If they do then why don't they share it?

I mean they must realise this is a pretty unpopular decision so why not share their justification.

Otherwise it's just an appeal to authority - "Ours not to reason why.."

> If they do then why don't they share it?

Sometimes its easier not to share. In a perfect world we'd be more transparent. If its an popular decision, discussion potentially fans the flames of disagreement and ill will. E.g. People take some small point of the rationale and blow it out of proportion for why this is bad etc, why it isn't relevant to them without seeing a bigger picture etc. I think we've all seen this. Sometimes its simpler and more efficient to say less.

Thats a charitable interpretation. But how do we distinguish when this is the reason and when the reason is "there is no data"? Why am I the only one who has to trust the upper management on their decision but they can look into mine and change it at any time they wish?

> Sometimes its easier not to share.

I don't agree with this premise. It's quite easy to share "we have data that suggests that this is the case", even if you don't divulge fully what that data is.

A decision where it's clear that some analysis has gone into it (even if you disagree with the outcome) is always going to be more accepted than a decision that seems completely arbitrary / driven by politics.

It seems that developers / ICs are asked to justify everything they do with data - making decisions from the gut is the privilege of the executive.

Having an open minded discussion sparks debates, yes.

It's not "pretty unpopular", a large majority of employees strongly want to come back to the office at least part time. And this headline is ridiculously misleading, they committed to letting people work remotely till September ages ago, and that hasn't changed. The only thing that happened was they finally put a timeline on when people can come back voluntarily.

And there is quite a bit of data on it, most of which is widely shared internally.

Yes, many employees want to come to the office part time. But Google says they will need to come to the office (almost) all the time. How many people want that?

I don't know, but I think it's reasonable to assume that their primary concern is productivity, and that at a company like Google, that concern will be analyzed in a data driven way. Perhaps they don't want to insult their developers by implying their productivity dipped, or something.

Google doesn't make decisions based on data. Google makes decisions based on what gets someone a promotion.

What's the logic here? Why would the executive who made this decision get a promotion for this?

Nonsense. You don't get promoted for what you did. You get promoted for what you will do.

Everyone who has made it up the ladder knows this and it's the single aspect that differentiates people who routinely get overlooked for promotions from the individuals who steadily rise through the ranks

No, no, their primary concern is their own interest.

A lot of politics gets much harder in remote work, and this is what these people are best at.

It's not productivity, it's politics that is much harder to do when remote working.

You think that executives are forcing developers to come into the office so that they can play politics with their subordinates?

They don't play politics with their subordinates, they play politics with their peers and their superiors. Developers are "human resources" - resources are there to be exploited, not catered for.

That's my point, hence the parent's explanation doesn't make sense.

They mostly play politics with their peers, they need on site presence for that.

They also need to keep an eye on developers and need to feel thigs out, the relationship, their management status known and so forth.

That's very hard to do remotely and they feel their status diminished to that of the "resources" they manage.

Probably yes

Yes.

Yes.

Google doesn't strike me as the kind of place that'd care about whether or not its developers feel insulted.

> I think it's reasonable to assume that their primary concern is productivity, and that at a company like Google, that concern will be analyzed in a data driven way

That assumption has been thoroughly refuted by Google's reaction to James Damore's internal memo.

Maybe they have. Maybe it's even good data, and analyzed correctly[0]. "We have data" has been the go-to excuse of companies in the past decades - a way to whitewash doing whatever it is they want to do anyway. Maybe Google is better than this[1].

But that still assumes the executives making these decisions prioritize employee well-being and work productivity. No amount of correctly collected, analyzed and understood data on WFH productivity will help if the change isn't driven by concerns about productivity. In that case, this data is just irrelevant. I believe this is the concern GP is expressing - that the goals of the management are not well aligned with the goals of the employee (which is obvious), and the well-being of the company (which is plausible).

--

[0] - I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt here to Google, at least in areas where it matters. I'm not usually giving it to a typical company, Internet or otherwise: just because you have data, doesn't mean you have the right data, have analyzed it correctly, or even employ anyone who could analyze it correctly (or employ decision makers who could understand and vet the conclusion of the people doing the analysis). In my experience, these failures are very common.

[1] - I have my doubts where it comes to their product decisions.

Stunningly unlikely they have. Classic developer hubris.

Goes for your comment, too.

Implying that it wouldn't? It's HN all the way down.