Disney Employees Must Return to Office Four Days a Week, Bob Iger Says

mkt

When a paradise is lost go straight to Disney™
Premium Member
If one can work remotely then a company can think your role can be done in India at a cheaper labor rate.

Disney's already been outsourcing some things for for over a decade, well before remote work.
 

maemae74

Well-Known Member
I think asking people to work in the building a few days a week is not asking too much. As someone who is now dealing with students who were pretty much remote the last two years the behaviors we are dealing with are very concerning. Their lack of socialization for 2 years especially in our early learners is showing huge amounts of learned helplessness and lack of empathy for others.
 
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Castle Cake Apologist

Well-Known Member
I think asking people to work in hteh building a few days a week is not asking too much. As someone who is know dealing with students who were pretty much remote the last two years the behaviors we are dealing with are very concerning. Their lack of socialization for 2 years especially in our early learners is showing huge amounts of learned helplessness and lack of empathy for others.

I'm not completely understanding what that anecdote has to do with fully-developed adults in established roles?
 

Lilofan

Well-Known Member
Not talking about that - those are operating participants, which Disney has used since day 1 at the parks.

I'm specifically talking about IT functions.
Wasn’t there a story years ago that before the IT cast members at WDW were laid off they were required to train their third party replacements prior to their last day of employment ?
 

flynnibus

Premium Member
I'm not completely understanding what that anecdote has to do with fully-developed adults in established roles?

Because of your assumption of 'fully-developed adults' being the only types in the workforce :)

Plenty of dysfunctional adults in the workplace.. and without more around them, the problem gets worse or never gets corrected to start with. Remember... they all start somewhere without much experience. To throw those types into a world that really relies on self-regulating things ... well, not all self-regulate very well because they simply haven't honed those skills.
 

mkt

When a paradise is lost go straight to Disney™
Premium Member
Wasn’t there a story years ago that before the IT cast members at WDW were laid off they were required to train their third party replacements prior to their last day of employment ?
Yep. I know quite a few of the now former IT CM's.
 

flynnibus

Premium Member
Wasn’t there a story years ago that before the IT cast members at WDW were laid off they were required to train their third party replacements prior to their last day of employment ?

One case of layoffs being reported does not make it the sole instance of when outsourcing has been used at the company.
 

HauntedPirate

Park nostalgist
Premium Member
Not true , my previous employer outsourced IT to India to save on labor costs. Anytime I had issues with my PC I called the help desk and the teams based in India 24/7 were professional and fixed the issues.

Fixing a PC doesn't require them to think, they just read the script they've been provided. That's more a reflection on the company who wrote their instructions than on the person you talked to. And I'm sure the last 15 years I've actually dealt directly with the decisions to use the TCS's and Cognizant's and Infosys's of the Indian IT world and they were completely inept and couldn't even follow the instructions given to them were completely imaginary. Infosys is particularly bad, but none of them have been worth a damn at the Fortune 100 companies I've worked at who have used them. Not to mention the times I've had to call a large tech company for something and they've used outsourced Indian IT workers who were beyond bad.

Nothing inspires confidence like when you know more about the problem you're having than the person on the other end of the phone, despite that person having every internal document ever created and the entire team who created the product at their disposal, and it takes wasting an entire day to get them to realize they are in over their heads and they need to bring someone else in.

But please, tell us more about how outsourcing is so effective and cost-efficient in your vast experience in the field.
 

gerarar

Premium Member
I graduated during Covid, around May 2021. My last 1.5 years of college was virtual, and my internship was fully virtual.

I was then hired into a remote software engineer position at the same company. It's now been about 1.5 years in my role, and honestly I'm happier then ever. My current team is about half "hybrid" and half fully-remote. The latter half was hired post-March 2020, and we're pretty productive as a team.

We talked about in the past how "we" (in reality, those people that actually went to the office before and lived nearby) would return to the office, but nothing really came out of it. We did eventually agree as a team to meet once a quarter/half a year at the office to get together and have some team-building activities. We just had our first one this past October, and it was surely an experience. Mind you, I've never worked in an office setting. I already been with the team for a year at that point, but I still had the jitters lol. It was very tiring getting ready everyday, driving to the office, setting up my workspace, then going our for lunch, then going back home/to the hotel. Nice part was Monday and Friday were travel days for those that came from around the country and didn't count against our FTO.

It was fun, but it's not something I would want to do everyday. That may just be me since I was essentially born into this worklife post-college. I talked with some of my senior co-workers and they agreed too. Those that lived near the office also don't go in-person anymore, despite the "hybrid" aspect, so I guess we're pretty much a fully-remote team now!

With all the news about various companies "forcing" their employees back to in-person or at least hybrid, I was a bit worried that mine would eventually cave in also. But they've reiterated for the past year that they would remain flexible and leave it up to a team-by-team basis and manager-discretion, and thankfully my manager has been more then accommodating.
 

lightningtap347

Well-Known Member

co10064

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
I say this is a good decision by Iger. As a front-line service worker myself, it has always struck me as arrogant when "more skilled" laborers claim privileges not afforded to others.

In the case of Disney, you have thousands of guest-facing employees who continued to work in-person throughout the pandemic while those at the corporate level stayed home. While I'm sure many people working from home stayed productive, there is undoubtedly a few who took advantage of the opportunity and decreased their productivity.
 

flynnibus

Premium Member
I say this is a good decision by Iger. As a front-line service worker myself, it has always struck me as arrogant when "more skilled" laborers claim privileges not afforded to others.

In the case of Disney, you have thousands of guest-facing employees who continued to work in-person throughout the pandemic while those at the corporate level stayed home. While I'm sure many people working from home stayed productive, there is undoubtedly a few who took advantage of the opportunity and decreased their productivity.

Sorry, this is just envy. The very same could be said of other situations like "oh, you get to work set hours.. and get paid overtime while I work whenever the work is needed" or "I actually have to be on call, you get to go home when your shift is over" , "you get comfy 9-5 hours while I work until 3am" etc.

Different roles have different requirements - it's always been this way and will continue to do so.

If you want flexible work hours, you should work in a field that can accommodate it. Not try to force others to work what YOUR job requires.
 

Wendy Pleakley

Well-Known Member
I say this is a good decision by Iger. As a front-line service worker myself, it has always struck me as arrogant when "more skilled" laborers claim privileges not afforded to others.

In the case of Disney, you have thousands of guest-facing employees who continued to work in-person throughout the pandemic while those at the corporate level stayed home. While I'm sure many people working from home stayed productive, there is undoubtedly a few who took advantage of the opportunity and decreased their productivity.

It has nothing to do with being "more skilled" or "arrogant". Some jobs can be done remotely, some can't.

Arguing against it because you "think" some people are less productive makes zero sense.

In my workplace, we kept the WFH option post-COVID because the work was getting done. Many offices are more distracting than working from home, especially with open office spaces becoming the norm.
 

flynnibus

Premium Member
With all the news about various companies "forcing" their employees back to in-person or at least hybrid, I was a bit worried that mine would eventually cave in also. But they've reiterated for the past year that they would remain flexible and leave it up to a team-by-team basis and manager-discretion, and thankfully my manager has been more then accommodating.

Even when you see this 'mandate' news stories.. what you describe is what is happening in reality. These stories are all about companies changing the DEFAULT posture and less about trying to force every employee to be onsite.

Companies have had remote workers before the pandemic, and will continue to have them. These stories are more about trying to retire the default pandemic-period posture of remote everything.

Companies will find their own balance across roles and locations.
 

Lilofan

Well-Known Member
Fixing a PC doesn't require them to think, they just read the script they've been provided. That's more a reflection on the company who wrote their instructions than on the person you talked to. And I'm sure the last 15 years I've actually dealt directly with the decisions to use the TCS's and Cognizant's and Infosys's of the Indian IT world and they were completely inept and couldn't even follow the instructions given to them were completely imaginary. Infosys is particularly bad, but none of them have been worth a damn at the Fortune 100 companies I've worked at who have used them. Not to mention the times I've had to call a large tech company for something and they've used outsourced Indian IT workers who were beyond bad.

Nothing inspires confidence like when you know more about the problem you're having than the person on the other end of the phone, despite that person having every internal document ever created and the entire team who created the product at their disposal, and it takes wasting an entire day to get them to realize they are in over their heads and they need to bring someone else in.

But please, tell us more about how outsourcing is so effective and cost-efficient in your vast experience in the field.
If you are a so called expert then why do a number of companies outsource their IT to India ( hint - cost savings ).
 

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