, there will be many companies where hands on development+ testing with physical products are important where WFH will not happen.
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Not all companies embrace fully remote/ hybrid. As I mentioned previously, it may hover around 20-30%. What do you think of RE if that’s the %
No, people will switch jobs near by locations. For bay area, say mountain house, they will switch any jobs near by home in WFH abolished. However, WFH becomes a part of job now as companies save office space and overhead expenses.
Correct.
In my old and new companies, no techies ready to come to office.
WFH saves companies a lot, building costs, equipment, infrastructure (such as network, equipment), HVAC, Building, cafes, toilet maintenance costs etc.
For young workers, day care costs are completely removed, direct tax free saving $1200 per kid minimum.
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Agree. Is a mixture of fully remote, hybrid and fully physical. Depends on business nature 
Hard to switch. Definition of zoom town. Not referring to tech hubs, which can easily switch. Ofc, some could swtch, without always going into great details and too explicit, this should be understood right? Obvious there would always be outliers
I have no idea. I don’t have any houses in zoom towns. However, I do have 1 in Austin suburb (Hutto) which is kind of nearly meet the zoom town definition. Ditto for Liberty Hill. I am expecting 30-50% crash in prices in those two cities, asking prices have already declined 20% from ATH (ATH, not median or average price, I mean the most highly priced house in the neighborhood/ community). I am monitoring closely.
1 – yes…easier to keep an eye on them, make sure they’re performing reasonably well
2 – we absolutely do need them for a variety of reasons.
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In software, even hardware(where 95+% of work is front of a computer), keeping an eye on a person is irrelevant, maybe at best just makes the person keeping an eye feel good. To this I will add other work like creative design, business analyst etc etc i.e. the jobs which are done from computers.
I realize this conversation is getting somewhat uncomfortable but I do think from a manager’s point of view the accountability thought is an important one.
Yes, there are ways to ensure folks on your team are accountable, even if they are working remote. But it’s a change from the norm and takes more energy/time - In the office you would usually do this with some observation in meetings/standups, collaboration experiences. With your team not being in the office, you need to go by inadequate signals in zoom meetings, rechecking status often, etc until you get to a point (hopefully 
) where your team understands priorities, owns execution and is autonomous.
You do expect that there will be folks who drop in productivity temporarily (and bounce back) in every team. This happens to everyone and you need to be supportive when your team needs this help.
But then there are the coasters - who do just to enough to skate by.
With covid, this % in each team has increased (I know this is a spicy take but I think there’s merit to it). It now takes managers more time and energy to understand that the same status message is being repeated by someone in 3 stand ups without making an effort to ask for help.
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Of course, most of the WFH jobs are from tech jobs, they are being handled from India, China…etc.
Now, WFH makes the jobs time zone wise. Like my previous companies, they cut short 7000 jobs out of 33000 US jobs,and shifted appx 10000 in person to WFH. They sold many building.
Probably the weaker or new team members?
Any new system will have some kinks and it’s own challenges that need to be ironed out and solutions found. Companies + managers need to adapt to proactively help in these types of cases is my guess.
IMO, throwing the baby out of the bathwater without acknowledging the vast improvements it brings to both sides would be short sighted.
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