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Leaked Zoom all-hands: CEO says employees must return to offices because they can't be as innovative or get to know each other on Zoom (www.businessinsider.com)
submitted 2 years ago by [M, B] to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Leaked Zoom all-hands: CEO says employees must return to offices because they can't be as innovative or get to know each other on Zoom::Zoom CEO Eric Yuan discussed the benefits of in-person work in a leaked meeting.

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[–] 44 points 2 years ago (3 children)

My company is complete work from home. The issue is that people can't imagine coworkers talking to each other and being friends while working remotely.

I spend half of most days in spontaneous voice chats with coworkers where we have these exact same moments. Spontaneous discussions leading to ideas that change the way we do things.

It's not exclusive to being in an office. You just need to adapt to a new work style.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    3/4 of the team I am on work from home, 2 of us full time, We have weekly scheduled meetings with no agenda other than to catch up and this is where ideas can come up, We haven't all been in an office together since before the lockdown yet we continue to thrive. I also have most of each Friday blocked out to work with one of the team on whatever he happens to be working on that day. We just jump in a meeting and do stuff. And like you we are all open to just spontaneous chats at any time either by text or call. It works perfectly well.

    I guess you also have those chats where you pull other people in during the conversation, Oh, Suchandsuch will have input, send them an invite to this meeting etc :)

    I love it, I get peace and quite when needed to code, and all the interaction I need to make the job work.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago

    We have a daily SUM which is supposed to last 15 minutes. It is usually over an hour, but work makes up at best 20 minutes. The rest is just us chatting.

    We also have regular calls with other teams which follow a similar pattern.

    It is easy to have "water-cooler" chats while working remotely.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago* (4 children)

    It’s not exclusive to being in an office. You just need to adapt to a new work style.

    I've spent 2 years in WFH during COVID and haven't seen this working in any of the teams (even though there were attempts).

    One problem is just that remote calls suck a lot, especially if you have latency and audio issues. People talking over each other, then saying "sorry" and waiting 20 seconds, audio too high or low or just poor quality etc. A lot of it could be solved with technology, but weirdly it hasn't happened yet.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I've spent longer than that and I'm not sure where the issue is. It works fine for us. Perhaps it's a US thing with poor internet quality?

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    It's crazy how people have been talking on the phone for like a hundred years and talking over each other was something that was easy to work out.

    But put the same technology on a computer and suddenly people forgot how to talk on the phone.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    Group calls weren’t the norm until recently. I fucking despise group zoom calls. I normally will just not contribute at all because it’s impossible to be heard. Someone else will always talk over you. This is the 3rd team I’ve worked remote on, and it hasn’t worked on any of them so far.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Idk, I leverage Slack huddles regularly and have absolutely no issues with multiple people hanging out and having casual conversations while working. We do these spontaneously throughout the day.

    How old are your coworkers generally? My company is mostly on the younger side of things. We grew up with team speak, steam voice chat, and now are often in discord. This is not unfamiliar territory and has always worked well outside of the office.

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  • [+] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)
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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    The thing is I spent a LOT of time in voice chats playing games as a kid. It always worked well then. It hasn't changed at all. I don't need to be on a video call. I jump into a voice chat channel and hang out. People come and go, and are quiet for the most part.

    Having come from an office environment where everyone worked in cubes, it truly is no different. I don't need to be face to face with coworkers, because I wasn't face to face for most of the conversations we had in the office. We'd stare at our screens and talk over the walls.

    When we were looking at each other's faces, it was in the conference room. Those formal meetings are effectively replaced with video calls - and more often are effectively replaced with emails like they should be.

    This probably largely depends on your field. But for me, my productivity is higher working from home, because at least at home I can choose when to tune out the noise. In the office, management was personally offended by me listening to music while working alone. I was told to focus on my paycheck if I needed help focusing.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    Same here. What I hear from people who can't innovate, collaborate, insert-activity-here, etc. while working remotely is that they have competency issues in their workforce.

    Companies building great things creatively and remotely are not exceptional, and antisocial behaviours when working remotely are a problem with the person, not the technology. But it's easier to blame the tech than admit your colleagues or team are dysfunctional so "back to the office!" It is for most. I'll pass though.

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