Most of companies who claim they’re hiring the TOP TALENT yet don’t offer remote work are truly delusional.
What’s the meaning of term TOP TALENT precisely? People in radius of 5miles from you office?
Office work is a relict of the past where most duties required people to be present on-site and do the physical work for 8 hours.
Nowadays, especially with tech companies there are close to 0 reasons to demand from employees to show up in the office 8×5.
Those who have put any effort into learning what are the cognitive capabilities of human being would clearly know that an employee tasked with creative work such as software engineering is not capable of doing it 8hours straight and their productivity drops significantly after about two thirds of that.
So what’s the sense of demanding from people to commute 2h hours to the office and then spend them 8 hours even tho they’re empty after 5-6?
There is none, but most companies and managers don’t give a shit about that. You’re a worker, they own you and they’ll squeeze everything you’ve got out of you, so that when you leave the office you have no energy to live and make a ruckus in the world or even seek another place to work because you’re too drained. You must take what they give you, appreciate it beyond its value and comply with all the norms.
Is there a downside to this for those companies? Absolutely yes. Their behavior limits their growth potential and they’re making less money than they could. They end up with class C employees to soon enough replace them to class employees, because all of their best people used rests of their sanity to escape the toxic environment. Companies that act this way are already on a downhill path and competition in tech world is so huge that they’ll be quickly kicked out of business.
Bad corporate culture => Only C-Z employees are left => Weak product and services =>No way to fight with a huge competition who actually figured out the employement game=> Corporation is gone from the business, and for a good reason
Remote working is clearly the future because not only it is cheaper for a company and more humanitarian for employees when they dedicate their time to the company by working not with hidden costs of commute and what not.
Surely plenty of people won’t qualify for remote positions. It requires a set of abilities such as self-discipline, isolating from home environment, so the transition would take a long time not only for employers but also for some employees. However, not offering it or being so strict in terms of employement is taking away an opportunity for you to attract great employee and for them to join great organisation and fulfill their dreams.
And it’s all in name of what? Rigid corporate policies created by reckless and incompetent HRs and managers led by outdated rules and those who have never put their nose into a book on humans to learn how they can adapt to everchanging world and societies? You really believe it’s worth losing a 1000Xer employee who’ll feel fulfilled and hence motivated to deliver work in amounts no one else would?
It’s not for uneducated executives to decide whether given employee can work remotely or not. It should be a decision coming from the team and signed by direct manager, because those are the only people who really know if the physical contact is needed on daily basis and if that person delivers the work. If they ship the work, if they’re in good relations with the team, why would anyone care if an employee is working from Thailand or crowded and ugly office space.
I know that most of people have no realistic empathy or haven’t studied sociology, psychology or human capital management – which is pathetic, because there is no bigger gift & responsibility than leading people – so they can’t realize that happier and more relaxed employee leads to better results for the company and even their willingness to work overhours if needed.
Life is simple, more you give is more you get. If people feel happy about the workplace and feel that company respects them and wants good for them, they’ll be happy to give more of it back.
Summarizing, unless you’re a Facebook, Google, Microsoft where people are eager to relocate just to work for you, you’re being delusional with claims that your company is hiring TOP TALENT.
Not even close, not even local talent, because even local talent will choose more modern and flexible companies – even if they don’t plan to take advantage of it. Look at your competition, if someone is dedicated to work in your city, aren’t there any other great businesses to work for?
Dawid Bałut 