I've been reading a lot of comments that talk about close-knit teams that need to overhear people, get people to come over and look at their desks, and that's all well and good.
But screen-sharing, chat rooms for collaboration, and bridge conferences have been around for a while, and companies that have a strategic outlook on telecommuting (like IBM, for example), know how to use those to effectively replace the "face time" with something better.
Which is the ability for an employee to choose where they want to live, constrained only by their access to an internet connection, and not be concerned with commuting every morning and night. This allows a company to retain highly-skilled labor without paying them more money. An astute employee would figure out what economic benefit the lack of commuting provides in time and expense, and use that in determining how much money they should be making at a remote position versus on-site.
I have done the cubicle thing for over a decade, and I have done and continue to do the remote thing for a few years, and let me tell you, unequivocally:
Cubicles suck. You're sitting there in a tiny cubicle all day, looking at your screen, while your boss sits in a sweet office and demands that you come in at a certain time, because he has no other way of telling whether you are being productive or not. Then you get called at 1am to fix a problem from home. This is incredibly annoying when you have just spent all day at work, and may or may not be getting any overtime compensation or even paid for the extra hours you work. I know that I am personally much less annoyed when called about a problem at 1am if I have been at home all day, than I would be if I had been stuck in a cubicle all day.
Then again, the on-site office situation is great for a certain brand of middle manager, because again, they get a sweet office, and again, they don't actually have to figure out who's being productive, because they can simply look around and see who appears to be concentrating the hardest.
This may be Meyer's strategy, or maybe she's simply announcing that she's arrived, and she's in charge. Much like how Patton showed up in Europe and demanded that his combat troops all wear neckties. Or maybe she's trying to cut that payroll down with some attrition.
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I've been reading a lot of comments that talk about close-knit teams that need to overhear people, get people to come over and look at their desks, and that's all well and good.
But screen-sharing, chat rooms for collaboration, and bridge conferences have been around for a while, and companies that have a strategic outlook on telecommuting (like IBM, for example), know how to use those to effectively replace the "face time" with something better.
Which is the ability for an employee to choose where they want to live, constrained only by their access to an internet connection, and not be concerned with commuting every morning and night. This allows a company to retain highly-skilled labor without paying them more money. An astute employee would figure out what economic benefit the lack of commuting provides in time and expense, and use that in determining how much money they should be making at a remote position versus on-site.
I have done the cubicle thing for over a decade, and I have done and continue to do the remote thing for a few years, and let me tell you, unequivocally:
Cubicles suck. You're sitting there in a tiny cubicle all day, looking at your screen, while your boss sits in a sweet office and demands that you come in at a certain time, because he has no other way of telling whether you are being productive or not. Then you get called at 1am to fix a problem from home. This is incredibly annoying when you have just spent all day at work, and may or may not be getting any overtime compensation or even paid for the extra hours you work. I know that I am personally much less annoyed when called about a problem at 1am if I have been at home all day, than I would be if I had been stuck in a cubicle all day.
Then again, the on-site office situation is great for a certain brand of middle manager, because again, they get a sweet office, and again, they don't actually have to figure out who's being productive, because they can simply look around and see who appears to be concentrating the hardest.
This may be Meyer's strategy, or maybe she's simply announcing that she's arrived, and she's in charge. Much like how Patton showed up in Europe and demanded that his combat troops all wear neckties. Or maybe she's trying to cut that payroll down with some attrition.