The CEO of Dropbox has a 90/10 rule for remote work
The CEO of Dropbox has a 90/10 rule for remote work
"If you trust people and treat them like adults, they'll behave like adults," Dropbox CEO Drew Houston told Fortune.
This means 90% of the year is spent on remote work, and the remaining 10% is dedicated to employee off-site events.
I think that's about right. Maybe a couple days per quarter for a department, and then a few days a year with the whole company together. Enough to get a good rapport with your coworkers, but not so much you hate traveling for work.
"If you trust people and treat them like adults, they'll behave like adults. Trust over surveillance," said Houston.
If you give people good metrics to hit, they'll hit them. If you don't have good metrics then you rely on seeing asses in seats to know if people are working.
I mean, you get your opinion, but I just disagree.
Remote means Remote.
Being forced to stand in a field and eat hot dogs with my coworkers doesn't accomplish anything but subject me to learning things I shouldn't need to know about my coworkers and being forced to share things I don't want to share with my coworkers.
I have never once attended a "team building" event and liked my coworkers more after.
In fact, the opposite happens. I learn who is religious. I learn who is racist. I learn who denies climate change. I learn who is a horrible parent bit thinks they are the best parent.
I'm not friends with my coworkers. I cowork with them, and as a data analyst/process Automator, I can do that through zoom.
I'd say, 'your employees have options. They're not resources to control,'" Houston told Fortune when asked about what message he had for CEOs who believed in return-to-office mandates.
"You need a different social contract and to let go of control. But if you trust people and treat them like adults, they'll behave like adults. Trust over surveillance," he added.
“But but but you can’t just treat the servants like people who are capable of completing their responsibilities while managing their own time! What if they finish their work early or take an extra ten minutes at lunch?! Sweet lord, what if they aren’t jiggling their mouse enough??!! Time theft is the most heinous crime in human history!!!1!”
- Every other CEO and corporate media stooge for the last three years
Yeah, honestly when I see people claim that CEOs just want people back for the tax benefits I call bullshit.
These are people who have to justify their own existence through control over whatever company they're a part of. They don't want you back in the office because they're afraid you're screwing them over, they want you back in because otherwise the veil is lifted on how worthless they are as a leader.
Another thing to keep in mind is that pretty much all the C levels spend the majority of their time doing in person stuff with other high level narcissists where they have to focus on body language to avoid being the victim of interface politics and they don't understand that most other people have positions that require long periods of focus on individual tasks.
Any time they say that people want to be in the office or that interpersonal communication only works in person they are projecting. They just have the ability to force it on everyone else.
Honestly, it’s even stupider than that. Everyone who works for me or that o work with is a professional making 6 figures, ranging into the mid-six range. They’re great at their jobs, and prior to Covid we had all kinds of flexibility for who worked where. Now it’s a one size fits all, and I’d honestly be shocked if the company wasn’t losing more money in policing and attrition than it was gaining in some hypothetical bonus of being in the office.
I love working from home. But I do go in more because it's partly mandated but I take great flexibility with it. It genuinely helps me to be in a couple of days a week, but I'd like that to be my decision, not management. It isn't the same for everyone either. Many roles are better off remote tbh. Our employer assesses category of work done and applies some full wfh where it makes sense, but some I feel get mischaracterised.
I got called back in after “essential employees” became a thing during Covid. I’d been out for 3 days remote work. A month later everyone got called back.
When they found out I’d been back nearly a month before them they asked why I had to come back in.
“How do you know you have slaves if you can’t see them?”
Company before COVID: "We have 32 buildings across 5 campuses in 3 cities" After Covid: "We have 32 empty buildings no one will buy from us for enough to even break even. If we sell them no we lose millions, but they just sit empty"
If you look at their Glassdoor you'll see many complaints about their reorgs. Wonder if that's related at all
That's most tech corporate jobs tbf. Lots of middle managers with nothing much better to do than play musical chairs once a quarter. It's like that XKCD meme about there being the standard that will clean up the mess of there being so many standards. Surely my way of working will solve all our problems of underinvestment and losing key talent...
Wow, the Lord's truth right here. I never saw it that way, but it absolutely explains why the last company I left put me through 4 reorgs in 3 years. So many middle managers with nothing better to do while an increasingly smaller handful of people kept the place from burning down.
Telling people to return to the office is gives them an excuse to fire people for not listening to directions.
I'm glad to be in a union.