Return to Office?! Is Microsoft Mandating RTO For Employees?!

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Hey folks, I'm just leaving CrossFit here. This mic out of my neck. Um, going to go to comments for a question. So, I clear my windows off. When I leave CrossFit, I sit in here and then it just like steams up while I'm trying to collect my life. Um, but this is from I486DX66 I think is the username and um it's about RTO or return to office. Um, and specifically they were asking um seems like there's a lot of companies that are you know heavily pushing return to office and they were curious if uh if such a push exists at Microsoft. So, I figured I'd talk about that. Uh, talk about RTO in general, like my perspective on it. Um, see, it's a short drive cuz I'm just going back from CrossFit. So, we'll see. I I like trying to give different perspectives, even if they're not necessarily ones that I uh align with.

So, I'll see if I can get into that as well. Uh, but just a friendly reminder before I start blabbing more. If you want questions answered, leave them below in the comments. Otherwise, you can reach out to Devleer on social media. That's my main YouTube channel as well with edited videos specifically like C and .NET programming tutorials. There are uh podcast entries. There are general software engineering topics. Um and there's a live stream every Monday at 7:00 p.m. Pacific if you're interested in that. It's very much like code commute style content, but uh it's an AMA format as well. So you can ask questions in the chat and I can try to answer. Okay. Okay, so RTO return to office um of course over the last uh you know few years especially starting around that 2019 2020 2021 period uh I can't remember when the world exactly turned upside down but there was a big move to have basically everyone that possibly could working remotely because otherwise it meant there was no work.

So, um, you know, many companies were just shutting down. They couldn't exist anymore and, uh, especially in tech, a lot more companies were just allowing employees to work remote, right? If you're a software developer, you got a computer, you got an internet connection, like what more do you need? Um obviously I'm generalizing here because I realize there's situations where that doesn't work exactly but um for the most part like you know overwhelming majority I assume of software developers are uh physically able to work remotely. So there's been a big push for that. People have obviously realized that there's a lot of benefits to working from home. Um you know depending on your life circumstances, things like that. Um you might be able to live in places that are more affordable. You might have uh you know you might be parents of children and you can kind of take turns where someone's at home with the the kids working from home.

The other person maybe can go into the office, right? Get that time away from the kids or just be kind of like uh I don't know take turns where you have like dedicated time where you can just focus on work even if you're working from home. Um so I think you know there's a lot of flexibility that comes with it. But then of course there's um some other sides to it especially the I am assuming the the big generalized you know sort of view on remote work from a I don't know like output perspective is oh like managers must assume that you know people aren't getting stuff done at home. They're just slacking off and collecting a paycheck. Um therefore we should mandate everyone tries to go back to the office. Um, I don't know if that is truly the the number one motivator, but I feel like that's something I hear.

Um, something I don't know enough about, but I've heard people mention before is something to do with um, especially on the real estate side of things for big companies that um, and this might just be made up. I don't know enough about it, but something to do with like either tax breaks or things like that where uh because of the land they have with the buildings they have. Um they're able to get something from I don't know like municipal government or something like that in terms of tax breaks. Uh again, I might be just making that up. So if they don't have employees using those buildings and they're not getting set tax breaks because they don't need the buildings anymore, um I don't know. Um, but I'm just I'm bringing that up as like a as a point of maybe there are some other things that aren't quite so obvious on the surface.

Uh, and I always think that that's kind of interesting um to at least acknowledge, right? I'm trying to tell you very specifically. I do not know the details of that or even if that's true, but I do think it's important that sometimes when we just have like all these seemingly obvious things on the surface, if we're not part of the decision-m process, if we're not in the room making those decisions, we're speculating, right? It's just speculation. Man, I wish I had my 360 cam on. Oh, no. That's a There's a a truck, like a rental truck, and there is a pickup truck that looks like it's tailgating it like crazy. I've never seen anything like it, but I think the rental truck is actually pulling the the pickup truck. So, that uh if it's not, then I'm I'm scared. Yeah, that's what's happening. The pickup truck is like physically attached to the back.

It's being towed. It's like that's the most aggressive tailgate I've ever seen. Um, so yeah, and we don't know the details. It's speculation, right? But, um, point is there might be some underlying things that you don't understand about it. And that's okay, right? It just means that like instead of going into conversations making assumptions about things that and claiming them as facts, like we shouldn't do that. So, does Microsoft have a big push for return to office? Um, short answer is no. Not as far as I'm aware. Not nothing that I've been part of or exposed to, any communication I've had is like that. But I think there is, pardon me. Um, I think there is a a misconception about Microsoft's remote work policy, including for Microsoft employees, which is kind of funny.

Um so I think if you were to ask a majority uh at least folks working in the US as software engineers my understanding is that probably most think that we have fully remote work and that's actually not what the policy is. So the policy the last time I've seen it is actually that we have hybrid work and you are allowed to up to 50% or you know at the 50% mark is the threshold um work from home and beyond that you need manager approval. So the expectation is that you know by default at least 50% of the time is in the office the default. But the reality is and I think why this is probably you know surprising even even for a bunch of software engineers at Microsoft is that the reality is most managers are just totally fine with remote work. At least from any experience I've seen at Microsoft.

I joined Microsoft when the world was shut down. I'm trying to avoid using certain words cuz I feel like um videos get like either I don't want to say demonetized, but they get like uh uh like shadowbanned and stuff. I realized like to give you an example, when I make AI videos now, if I use AI in the title, I get like an order of magnitude fewer views. So, the only stuff with AI in the title that gets a lot of views is like what I did like the Mark Zuckerberg Joe Rogan podcast kind of response video. Um, but if I put AI in the title or the tags, it seems like it gets basically shadowbanned. So I I don't know if that happens if I use this that special Cword. So hopefully you get what I'm talking about when I talk about the world being shut down a few years back.

Um but that's when I joined, right? So um basically every like I moved from uh Ontario, Canada, right? So one side of the continent basically to Washington. I lived at the edge of Microsoft campus literally. I'm not exaggerating when I say this. If I walked out of my building and stepped across the street, I was on Microsoft campus. Okay? So, I did that move and I still worked remote from that office for over a year, right? Like, how how crazy is that? I lived basically on Microsoft campus and still worked remote because everything was shut down. So my entire time at Microsoft has been, you know, this sort of new world order and um I've never I've never had a push from anyone for return to office at Microsoft, but um the policy, you know, like I said the last time I was going through it or having this conversation internally is that it's it's actually hybrid.

So it is a misconception if people unless they've changed the policy, right, which is entirely possible, especially depending on when you're watching this video, right? It could subject to change obviously, but um yeah, it's just that managers generally are totally fine with approving that kind of thing. Um it's funny too because like when I think about it, I feel like it's almost unspoken. So to give you an example, the the policy itself basically says like after 50% at or after 50% you need manager approval to to work that time from home and it almost feels like the opposite just from my experience where people are like I work from home and by the way like I'll be coming in on like these days and some people don't have that at all right um which it's funny right it's just feels kind of inverse from the policy I'm saying that because that's basically the interaction.

That's seemingly from my interaction with other managers and employees seems to be how people feel about the remote work part. Everyone seems to be very comfortable with remote work and if you're if you want to come into the office then come in. uh my previous team. So when I started at Microsoft, I worked for the substrate deployment team and so we were responsible for deploying the the hundreds of different services that make up uh Office 365 and my team like especially my direct reports. No direct report ever went into the office. Shouldn't say ever. That's not fair to say. Um very rare occurrence. So, it wouldn't make sense for me to go into the office to be with my team because there would be no team there. I would go into the office to be on calls. Um, so not going to do that. When I switched teams just over a year ago now, it's probably been 15 months or so.

uh my current team, my managers created a culture that I think is really great in terms of team camaraderie and stuff, but a lot of the individuals choose to go into the office a couple days of the week, right? They're not they're not forced, but like it's a it's actually a cool opportunity. Like you have the you have the ability. We have a neighborhood in the in the building. There's flex desks for people. Some people go in frequently enough, they have their own desk. Um, but like like I go in twice a week, I still don't have my own desk and I don't care. Um, because there's flex desk and I almost always just get the same one or some other one that's nearby anyway. So, for me, it's super convenient because I can have opportunities to be with team members, but I have all of the luxury and flexibility of being able to work from home.

Like there's days when I'm on call if I have to go into the office that could take me 30 to 60 minutes depending on the day. Um just in terms of driving, right? And then on the way home as well. So that's an hour to two hours during a period where I'm supposed to be on call like fielding support. So I just work from home on those days, right? Super super convenient. lots of flexibility. Uh, and I I love that. Uh, to be honest, I think it's great. Um, I had I had an exchange with someone on on LinkedIn that was trying to they're trying to say that there's no benefit to hybrid work. Uh, they think that it's like a a sham. They think it's stupid. Uh, should be Let's get through this light. They should cancel it. Like literally, their claim was like there's no benefit.

And they were trying to say that like the the cost of basically having you know office space just for the whatever m if any minor benefit of like having face to face time just simply isn't worth it. And like while that might be true, right? Like that might actually be true. If you were starting a company today and someone said, "Hey, look, you could you have x number of dollars to work with like your budget. You could rent office space and have some have people sometimes go in. You could do that or you could use some of your budget either for more headcount or something else." on. I'm assuming most people will be like, "Well, we don't need an office that bad if we can get a whole other person to help." Like, we don't need an office. Um, so I think there's some merit to that, but I think that it's kind of a ridiculous claim.

Uh, cuz I was saying like, hey, look, like I work at Microsoft. They they literally own the real estate in the place that I'm I'm working out of. So I don't know like that's not even a decision I'm making. So because I'm working in an environment that's already set up, I am absolutely loving the flexibility of hybrid work. I think there's so many benefits to it. But then they wanted to dismiss that to say, "Well, no, if you just got rid of it and made everyone work remote, then then you get all of the benefits because hybrid work is like all of the drawbacks of being in the office." And like I just I just don't understand.

Um it's kind of like they're using their point to say, "I have a point and therefore it negates any other positive point you want to bring up." up and I'm like I don't know if you understand how like analysis works but uh like screw me I guess I'm just a software engineer so um anyway uh I yeah I think you know I said long story short is that there's no RTO push for Microsoft that I'm aware of at all um not have any communication about it not had any hints of it there's sometimes I get hints of things that are And I've never had such a hint. Um like I said, even for my team, my managers just created an environment where you know he'll like it's cool like it'll be like hey uh we had what did we have? There was like a team that was next to us and we had done a project together I think before I was on the team.

Um, I knew of the project when I was on my other team and they completed it and one of the one of the partner engineering managers had promised the team cake if they finished it kind, you know, just half joking or whatever. But because it got delivered, it was like, "Okay, well, we owe you guys cake." So, there was a day recently where my manager was like, "Hey, the team brought cake for us. Like, if you can get into the office, come get cake." So, you know, stuff like that I think is cool. um when I've been working on this really big project that wraps up Monday, there's honestly it's been so good to be able to get into the office and and sit down and just like brainstorm and and talk about things. It's not that it can't be done over Teams because we do it all the time, but there's something about getting that dedicated focus time, getting the whiteboard up.

Uh it maybe maybe it's just the fact that it's a change of environment. could just be that maybe it's like a placebo kind of effect I don't know but it's I have felt that it's very helpful um in some types of projects or scenarios within projects so um yeah I don't know if there's anything else to add but I you know my default is to to work remotely my job can be done remotely um I realize not every software engineering job technically And if you're writing code, sure, probably. Um, but if you think about what you're writing code for, right? I think a lot of people when they think about like software engineering, their focus or their their uh their lens on software engineering is whatever they're doing.

But like if you were programming stuff for robots and you needed to, you know, do the embedded work for robots and watch those robots executing code, like you might physically have to be in the same spot as those robots to be able to to do your job effectively. Not saying that you couldn't go build more things to allow it to be done remotely, but based on the current setup, you might physically have to be nearby. And that might just mean that for some individuals remote work will not work in the current context, right? So anyway, um yeah, I don't know. Um I think I've said before, but if I had to go if I was working for a company and they did not allow remote work and or hybrid and it had to be in the office, um pay would have to be pretty incredible. I think is is how I look at that, right?

Uh if we factor in the time it takes to commute, that's um that's not time a company's paying me for on the surface, right? They don't give you like a commute allowance or something like that. So, it has to come out of the pay. Why? Because that's my time. That's time I'm not getting back. So, I'm just giving up more time. I realize it's not productive time for the company. They're not going to want to pay for that. Makes sense. But it's my time. I want to get paid. So pay would have to be pretty good, right? If I had to if I work 8 hours a day and I have to spend up to two hours, let's say with including some overhead for commuting, that's 25% more pay, right? At least because now I don't have the convenience or the luxury of uh or the flexibility even of working from home.

So there's some cost associated with that. So something to think about. But anyway, I thought that was a great question. Thank you so much for asking that. I hope that answers at least my visibility on RTO for Microsoft. But um yeah, thanks for submitting it. Take care. See you next time.