I’m beginning to wonder whether companies really understand cloud technology implications? I was looking at an AWS Lambda function that scrapes a well known website recently and happened to take a look at the site front page. There’s a ‘jobs’ link.
I sees. I clicks.
The one cloud job they had had no salary mentioned, and the following ‘perks’..
- 25 days of holiday a year
- Flexible holiday (Buy & Sell scheme)
- Rental deposit loan
- Life assurance (4x basic salary)
- 2 company parties a year
- Private health cover for you and your immediate family
- Cash plan scheme for dental, optical and physio appointments
- Contributory stakeholder pension scheme
- Opportunity to participate in share save scheme
- Enhanced maternity and paternity leave
- Bike to work scheme
- Interest free season ticket loan
- Eye test voucher
- Fruit and endless coffee and tea
It strikes me as odd, because all these benefits are real-world things, not cloud oriented. So many companies that want cloud technology don’t seem to get, that with cloud, there is just no need to have people on site. The tools and software are so good nowadays, so reliable, that having people in an office is a complete misstep imo.
Why bother with renting space? Why bother renting a data centre? Parking? Travel? Public transport costs? Insurance? Free tea and coffee? Why bother with any of that at all? You’re still going to pay a lot of money at the end of the day for things you just would not use if you were 100% cloud oriented. It’s all just so much undifferentiated baubles for employees and extra costs for the company.
Sure, some employees may prefer a shopping list of perks they will never use, but why not just offer a higher salary and let them buy their own perks on an individual case by case basis?
Why doesn’t the company do something more cloud oriented instead and offer the following perks instead?
- 100% WFH
- 20% higher salary
- No holiday. Buy time off if you want it at £108 a day, max 25 days.
- Enterprise licenses for GitKraken, WebStorm, PyCharm etc.
Why should companies give a stuff about any of these other things except to appear as though they are offering something that will probably never be taken up. Why not just offer more salary and cut to the chase?
The visibility argument
Management, I think, fears that if people work from home, then they will not be able to see what they are doing.
Anyone who has ever worked in DevOps or software development knows that every man and his dog in the company can see the Jira/Trello boards, the repo(s) and the commit history. If you’re not pulling your weight, it’s going to be obvious and hugely visible.
Being in the office as opposed to working from home is not going to make a blind bit of difference to that. Indeed, I would say that WFH is far more productive than being in an office. Offices are just for meeting people and talking about what you did at the weekend. They’re not really for working. Nowhere near the same level.
The WFH downside
As AI improves, so the tools improve and with that will come real time reporting on what people are doing. People are not machines, they need to be able to take breaks, have a coffee, go for a walk, have a chat with a colleague. And not have to explain themselves.
If you’re going to be judged on every minute of your day, you’re going to be stressed and that’s not good for anyone.
That level of granularity of observability in employees is an autist’s dream. The micromanagement utopia and a dystopia for everyone else. This is a real downside to WFH, coupled with lower real-world visibility so that people can’t see that you’re not actually happy with your boss’ behaviour. Out of sight, out of mind and no direct or indirect feedback loop either.
High quality meeting
With all this, it’s not a one way street. I do like meeting people, but found that the best thing was to meet up on Friday nights after work in the pub where you could drop in, have a drink and talk to colleagues about ideas; I used to do this in Germany and it was great. The mantra was “What goes on in Poppelsdorf, stays in Poppelsdorf” so nothing ever got repeated. That was the hard and fast rule. Fridays became a great time and place to spitball ideas and new concepts.
Summary
In an era where cloud technology has revolutionized the way we work, the debate between in-office perks and remote benefits intensifies. While traditional offerings adorn job listings, the essence of a truly cloud-oriented approach remains overlooked. The focus on physical amenities versus remote efficiency seems to be at a crossroads. Perhaps, as the landscape continues to evolve, the conversation should shift towards leveraging the true potential of remote work to lower costs, cut excess and stimulate collaborative innovation and productivity.
Time is the only thing you can not buy more of, so why not offer employees as much of it as possible?