I worked for a private (venture backed) company that actually had a stellar HR team who seemed to think about the employee's needs first. Or rather, they considered the company's needs first and the company* (ie, the executive team) believed that having an HR department who prioritized employee's needs was the right choice. The most obvious standout example was an employee with health problems who might not be able to return to work. She was kept on the payroll for a full year without working. She never did end up returning to work. This kind of thing paid off in retention, which was wildly high compared to other companies in the market.
But that company was acquired by a massive public company. And now HR is half adversary + half bureaucratic nonsense. Interestingly, the company still offered great benefits. I assume that is because the benefits package is an easy-to-measure piece of compensation, while HR quality is something that is much harder to shop around for.
* caveat, I have no idea how HR would have acted in a situation where an employee brings up concerns that would put the company in legal jeopardy. If I had to guess, they would do the right thing in a "senior harasser vs harassed subordinate" situation. If the the company was clearly in the wrong, I think they would work hard to satisfy the employee to prevent legal jeopardy. If the employee could not be satisfied without a significant hit to the company, I'm pretty sure they would do anything they could to protect the company. And that reflects that at the end of the day, the company comes first. A good HR department can just push much harder for win-wins (and probably only under market conditions that give labor leverage).
There is an alternative view that regular sun exposure is beneficial, and that many of the health benefits linked to vitamin D are actually just using vitamin D as a proxy for sun exposure. If this is the case, it's plausible that allowing for more UVB exposure indoors would be a net benefit.
In a broad stroke, I think we are seeing a progression of the code and the environment merging together and becoming more compact as a result. Unikernels seem to me to be the natural next step after containers.
I'm not sold on this, but perhaps the next natural step in the progression after unikernels is serverless architectures.
If that is the case, we may never see the widespread use of unikernels. Containers are good enough. The full promise of unikernels has not fully matured. And serverless architectures seem to be gaining some traction. In the end, maybe unikernels just get passed over.
That would be shame for me personally. When I read my first blog post on unikernels, some vague thoughts on the boundary between code and environment snapped into place. Unikernels seemed like the only game in town that made perfect sense thinking from first principles. I have been hankering for an opportunity to fit unikernels into a serious project ever since.
But that company was acquired by a massive public company. And now HR is half adversary + half bureaucratic nonsense. Interestingly, the company still offered great benefits. I assume that is because the benefits package is an easy-to-measure piece of compensation, while HR quality is something that is much harder to shop around for.
* caveat, I have no idea how HR would have acted in a situation where an employee brings up concerns that would put the company in legal jeopardy. If I had to guess, they would do the right thing in a "senior harasser vs harassed subordinate" situation. If the the company was clearly in the wrong, I think they would work hard to satisfy the employee to prevent legal jeopardy. If the employee could not be satisfied without a significant hit to the company, I'm pretty sure they would do anything they could to protect the company. And that reflects that at the end of the day, the company comes first. A good HR department can just push much harder for win-wins (and probably only under market conditions that give labor leverage).