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garbawarb 4 hours ago [-]
> We are also asking the vast majority of remote employees to move to an office, and going forward, only ~1% of employees will be remote.
If you believe in return-to-office as a soft layoff, even more than 10% will be leaving.
RestlessMind 51 minutes ago [-]
“ The benefits of sitting together, collaborating in person, and solving problems as a team are clearer than ever in our post-Covid world.”
100%. Speaking only for myself, I was fully remote for a few years and that was a miserable experience. Now everyone is mandated to be in office 3 days a week and that works better for me. Uber is going one step further and structuring teams to be colocated with their manager. That solves the problem of team members distributed across multiple offices, which is still a real pain point in the hybrid model.
I know some people who strictly prefer fully remote setup. Over time, I think companies and employees will self sort themselves into those who prefer office vs those who prefer remote. That should work out for most of us.
mhitza 22 minutes ago [-]
When working a regular 9-5 I very much preferred office presence for the social aspect, especially when work is slower and no pressure.
But when I actually need to concentrate and deliver high quality work, it needs to be in a quiet place. And that is often from home, because open space office buildings are the devil's work and I will never forget how much people complained about them when they started becoming the norm a bit before the 2010s.
spike021 25 minutes ago [-]
That's a nice idea but how many of those people will wind up at a job that doesn't require RTO? I was applying quite a bit back in April and many places that previously had decently-hard stances on allowing WFH now stated RTO as a requirement.
Artgor 4 hours ago [-]
"In Pulse surveys and conversations with many of you, we’ve heard that too much work requires coordination across teams, debates take too long, and decision-making rights are unclear. I’m sure many of you have felt that you spend too much time “aligning” rather than building, shipping, or serving customers. To improve this, we have reduced roles primarily focused on coordination, and have clarified the remit of the coordination roles that remain. "
Well, in theory this sounds reasonable. But who knows what will be the real consequences.
sznio 2 hours ago [-]
I don't get it. Too much time is spent coordinating, so fire those who are responsible for coordination? Am I reading this wrong?
jerjerjer 2 hours ago [-]
People whose primary job is to "coordinate" often, either in a well-meaning attempt to be thorough or just to be relevant, try to pull as many different people into any decision-making as possible.
So instead of me just getting approval from my manager, I need to get approval/buy-in from departments A, B, and C.
In that case, firing the "coordinator" person increases velocity because parts of the business processes they prop disappear.
50 minutes ago [-]
etse 2 hours ago [-]
That's how I read it, too.
They pinpointed the problem of over-coordination to the messenger (coordinator) instead of the teams demanding final approval over launches (coordination).
Won't merging different teams under a single owner only push the problem further down the org chart?
csande17 2 hours ago [-]
There were too many meetings, so they got rid of the people whose jobs were to create lots of meetings.
MattGaiser 1 hours ago [-]
The coordinators enable extra coordination that is not worth doing. The coordination itself is the problem.
threetonesun 39 minutes ago [-]
I've heard this at other companies and it's almost always an issue of upper management holding too much control over decision making, or poorly communicating actual business objects, but it's project managers and middle management that will bear the brunt of the layoffs.
Synthetic7346 20 minutes ago [-]
"Complain about coordination, get laid off" is what this reads like
jms703 1 hours ago [-]
So TPMs are getting the axe? Product managers too?
slantedview 2 hours ago [-]
Revenue is up massively, so we'll be getting rid of the people that helped that happen. Genius move.
sidcool 36 minutes ago [-]
This is a common strategy nowadays. Not sure of the rationale
2 hours ago [-]
1attice 2 hours ago [-]
Interesting -- it doesn't cite AI (smart comms move, and a change from recent practice) but the buried lede is that this frees up resources etc etc.
I think we might be in a new phase: AI layoffs are now being disguised as regular layoffs (rather than the other way around) because of the backlash.
jaykru 2 hours ago [-]
Layoff note mentions AI => it's not AI
Layoff note omits AI => it's AI
I am onboard with the idea that corporate messaging is typically anything but forthright but I don't see the logic here.
1attice 2 hours ago [-]
Because AI is now a monstrous political issue, and the valence has flipped -- literally the irony I was pointing to :)
Whoosh
zamalek 2 hours ago [-]
Uber was one of the first to admit that AI isn't all it's hyped up to be.
If you believe in return-to-office as a soft layoff, even more than 10% will be leaving.
100%. Speaking only for myself, I was fully remote for a few years and that was a miserable experience. Now everyone is mandated to be in office 3 days a week and that works better for me. Uber is going one step further and structuring teams to be colocated with their manager. That solves the problem of team members distributed across multiple offices, which is still a real pain point in the hybrid model.
I know some people who strictly prefer fully remote setup. Over time, I think companies and employees will self sort themselves into those who prefer office vs those who prefer remote. That should work out for most of us.
But when I actually need to concentrate and deliver high quality work, it needs to be in a quiet place. And that is often from home, because open space office buildings are the devil's work and I will never forget how much people complained about them when they started becoming the norm a bit before the 2010s.
Well, in theory this sounds reasonable. But who knows what will be the real consequences.
So instead of me just getting approval from my manager, I need to get approval/buy-in from departments A, B, and C.
In that case, firing the "coordinator" person increases velocity because parts of the business processes they prop disappear.
They pinpointed the problem of over-coordination to the messenger (coordinator) instead of the teams demanding final approval over launches (coordination).
Won't merging different teams under a single owner only push the problem further down the org chart?
I think we might be in a new phase: AI layoffs are now being disguised as regular layoffs (rather than the other way around) because of the backlash.
Layoff note omits AI => it's AI
I am onboard with the idea that corporate messaging is typically anything but forthright but I don't see the logic here.
Whoosh