people have finally realized how to live life!
work to live, not live to work
If a company made me relocate, I’d quit and find another job. Simple as that. That’s my negotiation. I work hard from home. Companies not willing to accept this will lose good workers
Here’s the compromise: if the person can complete their contractual agreements outside of the office, they can. If they are unable to, they can’t.
I have been reminded over and over in the last three years that I am one of those rare psychopaths who likes a commute and enjoys being in an office. My entire social circle has been formed at work.
I hate meetings. When some of my team is not in the physical office, things that used to be handled in a pop-over are now 30 minute meetings. Most weeks I spend at least 1/3 of my time in meetings, and in my busiest weeks, it’s 30-35 hours of meetings, leaving 5-10 hours of my week to dedicate to the 45 hours of work I also have to get done.
All that being said, I would not work for a company that requires its workforce to be in person. I would never want a fully WFH role, but I don’t want to work for a company that can’t see the value that option has for many. And if I was ever laid off or needed to move on from my current company, I would need a WFH job while my kids are in school, as moving for work is not an option for me.
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I also like the commute (as long as I’m not trying to get there at a certain time) and office. I was one of the few that were still allowed in the building during most the pandemic.
It was kind of funny when they re-opened the office. While we can wfh, office, or combo, the company wanted the combo to be a fixed schedule. Quite a few people signed up for 1 day/wk at the office, with the idea being they’d have time to talk face-to-face and would have social time. But the problem was that there was not a critical mass of people going to the office and most of those who chose combo switched to straight wfh after a few months. It’s definitely a different feel in the building than it was a few years ago.
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I bet the majority of actuarial employers already have gone for this?
Mine has been trying to encourage employees to return to the office, but their initial goals was 2 days a week, and now it’s down to 1 day a week as a “norm” with a lot of exceptions. I’m looking at being physically in the office a couple days each quarter.
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Three questions:
- Where do you work?
- Are they hiring?
- How does the pay compare to published salary surveys?
Feel free to PM. I do not want to lose this deal… working 120 days a year for actuary money sounds perfect.
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I like this idea. There will have to be some exceptions for cross-functional meetings. But that can probably mostly be worked out by scheduling different departments in-person time to overlap and/or bringing in select people at other times.
This is my experience as well
In my case, we seem to be stabilizing on:
- My team (at least those of us on this continent) is in-office together 2-3 days a month.
- My department has a 1-2 days in-office together 1-2 times a year.
My boss is actually in-office 50% of the time, but that’s because his daughter goes to school close to the office, so on weeks he has custody, he escorts her on the subway.
Another team member seems to be in-office about 80% of the time, but he lives within walking distance.
I live over 300 miles from my office (although there is a local office I could go into if I needed to…but pre-pandemic that was 45+ minutes away each way with traffic). Going in a couple of days each month works for me.
That’s been a challenge for us. We want our regular trips in to overlap with whatever teams/departments we’re working with on the project du jour. Coordinating schedules is a bit complex. We didn’t have to worry about that complexity back in the Before Times.
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Reminds me of a job interview I had many years ago where the boss wanted to hire me but his company didn’t have the budget to hire me for the full year. The company was part of a larger corporation, he tried to share me with other companies in the network but couldn’t find anyone at the time. Eventually he did find a company to split the time, but I had moved on by then.
Those of us already knew that from the AO days - with all our intelligence we should be running other companies.
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Kinda related
https://twitter.com/daleyfurter/status/1597869716193697792?s=46&t=FxaHT5mKY1C4wPI6HiX2wg
Much more detail in the thread.
I wish there was a prayer of this happening in the US.
I keep telling our data science partners what an opportunity this is for data science! Allow me to input how much I want to be in the office, which office is most convenient, when I can be in, what team I’m on, who I work with, etc. and then do that for everyone and PRESTO you tell me when to come in when it’s most valuable for us all to be in!
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I’d be okay with 4 day work week as long as it’s not 10 hours a day.
with human productivity at all time high, it’s time we reduce the 40-hour work week.
Agreed, my fear is that we’ll get longer days - I enjoy getting more sleep and starting at 9, and as long as I finish by 6 I think I’ve done enough.
Unless they reduce my billable hour goal and workload by 20% that’s pointless.
US will probably never get anything close to 100% in our lifetimes but there is a prayer at least, based on what I read here: 4-Day Workweek Catching On In The United States