Then it seems to me that if Cloudflare successfully gets those who do live near an office to come to the office at least some of the time, there will be two classes of employee. Why not fully embrace the changed environment, close the offices (saving some money), and go distributed all the way? Then the employees who are currently near a former office but haven't put down roots there would also be free to move away if they like, and those who weren't near an office will be on a truly level playing field.
Your question contains the implicit assumption that all employees would rather be remote, but that's not true. Many employees, myself included, actually want to work from an office. Why should the remote-only crowd get their preference at our expense? In an all-remote model, those of us with kids at home and no good place to work will become the "second-class" employees.
The blog post discusses at great lengths the challenges of a hybrid model and some things Cloudflare is doing to address them. For example:
One of the few rules that we plan on starting with is that in meetings if any person is remote then everyone in the meeting is remote.
I definitely understand that many employees would rather work in an office, and I think it’s fair to say they should be provided. But whether they live near an office or not, remote should always be an option. Some people like myself are absolutely unable to be productive in an office, and have a good space to work at home, and think time spent commuting is a waste of my life. If it’s truly a hybrid model than great.
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There are lots of people at Cloudflare who live nowhere near an office and will remain 100% remote even after the offices reopen.
Then it seems to me that if Cloudflare successfully gets those who do live near an office to come to the office at least some of the time, there will be two classes of employee. Why not fully embrace the changed environment, close the offices (saving some money), and go distributed all the way? Then the employees who are currently near a former office but haven't put down roots there would also be free to move away if they like, and those who weren't near an office will be on a truly level playing field.
Your question contains the implicit assumption that all employees would rather be remote, but that's not true. Many employees, myself included, actually want to work from an office. Why should the remote-only crowd get their preference at our expense? In an all-remote model, those of us with kids at home and no good place to work will become the "second-class" employees.
The blog post discusses at great lengths the challenges of a hybrid model and some things Cloudflare is doing to address them. For example:
I definitely understand that many employees would rather work in an office, and I think it’s fair to say they should be provided. But whether they live near an office or not, remote should always be an option. Some people like myself are absolutely unable to be productive in an office, and have a good space to work at home, and think time spent commuting is a waste of my life. If it’s truly a hybrid model than great.