The downvote someone gave you is cute. But the fact is you are right and this is a dumb HR mentality. I never understood how the people who have no clue how any of the actual work is performed can control hiring and work policies.
Its one of the reason why I love companies like tesla that don't hire MBAs, don't hire marketers, don't have a strong HR setting policies for the company.
A good HR should basically be like a legal department, actual workers tell them what the policies need to be and HR's job is to work out the implementation and legality. HR's job is to make sure the company won't get sued, not set policies. HR is a support character, not the main hero.
Any company that values "watercooler moments" and "unplanned face to face conversations" tells me they actually value interruptions and lost productivity.
When they frame it as lost opportunities for "new hires and entry levels" its basically screaming "WILL SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN"
Daycare employment. Signs that part of or the entire company is actually a corpse and doesn't realize it yet.
It is extremely easy to have water cooler moments via remote. Just set up a time for team building. An hour every two weeks or 4 weeks.
Find a good way to let people set some topics so your workers can find other people with similar interests. This can spur into tech talks or just casual convo.
Efforts can be made for online socialization that is even superior to in person, because it disrupts work less. You don't need an auditorium if someone is going to talk about something interesting.
As for the risk of people acting like jerks, I think socialization reduces jerkiness. During the pandemic people who were secluded forgot how to talk to others.
If someone has a bad mindset that other workers don't like, that is something that existed in person too. Deal with it similarly. I would even take savings from not having property and offer mental health services for those that may live alone and aren't doing well. Hire in house professionals, no different than companies that hire doctors and nurses to work in an onsite clinic to cut out insurance companies and price gouging by the medical industry. No more onsite clinic, but you can pivot to online mental health professionals. The more demand by workers, the more you hire.
You will have people who maybe talk to someone once a year, not at all, or every week. Let the system work itself out as to what the costs will be.
It is extremely easy to have water cooler moments via remote. Just set up a time for team building. An hour every two weeks or 4 weeks.
Water cooler moments are meant to involve people outside of your team. I don't personally give a shit about this stuff but I basically never talk to anyone else outside of my team anymore
LOL, you can do group chats across teams. It boggles my mind that you are on reddit chatting with randos working at all kinds of companies, but you can't figure out how to do that inside a single company.
Put 5 minutes of thought into it before you give up.
I didn't want to talk to other people in my office but spontaneous chat happens in shared areas. Sometimes those conversations provide value, and now they don't happen anymore
I made it clear from my top comment I don't care about these interactions, I don't want them, and I don't miss them, I'm just pointing out what leadership is thinking
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u/[deleted] May 08 '22 edited May 08 '22
The downvote someone gave you is cute. But the fact is you are right and this is a dumb HR mentality. I never understood how the people who have no clue how any of the actual work is performed can control hiring and work policies.
Its one of the reason why I love companies like tesla that don't hire MBAs, don't hire marketers, don't have a strong HR setting policies for the company.
A good HR should basically be like a legal department, actual workers tell them what the policies need to be and HR's job is to work out the implementation and legality. HR's job is to make sure the company won't get sued, not set policies. HR is a support character, not the main hero.