With 90% COVID-19 vax rate, Intel to step up return-to-office Intel is going to tell more of its staff to return to their campus desks after many have been working from home or working in the office occasionally, judging by an internal memo sent to employees on Tuesday. In the email, seen by The Register, Intel Chief People Officer Christy Pambianchi said the chipmaker feels it's safe to …
The good side of the pandemy was it showed to upper management that WFH was possible and was working. For many, WFH has plenty of good sides. At a time a lack of IT resources occurs, companies won't be able to enforce any restrictive policy on that unless they want to know resources shortage. So adapt, or disappear.
I wish.
With the removal of all COVID restrictions, I now have to be on-site for most of my customers. There is nothing more I can do on-site than at home, but the order has been given.
I only have one customer now that still appreciates the fact that I can help without occupying a desk, or wasting an hour getting there. With one of my other customers, I am planning to have them accept that, from time to time, I can give a second days' work in the week, but I will mandate that it be from my home office. Still, there's only so many days in the week.
WFH was great for me, but it's fast looking to become a beautiful souvenir.
That is a shame. Can I assume that you're part of a small company or a one man band?
Several of my friends are voting with their feet as they've been pushed back into the office. But they work for larger organisations. I can see that would be much harder with customers..
It would be interesting to see what your customers attitude is for their own employees and if they are treating you and them differently. It would be a shame if they are.
Yep. I'm a freelance.
But no, I'm not being treated differently from the regular employees. They've all been corralled back in as well.
I'm waiting to see how this is going to play out in the long run. I've asked some pointed questions to the Helpdesk guys in every company I work in, and they've all answered pretty much the same thing : the technical side is ready to rock if remote work is once again required (which is, in retrospect, pretty obvious - they're not going to undo all that they have achieved only to have to do it all over again, duh).
So I'm just wondering if there is going to be some movement on the employee side. That said, even if there is some sort of protest from the employees, there's a good chance I won't benefit from it anyway. I'm just a consultant. My contract is that I'm there to do a job.
Nope. Go to something like 'Indeed.co.uk' search for any job and then filter 'remote' and look at the number of jobs compared to 'temporarily remote' and they outnumber them by a factor of 10. Something like 'IT support' as 1000 remote vs 176 temporarily remote. 'Database administrator' is similar, with a factor of 10. What you don't see is '5 days in the office' - that's gone now, practically forever since like the earlier poster proved... a lot of IT/computer based jobs can be done from home and the pandemic proved this can be done with very little loss in productivity and happier employees that don't have to commute on broken trains or gridlocked motorways and can be there to drop off and pick up their kids as well.
The only people who insist on going back into the office are middle managers who are now redundant since their idea of management was being able to see the back of your head.
their idea of management was being able to see the back of your head.
heh. yeah we've all seen THAT kind of 'management' before.
(or you could just install a slow scan low resolution webcam behind your desk, and just 'loop it' with recorded video when you're drinking adult beverages or viewing online content)
Judging from the local FB group I think its safe to say not working in the office is going to be quite common. Several local businesses are shut due to covid and several events this weekend have been cancelled due to the staff being ill. Two restaurants I know of the chefs are ill for at least the second time and in one of them I know they were both fully vaccinated AND have had the flu like bug before.
I'd not go back into the office unless you are sure you're going to get sick pay because you sure as hell are going to get covid (again).
I think you'll find that being in the office and the rate of getting sick from being around others at work is not going to be a whole lot different than in the past, and for those who live their lives in fear over it, they'll only be doing themselves a disfavor. It's time: Time to get back to the REAL normal, except with more time working from home whenever possible because we CAN. And, employers have been taught (by now) that it IS possible (and probably better in the long run).
They idea of the 'hybrid' work environment might simply be 9one that works well for me, where you do most of the REAL work in your home office, but show up when there's meetings or office equipment or things to bring back/forth during hours where high traffic is not a problem. So you basically go in when it makes sense (and usually it won't, heh), and/or for only part of the day, and work from home the rest of the time. WIn-win.
With the exception of on-site-only kinds of positions where "being there" is a requirement (we can all think of THOSE kinds of things, from hospitals to warehouses to retail) a hybrid work environment might be the best thing ever.
I've always been very dubious of the claims that the pandemic was going to 'change the way we work forever.'
Unquestionably it has opened the eyes of some to the fact that WFH is plausible.
But that was never going to drive huge change. Organizations, much like the humans therein, depend on maintaining structure and interaction. Yes, I know you might not need it, but the organization does. That is how it functions, grows and develops.
Exactly. Don't believe anyone who claims to see the future. Sure people love to save the time in traffic, love to be able to do home chores and errands during the day, but it was never ever going to be sustainable forever. People are losing touch with each other and while many have worked remotely with others beforehand, in general, interactions have suffered and businesses are feeling the pain and that is who pays are salary, not some imaginary 'worker's revolt'.
interactions have suffered and businesses are feeling the pain
Interactions "suffered" ? And I have not seen business 'feel any pain' EXCEPT for that created by gummints trying to "solve this" (all of which resulted in quite a BIT of pain, for EVERYONE, because THAT is what gummints DO, cause PAIN, usually in our backsides and/or our wallets).
The biggest pain has been the completely unnecessary disruption of the supply chain. And I think we can blame China (and those companies unwise enough to have placed all eggs in THAT basket) for most of it. But as for working from home? It has most likely been an overall BENEFIT.
And as I mentioned before, a hybrid work environment, where you do work from home AND show up in an office whenever it makes sense to do so, is probably the best solution ever.
That's easy.
How about blaming supply line management and the (entirely home-grown) drive for the past two decades to not have any storage ?
Storage costs money, eh ? Well no storage has cost even more this time around.
I think we're going to go back to a time where storage was of more importance, and the supply chain will sort itself out.
Two things come to mind
In US, As I understand it, one has "paid leave" per year, its up to you if that sick leave or holiday
As for WFH,
its been technically possible for decades
But, managers tend to be "older"
they did not work form home, and dont know / fee unhappy how to manage remotely
Think the entire HR industry could be "rationalised"
This despite every company talk to , productivity and engineer happiness went up during lock down working,
The only people I hear say they were un happy are HR and Snr managers,
I have even heard onw Snr Hr person say she misses the coffee morning chats so engineers must come back,
The excuse was they had to video meet with all people in lock down, and she was concerned it was being recorded !
The pandemic is not over. In fact it's currently getting worse in most of the world, with new variants popping up all over the place. Abandoning just about all protective measures was the most stupid (and predicable) mistake this, and other governments could have made.
So, my prediction is that the middle managers will insist on people being at work even if they have the virus, then wonder why their workforce evaporates.
If they had all been working from home then Boris would have just had his parties on Zoom and everyone would be happy now. I love Dilbert's recent series with the cartoon "The Office is a beautiful place when everyone else works from home"
The criteria isn't about the number of contaminations, but the number of people going to hospital because of COVID. Thanks to the vaccine, the consequences are now limited, and even if more and more people are sick after the removal of protective measure, there are no more people in ER.
We'll have to live with COVID for a long time, if not forever.
news flash: the shutdowns, the lockdowns, the masks, the distancing, and event he vaccines have not stopped THE VIRUS. It's a VIRUS. It's what they do. In fact I would argue that "all of that" has SLOWED the normal immune reactions creating herd immunity. and possibly even CREATED NEW VARIANTS outside of the normal natural progression of such things (which would have greatly suppressed those variants), ALL because of gummints and media driving fear and panic and do not doubt me, follow the money, SOMEONE is profiting off of "all that" in some way.
So if you're gonna DOOM and GLOOM over it, you get a big THUMBS DOWN from ME. Enjoy your masking and distancing. *I* refuse to participate.
What this article seems to be about is the one thing that has come out of this COMPLETE AND UTTER BOVINE SEWAGE, and that would be the VERY welcome trend of "Work from Home", and the likeliness that it's here to stay.
@Will Godfrey
"Abandoning just about all protective measures was the most stupid (and predicable) mistake this, and other governments could have made."
Applying such strict 'protective' measures has created huge problems. The supply chain issues with a lack of drivers since the training was paused. We have a serious inflation issue from the vast printing of money to pay people not to work. All of this doesnt seem to have helped but also seems to have been contrary to the expert advice already known.
For the benefit of my downvoters:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/30/uk-near-record-covid-cases-three-myths-omicron-pandemic
and:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/mar/31/failure-to-consider-long-covid-impact-will-hit-uk-economy-says-expert
Yes, I know. Groanian. However unlike many publications they include references.
@Will Godfrey
The issue I see with the covid restrictions is the mistaken belief that it will just go away. Everyone is going to get it no matter how hard we lock down. Even countries locked down so tight as to aim for zero covid are finding how futile their dreams are. All the while the 'resurgence' is of another mutation which this thing will continue to do.
Which then leads to the question over what to do about long covid? There is nothing to do. If everyone is gonna be infected at some point, the vaccines dont stop that either they try to reduce the likelihood of hospitalisation, what is there to do beyond what we have always done in this situation? Live with it.
Its good that the second link you posted acknowledges the reason for the restrictions was to flatten the curve. The number of infections doesnt matter, the number requiring medical care does. Because we are all gonna get it we just want to save the most lives.
Okay those who are all for working from home forever: hands up how many of you have had a spontaneous - ie: not pre-scheduled by a meeting request invite or some precursory discussion over a text-based system - conversation with one of your colleagues or team in the last... oooh, let's say three months?
Or let's try this one - how many have had to deal with multiple "conversations" at the same time because person B did not realise you were already on a chat with person A?
Businesses thrive on communication - the more fluid this is, the better the chances of delivering the right result in the shortest possible timeframe. And in this day and age, in an arena as competitive as IT and software, if someone else delivers the right result faster than you, you're in trouble (I'm looking at you, Internet Explorer and Chrome).
No matter how intuitive the interface or how fast the connection, video calls and text chat will never be as slick as talking face-to-face. And in some cases these systems are a barrier to communication - who has ever switched on a video call while they go to their kitchen an make a coffee just in case of of their colleagues is doing exactly the same thing at the same time?
Senior management may be old and crusty, but they do understand this pressure to deliver. And the more forward-thinking will have realised during the pandemic just how much impact this lack of face to face communication will have had over the last couple of years - yes, individuals might still be performing at near the same level but studies have shown that team productivity is down by anything up to 30%, which is a huge hit in any senior manager's eyes.
At the start of the pandemic, it was those who were able to pivot to home working that took the smallest hit. Similarly, it will be those who can get their people back in the office and talking freely again that will do best over the coming years.
Exactly. The onboarding during covid at my company has been a disaster. Too many did not last a year. Even with luscious swag packages and enthusiasm, these people could never build the same relationships as the more veteran teammates who knew each other beforehand. Even within the company, I'm not new, but moved to a different project and the occasional friendly chats on the phone/Teams do not come close the networking and bonding that a simple coffee in the lunchroom offers.
There's a thing for newbies, it's called training and documentation.
Alternatively management could throw everyone in the same open-plan office and leave it to the wheel of fortune about who's in/who's sitting next to who/who's friends with who over whether a problem gets solved or not, then pat themselves on the back for getting the big decisions right.
Telephones work, last I tried. Pretty useful, tnose things. Had a conference call for a court hearing recently. Being that it was 3000 miles away, and I had to participate, having that capability was extremely convenient.
Yes, businesses thrive on communication. But it does not have to be in person. And it does not have to be on a computer, either. That old-style land line comes in handy! (of course you could get a message on IRC or slack saying "hey we wanna do a conference call at 1PM today" and there ya have it.)
So yeah, communication still possible, as it always was, by phone.
"hands up how many of you have had a spontaneous - ie: not pre-scheduled by a meeting request invite or some precursory discussion over a text-based system - conversation with one of your colleagues or team in the last... oooh, let's say three months?"
I had 4 of those yesterday, which is typical for me. I'd average 3-4 spontaneous electronic conversations a day (whether text or call/video) in addition to scheduled meetings. And I now get at least 80% less interruptions from people wanting to talk about inane rubbish that has nothing to do with work..
"studies have shown that team productivity is down by anything up to 30%,"
Our team is actually producing all work ahead of schedule while WFH. Care to provide references for these "studies"?
Sounds like you are stuck in the past and haven't made the effort to actually use the technologies available to you. Or you are one of those odious people who have zero social life outside of work, and need everyone captive in the office so you can have a social outlet.
"I'd average 3-4 spontaneous electronic conversations a day (whether text or call/video)..."
So not actually "spontaneous" then in the spirit of the question I asked? Not actually the electronic equivalent of bumping into someone, getting talking and ending up coming up with a new idea, or a way to solve that problem that's been bugging you? Basically, just conversations (and I'd be willing to bet that the video calls were led by a text chat of "hey can you give me a hand with[whatever]?") that were brought about entirely by what you were working on at the time?
Of course, if that is the case and you are part of a team that genuinely care about each other's wellbeing to the point where you do call each other out of the blue then I envy you - but from what many have said, it would certainly be the exception. And given your comment that anything not to do with work is "innane rubbish", it sounds more likely that it's just a case of you being happy in your little silo, willing to just do what you are told and not caring about your wider team or the bigger picture.
Studies - I'd start with this. There are more out there - the ones I read were from the various emails I subscribe to, and I tend not to keep mailing list emails once I have read through the links that interest me. But seek and ye shall find.
As for being stuck in the past - I'll refer you back to my comment about being happy in your silo. I've been doing agile development for the best part of a decade now, and in my experience, the workplaces which implement this process the best, and have not just the fastest delivery rates but alos the best designed systems and the happiest employees are the ones that actively encourage open, spontaneous - "innane" as you would put it - conversation between employees. Going back to the waterfall world of getting a half-baked spec that you had had no input in the making of, slavishly building your take on what it is trying to explain and then finding out after weeks of work that it's not actually what the customer wanted (or they changed their minds) - that's the archeic face of software development.
And then of course, there's that tiny little bit of ad hominem in there: "one of those odious people who have zero social life outside of work" - the implication of which is that your opinion is that it's wrong for people to want to socialise with their colleagues. In which case, yes, I am one of those "odious" people. It tends to happen when you move halfway across the country a few months before lockdown starts, your old friends are all at least two hours travel away and the only people you've got to know in your new area are your work colleagues... but never mind that, you just keep on thinking of your co-workers as just that, heaven forbid you start thinking of them as actual human beings who might become new friends outside the workplace if you actually bother to get to know them...
There's nothing wrong with socialising with chosen work colleagues. There *is* something wrong if you socialise only with work colleagues, or even outside work if you socialise only with one group of people. Always diversity your friendship groups in case one ends for whatever reason and you're left friendless, to provide different life perspectives, and to find new experiences.
As to communicating electronically, if multiple people contacting you is an issue, most telephony or meetings automatically places you in Busy, and it's also possible to do so if a specific conversation is taking up most of your head space.
There's plenty of spontaneous conversations possible remotely, and as for contacts outside your own personal silo this is no less possible than in real life. The physical proximity argument is a con, especially when the people you mostly contact are in a city hundreds of miles away, or 3,000 miles on a different continent.
Caring about each others' well being is an entirely optional part of a job. Most colleagues may be pleasant enough, but they are not your friends and it's important to remember that. Also, yes, I do occasionally contact colleagues to see how they are, especially if I know they've had life issues, or to arrange socialising outside of work - this is all possible electronically without going into the office.
After an initial varied start, which was more related to the impact of the pandemic than technical issues (none : other than initial VPN capacity, and invites for some staff to retrieve peripherals/chairs etc from offices) I'd say collaboration is better than ever and that for many staff it's much better for their health and well being.
It does depend on personal circumstance - some people are not in a position to have or cope with an effective remote working setup in their home. However, others are able to communicate effectively, and take advantage of a lack of commuting to fit in exercise and chores leaving them more healthy and happier. Pushing employees back into a model that does not suit them will only breed resentment.
When I hear some manglement moron say their cube farm must be filled I have a bad feeling about the company. My impression is Intel manglement wants to be able to more effectively harass the peasants which is easier to do in the office.
WFH does has advantages for the both sides. Employees are not commuting any significant distance (bed to desk is not very far). Lunch is much easy to take care of, just raid the fridge. Thus commuting costs are much lower. There is no office space to be owned/rented for the employee and less resources required onsite such as cafeteria, desks, chairs, etc. Also, what space is available can be used for activities such as manufacturing that require onsite presence. Another benefit is that having to work a few extra hours is not as painful for the employee.
I've been speaking to some fairly senior professional staff from a couple of organisations today and had similar conversations over the last month or two.
It appears that where the social aspects of an organisation were good pre-pandemic, but pay and conditions poor, staff turn over has increased. (This is purely anecdotal). Staff seem to have decided after all this time away that their best buddies in the office were less important than a better paid job nearer home etc.
Where pay and conditions are reasonably OK (and staff relationships good I assume) turnover seems better. If WFH makes a job more congenial it seems likely that curtailing it will see higher staff churn unless the package of pay and conditions improves.
It appears the US gov knew the likely source of the virus was a Chinese lab back in April 2020-
https://www.theepochtimes.com/memo-reveals-state-department-assessed-in-early-2020-lab-leak-was-most-likely-origin-of-covid-19_4387879.html?utm_source=morningbriefnoe&utm_campaign=mb-2022-04-07&utm_medium=email&est=0jIl%2BIvJRuie1jZS5PMDd6UtXWG2y3aSEv8dfEvgOM4ChmqOsYBHOU01Re1T9g%3D%3D
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