
A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Permanently Flipped Workplace - ohjeez
https://blog.usejournal.com/a-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-permanently-flipped-workplace-40a1106764f0
======
tmoaad
>If employees choose to relocate but their presence is required on a regular
basis (1 week per month or several weeks throughout the year), depending on
your budget, it is reasonable to expect them to cover their own travel costs.

Really? If my employer started doing this, I would be looking for a new
employer long before I'd start paying for my own travel costs.

~~~
iandanforth
It's an interesting question. If you're a sales guy, traveling is part of your
job and the company pays for it. Anyone who is required to be in the office is
assumed to be "commuting" and that is often not compensated (but sometimes is
if you use public transit etc). So maybe the fuzzy line is personal travel
_to_ work isn't compensated but travel _away_ from work/home for the purposes
of work is.

I'm not sure there is any rock solid logic behind any of this though.

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aerotwelve
You've just got to love the tone of these articles: the _future of work_ is
here. You don't have any control over it, you don't have any say over it. If
it's cheaper for us to make you work in your bedroom for the rest of your
life, then that's just how it's going to work. This decision has already been
made for you.

> Set clear guidelines for what should be communicated where (meetings vs.
> e-mail vs. Asana vs. Slack vs. text message, vs. phone calls) and what are
> expected response times on each medium. Hold everyone at every level
> accountable for abiding by these guidelines...

John, I noticed that your response time to Slack messages has fallen behind
your email response rate and your Asana turnaround time. Is there something
you're not enjoying about your new freedom?

~~~
csa
This is pretty much what happens on high-performing teams, but not quite how
you seemed to present it.

1\. Expectations are set at a _reasonable_ level, not a “jump when I say jump,
damn it!” level.

2\. If someone is not meeting expectations, people check in _to see if they
can help_. If something is not working consistently, then adjustments to the
process need to be made. Occasionally the issue is the person in the job —
that is, they can’t do it. This is a hiring issue that will need to be
addressed. They need to be put in a position they can succeed in or they need
to be removed.

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corty
> I strongly suggest a blanket policy for video-on during all Zoom calls.

How about: Hell, no!?

Video is a distraction at best. Usually it prevents discussion by emphasizing
shallow sidechannels to the communication that add nothing but mislead
everyone. People need to say what they think and not rely on nonverbal clues.
Those only work in person, not over video. A talking head doesn't have
posture. Lag means mimic and speech are misaligned.

Just treat it like a phone call, no video, just maybe shared slides or
whiteboards. More happiness, more productivity, less misunderstandings.

~~~
mdoms
> People need to say what they think and not rely on nonverbal clues.

Sorry, but this just isn't how human beings work. Those non-verbal queues may
not be important to you, but they carry a huge amount of information that is
apparently passing you by. And not small, unimportant things, but big things
like that quiet shy QA engineer in the corner of the room who clearly wants to
say something but can't find an opening or the organiser getting aggravated by
a side-discussion.

~~~
cortesoft
People have a lot of good reasons not to turn on their cameras, though.

If you live in a small house or apartment, there are often going to be other
people in the background who likely do not want to be on camera.

It is one thing if people choose to work from home; you can have a reasonable
expectation that they should have a proper work setup at their house.

That is not what is happening now.

~~~
arcticbull
Digital background on Zoom should help you there. One of my coworkers has
their apartment with no people in it set as their digital background.

~~~
ChrisMarshallNY
That's a cool idea!

------
tazjin
> The second wave of COVID-19 infections has dashed all illusions of going
> back to the way things before

I didn't read this much further, honestly. It's exhausting to keep reading
authors who don't really invest time in understanding the dynamics of what's
going on.

For those who want to dive in to this particular leaf:
[https://theconversation.com/the-us-isnt-in-a-second-wave-
of-...](https://theconversation.com/the-us-isnt-in-a-second-wave-of-
coronavirus-the-first-wave-never-ended-141032)

It really is useful to try and understand these things so you don't go around
making muddied predictions.

(Also I should note that I disagree with some things in that linked article,
in case anyone is feeling like attacking other points that it makes)

~~~
perl4ever
I think this may have devolved into nitpicking semantics.

While a "second wave" I don't think is a widespread phenomenon in the sense of
cases dying down and then coming back in a given place, some places could be
considered to have a "second wave" in the sense that their wave has or will
peak later than the wave in other places.

For instance, Florida isn't having a second wave relative to itself, but it
could be construed as a second wave relative to NY or NJ. It seems to me to
boil down to a different arbitrary definition.

~~~
tazjin
It's quite important semantically because for people who don't stay well
informed 'second wave' might imply that areas which have "gone through" the
wave are benig hit again, which so far is not the case.

Essentially a lot of news reporting on this at the moment seems to be
fearmongering and maybe an attempt at face-saving from politicians, who will
at some point not be able to escape the reality that many of the measures they
instituted were not the ones which would actually have saved lives (such as
stricter policies about care homes).

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goatinaboat
This just reads like shilling for a bunch of random products. Not worth the
few minutes to read.

------
jnwatson
Regardless of the reason for the article, the sheer quantity of links to all
the back-office HR-related outsourcing companies is impressive.

One might say that space is over-invested; at the same time, it does make a
startup a lot easier to operate.

------
tannedNerd
Ive pushed back hard against video on for everyone. There is usually very
little gained for everyone having video on besides allowing the meeting host
to see who’s paying attention. If I’m spending time with my friends that’s
different because the point is to see their faces and be social, but my
coworkers I don’t need to see their faces just their presentation.

------
nogabebop23
So the author is a GP in a VC firm focusing on the future of work", who thinks
that many (most?) of the challenges of the "permanently flipped workplace" can
be solved with the combination of SASS tooling and essentially mission
statements. I'm sorry but this type of advice is neither actionable or
helpful:

"Establish and communicate clear guidelines.."

"Engage managers in building the right workflow for their respective teams."

"Do whatever is necessary to achieve executive-level clarity on your
priorities, values, and goals"

"Interview team leaders and managers on what unites them as a team in both
theory and in practice."

...And on it goes. The only thing I can conclude is that in this flipped-
around future of work everyone works in HR.

~~~
Izkata
> SASS tooling

Alright, so this is the third time I've seen this today - is it an acronym I'm
not aware of, or is it a typo/autocorrect of "SaaS tooling"?

The only SASS that comes to mind is Syntactically-Awesome StyleSheets, which
makes no sense in context.

------
glitchc
Video is unfortunately a poor substitute for in-person interaction but better
than voice alone.

I suspect over time that teams building a defined product will persevere while
teams that relied upon to design a product, such as my own, will experience a
gradual breakdown of trust as individuals split off in their thinking. It’s
hard to find words sometimes for a concept that’s strictly a mental product
and not everyone is practiced or skilled at elocution. Strong designers with
poor vocal skills will undoubtedly experience frustration with remote work
which is essentially a voice-primary medium.

------
mdoms
This permanent work from home theory sits really wrong with me. In particular
this part;

> Permanently upgrade all employee’s work from home environments so they are
> the same quality as their in-office stations. This may come in the form of
> stipends, lump sum payments, or redistribution of office property, depending
> on job function.

It's extremely unlikely that a company is going to offer me a lump sum payment
that anywhere near makes up for the increased floor space and altered layout
of my home to give me a proper office-like environment to work in. Few
companies will shell out $50,000 for me to extend my home to build an office,
and I see no reason why I should work for an organisation that demands I do so
myself. For many people in HCOL areas it's totally unreasonable to expect
people to shell out double their rent or more to get an extra bedroom/office
space.

Look, I live in New Zealand. I can tell you that this whole "everything has
changed forever" attitude that I am hearing from Americans will pass, very
quickly, when this pandemic ends. We will most likely see employers becoming a
lot more flexible with WFH arrangements, which is a really nice silver lining.
But the idea that the office is done for? Forget about it.

~~~
foobiekr
I strongly agree with your last paragraph. It is a very bad habit, from within
the event, for people to conclude that everything has changed, that this
thing, which is ephemeral, will have the particular long term impact that the
authors are wishing for.

There may be long term effects, but ... In the valley, the number of people I
personally know who are moving - not talking about it, actually moving - out
of the city, in particular, but also out of the peninsula, is actually quite
surprising. But I saw this happen in 2000-2002, as well, and half of them
moved back by 2004.

~~~
ne9xt
The housing market in the Santa Cruz mountains is exploding as people from the
city are buying homes in the mountains, enabled by WFH policies.

~~~
arcticbull
Yeah, though, once offices reopen and the remote employees are being passed
over for promotions and raises, I suspect they'll be back right quick.

~~~
ghaff
Or maybe people will decide that as long as they can afford to live in the
Santa Cruz mountains, all the office crap doesn't really matter very much.
More generally I expect a lot of people are rethinking their priorities.

