I think there a variety of factors at play in the tech sector driving hiring trends:
1. There are, in fact, tech companies that still demand employees come into a physical office. There comes a tipping point in a laborer's market (tech being one of them) where this becomes sufficient reason to leave when there are plenty of reasonable alternatives that don't require employees be physically present.
2. Mental health is often overlooked in these discussions. The pandemic has been a huge source of stress, uncertainty, and general chaos. Many people (myself included) lost their usual outlets of stress (going out, meeting with friends, catching up with family, etc). From personal experience, this lead me to having a spat of time where I was burned out and had to lay off working at all for several months before joining a new organization. From what I hear, I'm far from the only one who's gone through such an experience.
3. In light of COVID, many people are facing the realities of mortality much earlier and more frequently than they would prior to a pandemic. Many of us have lost friends or loved ones if not to COVID, than to COVID caused problems (mental health, substance abuse, health problems that became critical due to lack of ER capacity). Having a brush with death is a strong incentive for people to reevaluate their situations and reexamine how they spend their time. For many people, work is not fulfilling and they may be more willing to adjust their lifestyle to prioritize things important to them that don't require as much money; or things that take them to other careers; OR give folks a kick in the pants to demand more from their current employers.
I suspect there's more to this trend; more nuance than is being captured by the current news cycles. The US has a diverse population of people in a variety of situations and the driving factors for hiring trends for bay area companies are likely not indicative of what employees are seeing from their side of the table.
> 2. Mental health is often overlooked in these discussions. The pandemic has been a huge source of stress, uncertainty, and general chaos. Many people (myself included) lost their usual outlets of stress (going out, meeting with friends, catching up with family, etc). From personal experience, this lead me to having a spat of time where I was burned out and had to lay off working at all for several months before joining a new organization. From what I hear, I'm far from the only one who's gone through such an experience.
Yeah, this is super evident in my circle of friends and colleagues. One senior-dev friend started an apprenticeship as a carpenter, another one opened a store for booze. Some others got serious about following their passion projects. Everyone seems to have a little crack or two.
FWIW, as a hiring manager, our stance on remote is one of the first questions I get asked. BUT, I hear roughly equal numbers of people who want Full-Office as who want Full-Remote.
In other words the flow is not only from in-person work to WFH, but rather people are flowing both ways and sorting into whichever lifestyle they prefer.
I think thats actually the endgame here: long-term all companies are going to have to pick Office/Hybrid/Remote as one of their core values and selling points, and there will be almost 3 distinct labor pools for each type based on what sort of work style a candidate wants.
I am fully in support for full-remote work as a policy, as I view WFH as right or at least an advancement that has been needlessly deprived from many white collar professions for a long time.
That said, I personally would not mind some in-office work, even only one day or two days a week, or even alternating in-person weeks. WFH feels incredibly isolating at times.
I think the unique and extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic have been incredibly limiting, leading people to feel trapped. Hence it’s obvious why people rebel against being in-office, but also explains why the people who didn’t mind working in person now bristle against full-remote. Zoom fatigue and the isolation of full digital existence also contributes towards the demand for full-office.
It will be interesting to see how this changes after the pandemic, when more freedom and flexibility hopefully returns to the workplace.
Not sure how it is today, but I felt DigitalOcean had the right mix pre-pandemic: 50% onsite and 50% remote. We could choose which we wanted as time went, and remotes could fly in and work from the office about once per quarter. This allowed me to be remote while also developing in-person relationships with a lot of employees, as there were always some people in the office (revolving remotes and regular onsites). It was the best of both world!
1. There are, in fact, tech companies that still demand employees come into a physical office. There comes a tipping point in a laborer's market (tech being one of them) where this becomes sufficient reason to leave when there are plenty of reasonable alternatives that don't require employees be physically present.
2. Mental health is often overlooked in these discussions. The pandemic has been a huge source of stress, uncertainty, and general chaos. Many people (myself included) lost their usual outlets of stress (going out, meeting with friends, catching up with family, etc). From personal experience, this lead me to having a spat of time where I was burned out and had to lay off working at all for several months before joining a new organization. From what I hear, I'm far from the only one who's gone through such an experience.
3. In light of COVID, many people are facing the realities of mortality much earlier and more frequently than they would prior to a pandemic. Many of us have lost friends or loved ones if not to COVID, than to COVID caused problems (mental health, substance abuse, health problems that became critical due to lack of ER capacity). Having a brush with death is a strong incentive for people to reevaluate their situations and reexamine how they spend their time. For many people, work is not fulfilling and they may be more willing to adjust their lifestyle to prioritize things important to them that don't require as much money; or things that take them to other careers; OR give folks a kick in the pants to demand more from their current employers.
I suspect there's more to this trend; more nuance than is being captured by the current news cycles. The US has a diverse population of people in a variety of situations and the driving factors for hiring trends for bay area companies are likely not indicative of what employees are seeing from their side of the table.