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Comment by cmdshiftf4 | Hacker News Reader

Post-COVID I see three scenarios:

- Companies go back to the office, but with more of an onsite/remote split and better support for it

- Companies that reject remote and return to the office fully

- A whole host of companies that go fully remote, or start as a fully remote

Given the experience we've all had during COVID, employees will thus be now better able to self-select to work for companies within the above scenarios.

Therefore, this position feels pretty transient to me intuitively, although given Gitlab spearheaded its creation maybe my intuition is completely off?

Regardless, I personally loathe the expansion of HR in the modern org in terms of their jurisdiction, visibility and power and this position seems to be just another tentacle on the beast. As with everything HR related, it also feels like once it exists it won't not exist.

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I imagine companies that choose to do a split or go back to the office are doing so to justify an existing capital investment they've already made. At my 2k-person company there is overwhelming support to keep the office open as a place to socialize than for real productivity. Seems to me it might be cheaper to just give employees a small budget for recreation than to invest in facilities, security, food, and A/V so people can escape their kids every now and then.

Spent 5 years working remote. Was starting to lose my mind from the lack of interaction.

Went back to an office. Was much happier.

Beginning to feel the same way again.

A better role were I actually interacted with people during the day would be a major help. But hard to predict when interviewing

I'm really hoping for the first. Pre-COVID I was pretty happy with WFH 2 or 3 days a week (sometimes Monday/Friday to bookend the week if possible). But this way I also still get to work with people in person at least a couple days a week. I'm definitely not the type to want to be working by myself at home all week.

I think it's quite likely as a long term trend for a big enough number of companies.

Face to face meetings are much higher bandwidth than anything tech can offer us so it will remain a competitive advantage for at least a while. Also most people are sociable and yes, work counts, too.

I'd bet on a split something like this 10 years from now: 60-80% split, 10-20% no remote, 10-20% fully remote.

I'm inclined to think the first two groups will be split more evenly (with <= 10% WFH being counted in the second group). There are plenty of people who will drift back towards "it's just easier when everyone's in the office..."

I work for a remote-first company that had both remote and onsite employees pre-pandemic. I could see value in such a role for making sure T's are crossed and I's are dotted to ensure the transition happens smoothly. Not only do you need technology for it, but culturally you need to be sure onsite employees make every meeting open to dialing in. So, now you have someone accountable in ensuring the entire organization is making changes (not just legal, or marketing, or engineering, etc).

Right on. It should be treated as a compliance role to ensure remote workers aren’t second class citizens.

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