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Meta is bolstering perks like happy hours and company swag as it pushes staff to return to office, despite its 'year of efficiency' (www.businessinsider.com)
submitted 3 years ago by [M, B] to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Meta is bolstering perks like happy hours and company swag as it pushes staff to return to office, despite its 'year of efficiency'::The company has revived a number of employee perks, according to Bloomberg, including branded t-shirts, laundry services, and free haircuts.

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[–] 39 points 3 years ago (13 children)

Upper mgmt "We need our employees back in the office." Lowrt mgmt "Did you see the numbers? Since our employees started working from home, we've been smashing targets." Upper mgmt "Yeah that's why we need them back. Just imagine how much better the numbers could have been if we were making sure they weren't slacking off."

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I wonder if it's also that now their investors are going to expect growth on top of whatever accelerated growth they have experienced in this WFH era. meta wants a nice, predictable cruise uphill, not a sprint that they'll now need to continue, progress be damned.

    Side note: that's a theory I've had regarding technological advancements in devices like phones. Apple, Samsung etc. want small incremental advancements they can drip-feed to consumers for stable growth, so they probably try to keep the big leaps infrequent. Yeah I know Moore's Law can't go on forever, and it might be getting to that point soon... alright I'll take off the tinfoil hat.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago

    Leave the tinfoil hat on. There is a precedent for exactly what you are describing. When radios went from valve to transistor, radio manufacturers kept the number of transistors low and only slowly increased radio quality over the years. They were able to make higher quality radios from day 1 but didn't so they could sell more radios.

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  • [+] -22 points 3 years ago* (10 children)

    Every time redditors defend work from home: "we'd be sooo productive"

    Every time redditors talk about work from home in the context of job search: "it's soo relaxed, no ones constantly looking over your shoulder to check whether you are working. You can easily take gaming breaks"

    Y'all are a walking meme

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  • [+] 9 points 3 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (6 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    It allows control-obsessed managers to micromanage their employees from up close.

    They are the ones who become more productive, since when employees work from home, those manager loses like 90% of their value.

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  • [–] -5 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    Because the largest portion of employees are stuck in job, which they don't love and for which they won't give more than the minimum required effort. The minimum required effort becomes less, when there is less supervision.

    Productiveness also obviously decreases, when you have to communicate with your colleges via zoom, instead of just speaking to them over the table. Seems like none of you had to work yet, but there are few jobs in which you need almost no communication and cooperation with coworkers.

    Also most jobs require walking through the building (even if you sit behind a computer most of the day), because pretty much every company has a portion of its business that can't be digitized. Can't go down into the storage hall of a carrier firm to fix workers messing up the labeling, when you are working from home.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Back when I was in the office, we all just messaged each other while sitting next to each other mainly because we are programmers and our productivity suffers the moment someone interrupts out concentration with a question and we can respond to IMs whenever we are at a stopping point. Honestly working from home is exactly the same for me now than what it was when I was in the office, except...

    • I no longer have to sit in my car in traffic with my stress levels out the wazoo.
    • I no longer have to dress "professionally" with slacks and a dress shirt.
    • I no longer have to smell the microwaved fish every Thursday
    • I no longer have to physically interact with other employees who did not wash their hands in the bathroom
    • I am no longer getting sick since the same employees who didn't wash their hands, would always also come in to work sick as a dog.
    • I no longer have to deal with people's armpits smelling like onion because deodorant goes against their religious beliefs.
    • I still wake up at the same time, but now I have time to exercise in the morning and go on nice walks with my dog.

    Yeah, working in an office sucks (at least for me)

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  • [–] -2 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

    Yeah programmers is the obvious one profession, that might largely be an exception. I don't really know how progress in that profession is tracked or how you integrate newcomers into the team, but I suppose there may not be a huge disadvantage.

    Also, your points are all personal ones, which I obviously grant. However, seeing this from an employers side of view, it's a much harder sale.

    The "we'd be more productive"-trope is not only not clearly true, but clearly wrong for most professions. Point and case: https://programming.dev/pictrs/image/be147193-0d32-41f5-9112-400f6e374f07.jpeg

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