close
    • chevron_right

      Zoom has “Zoom fatigue,” requires workers to return to the office

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 7 August, 2023 - 20:40

    A woman using Zoom to teleconference.

    Enlarge (credit: Morsa Images | DigitalVision )

    A video-conferencing company might be the last business anyone would expect to force employees to return to the office. That's why a series of shocked reports followed Zoom's announcement that any employees living "within 50 miles of a Zoom office" must now work in the office "at least two days a week."

    Starting this month and continuing through September, Zoom's decision to bring employees back to offices could impact many of the company's 7,400 employees, The New York Times reported .

    In a statement, a Zoom spokesperson said that the company believes "a structured hybrid approach" is "most effective for Zoom" because it provides an opportunity for workers "to interact with their teams."

    Read 16 remaining paragraphs | Comments

    • chevron_right

      Google makes office attendance part of performance reviews

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 8 June, 2023 - 21:51 · 1 minute

    People walk out of a Google office building in Taipei, Taiwan, on January 29, 2021.

    Enlarge / People walk out of a Google office building in Taipei, Taiwan, on January 29, 2021. (credit: Ceng Shou Yi/NurPhoto)

    Google is a company that was once famous for its whimsical, cushy office spaces. Even in the work-from-home era, Google would still really like its employees to use its offices. The latest news from The Wall Street Journal details how Google is pressuring employees to come back to the office, which includes making in-person office attendance part of employee performance reviews. Apparently, work done from home will not be viewed as favorably as work done from the office.

    The report quotes a staff-wide email from Google Chief People Officer Fiona Cicconi justifying the move, saying, "We’ve heard from Googlers that those who spend at least three days a week in the office feel more connected to other Googlers, and that this effect is magnified when teammates work from the same location. Of course, not everyone believes in ‘magical hallway conversations,’ but there’s no question that working together in the same room makes a positive difference."

    Google currently has a "hybrid work" policy where employees are expected to come into the office for at least three days of work a week. The report says employees that have "frequent absences" will start getting reminders about office attendance.

    Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

    • chevron_right

      As office returns get postponed, workers say they’d take pay cut to work from home

      Samuel Axon · news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 25 August, 2021 - 21:54

    An enormous ring-shaped building on a green campus.

    Enlarge / Apple's global headquarters in Cupertino, California. (credit: Sam Hall/Bloomberg via Getty Images )

    As Apple and other big tech companies postpone their planned returns to physical offices, a survey has found that workers around the United States would give up a lot to stay remote.

    As previously reported by ZDNet, GoodHire published a survey this week of 3,500 workers in the US and found that just over two-thirds of them would prefer to work remotely rather than in an office.

    Further, 70 percent of those said they would give up most or all of their benefits like health insurance and holidays to be able to work remotely. Sixty-one percent they would take a pay cut to make it happen. Most said they'd take a 10 percent pay reduction, but some claimed they'd even accept half their current salary in exchange for remote work.

    Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

    index?i=hlG9VU1ZMcU:NVuL_-DUMGQ:V_sGLiPBpWUindex?i=hlG9VU1ZMcU:NVuL_-DUMGQ:F7zBnMyn0Loindex?d=qj6IDK7rITsindex?d=yIl2AUoC8zA
    • chevron_right

      How businesses are changing their company network designs to work from home

      Jim Salter · news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 12 October, 2020 - 13:00 · 1 minute

    Multitudes are working from home. This changes how business

    Enlarge / Multitudes are working from home. This changes how business' networks work. (credit: zf L / Getty Images)

    We're 10 months into 2020, and businesses are still making adjustments to the new realities of large-scale telework (which, if you're not in the IT biz, is just a fancy term for "working from not in the office"). In the Before Times, telework was an interesting idea that tech companies were just starting to seriously flirt with as a normal way of doing business—whereas now, most businesses large or small have a hefty fraction of their workforce staying home to work.

    Unfortunately, making such a sweeping change to office workflow doesn't just disrupt policies and expectations—it requires important changes to the technical infrastructure as well. Six months ago, we talked about the changes the people who work from home frequently need to make to accommodate telework; today, we're going to look at the ongoing changes the businesses themselves need to make.

    We’re going to need a bigger boat pipe

    The most obvious problem that businesses have faced—and are continuing to face—with a greatly multiplied number of remote workers is the size of the company's Internet connection. If you need a quarter—or half, or three quarters—of your workforce to remote in to work every day, you need enough bandwidth to accommodate them.

    Read 27 remaining paragraphs | Comments

    index?i=M9-1VmXZKxY:h28Y76ztS4M:V_sGLiPBpWUindex?i=M9-1VmXZKxY:h28Y76ztS4M:F7zBnMyn0Loindex?d=qj6IDK7rITsindex?d=yIl2AUoC8zA
    • chevron_right

      Big tech companies want to help get you back in the office

      WIRED · news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Sunday, 6 September, 2020 - 10:05

    Masked co-workers discuss in an open office.

    Enlarge / Office staff respecting social distancing during a meeting. Group of business men and women having a meeting in office during corona virus pandemic. (credit: Getty Images )

    Many things about Matt Bruinooge’s senior year at Brown are different from his previous college life. One is that he logs on to a website from tech giant Alphabet twice a week to schedule nasal swabs.

    Brown is one of the first customers of a pandemic safety service from Alphabet subsidiary Verily Life Sciences called Healthy at Work , or Healthy at School at colleges. It offers a website and software for surveying workers or students for symptoms, scheduling coronavirus tests, and managing the results.

    The site Bruinooge uses to schedule his tests has similar styling to Google’s office suite. When a test comes back negative, he sees a graphic of something like a COVID -era hall pass, with a big check mark in soothing green. “The testing process is streamlined,” Bruinooge says—although he wonders where his data may end up.

    Read 24 remaining paragraphs | Comments

    index?i=2HGkDt-yIMU:bCKlaSaIRek:V_sGLiPBpWUindex?i=2HGkDt-yIMU:bCKlaSaIRek:F7zBnMyn0Loindex?d=qj6IDK7rITsindex?d=yIl2AUoC8zA