As you traverse the management tree towards the top, both age and ability to influence office policy go up. And as age goes up, remote management experience/comfort goes down.
Conscious or not, the people with the power are making things most comfortable for them. They’re not necessarily acting in the best interest of the company.
I don't think it's corelated with age. In fact my experience has always been that it was older, more experienced engineers who had managed to swing things in a direction where they could consult from a home office. I was always jealous of such people when I was younger. A more difficult arrangement for new-grads or junior devs to acquire.
It wasn't until COVID that remote work became more accessible to more people.
Yes - this is a silly echo chamber thought that I only see on this website. In most companies it's not social managers vs antisocial technical folks. And even in software companies it's not the case.
In most companies, the younger half of the employees tend to want to socialize more, tend to live in smaller cramped places, and want learn from experienced people in person.
The older half of employees tend to have bigger houses with personal offices, don't want to be constantly bothered with questions from the younguns, might be married and not care as much about fraternizing with co-workers, and maybe have kids and other personal responsibilities that make the flexibility of remote work all the more appealing.
Its emotional thinking to prefer the status quo that you know, not rational thinking imo. Rational logic would suggest not signing any more office leases and letting your employees foot that bill through their own homes, saving the company money with no change in work output.
They also own houses worth millions close to the office and don’t give a f-k about other people having to spend the major part of their income on housing and commuting, not to mention the absolute evil of destroying the environment for no good reason.
this is a huge factor. I have found a lot of vp/exec folk are totally blind to the fat that their significant wealth makes commutes go away, and makes it easy to have a decent lifestyle AND be close to the office. This is especially an issue in SFBA where even upper-middle-class-bordering-on-rich still have hour each way commutes due to housing cost.
As one point of data, I've been trending towards remote-or-bust as I've aged. My tolerance for time wasters (like commuting) is low and my desire for flexibility is much higher.
I’m sure some prefer in-office more with age, but it’s definitely not the case for all!
As you traverse the management tree towards the top, both age and ability to influence office policy go up. And as age goes up, remote management experience/comfort goes down.
Conscious or not, the people with the power are making things most comfortable for them. They’re not necessarily acting in the best interest of the company.