Why return-to-office mandates fail::The question over whether to allow employees to work from home has been settled. Here’s the new normal.
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Because the best performing employees will leave for more money in other remote roles, dumping a ton of work on the remaining workers who are either a) mediocre, or b) incompetent extroverts who can’t wait to spend all day talking about fantasy football with a captive audience.
A remote work perk is the new onsite barista and free lunches. People don’t want free Korean BBQ, they want to not commute for 3 hours a day.
Top tech talent will always go to the companies with the best perks and comp.
People want both.
I work for a company that made the audacious decision to let people work how they feel they work best.
They got the feedback that there are some things that some people miss about working together in an office.
So once a month they have catering brought in to bait people into coming in and seeing their coworkers face to face, optionally.My loose observation is that pizza fails the 20 minute drive test, but any BBQ passes.
I live an hour away because housing prices are literally 1/3 what I would pay closer, so I only go in if everyone on my team is and the food is up to snuff.
Point is, people want BBQ and less commuting, and we should make it clear that we expect both.
Yeah. Ironically the one thing that actually made me come to the office more often is the free lunch coupons they started giving out. I still don’t come in often, but definitely more often than before.
My loose observation is that pizza fails the 20 minute drive test, but any BBQ passes.
Have you tried biryani?
Top tech talent could suddenly apply to any job instead of the few nearby companies, exploding their options. If anything, even remote companies should send Korean BBQ to each employee’s house.
Captive audience because they’re trapped in the office with them.
Trapped in an “open collaborative space”, yes.
Ugh. If I need to collaborate with my colleagues, I’ll visit their office; I don’t need (or want) to hear every phone call they make or their music escaping their headphones.
I cannot stress enough how much I hate open plan offices and am so glad I do not work in one.
Dude, did fucking Josh Allen have a season, or what? Week after week, he just kept it steady and helped me win my league!
Did you see that ludicrous display last night?
The thing about Arsenal is, they always try to walk it in
This genuinely spiked my blood pressure. I hope you’re fucking happy
because nobody wants to return to the office.
there. mystery solved, Sherlock.
EDIT: WRT the article: because the reasons given are always bullshit unsupported by fact.
Let me solve this apparently unsolvable mystery for them. You spent the last 40 years making offices soul crushing hellscapes that are grounds for psychological warfare while helping contribute to increasing commutes. People had Stockholm syndrome for a bit then they got shown a better way and they’d rather not give up a large part of their day to be tormented in a place they they don’t need to be to do their job.
So when you try to force it the large majority are fighting back and you’re surprised? No ping pong, pool, mandatory fun, free drinks don’t offset the bullshit that is modern office design in-fact a lot of us would rather you keep all those give us a little padding in the ol paycheck and I can get my own soda and ping pong table
Besides: Fuck modern office design. Even in my company in Austria, other departments often have cushy 2-3 employee offices, plenty of space, really nice.
What do software developers get? Massive rooms with 13 people inside and no seperators for “collaboration”. But while you’re in online meeting A and your colleague is in online meeting B you can’t even focus on your own thoughts.
Overcrowding is the biggest issue I have with working at office. Too many people sharing a space. It feels claustrophobic and lack privacy
Mandatory fun was always my least favorite god damn part. It isn’t fun if you have to force me to have fun.
I’m in a position to have knowledge about multiple bargaining committees working on their first union contracts. The demand to RTO is literally entirely the ego of CEOs and other executives that believe their opinion is more valuable than research. They also know that employees will never accept “because we say so”, so they cling to flimsy or highly biased data as evidence, without ever showing their sources or methods.
Another aspect that is likely overlooked: they’re counting on people to quit. It’s an opportunity to have a self-selecting layoff without massive payouts or running into the WARN act. Apple has made this more than apparent by mandating RTO at a location, and then relocating that office to Texas. They still have other labor laws to deal with, but they don’t care about talent retention.
The issue with the self-selecting layoffs is that it’s usually the best talent that leaves. Not that they care, as it won’t negatively impact this quarter’s numbers. But funny/sad to see them all confused a year later when number go down.
Have them come to office or fire them and loose maybe 50% of my company (code) knowledge while no new hires know what to do and the remaining coworkers are not trained fully in the task?
Easy choice.
I should become a CEO if I can think much beyond the horizon.
It doesn’t help that the people mandating return to office are working from home when they demand it.
Previously our office was 2/3 WFH/office hybrid, which everyone interpreted as “2 days from home regardless of how long week was.” They recently put their foot down and said it’s actually 3 days in the office no matter how long the week is…but also all managers have to be in the office 5 days.
So my personal experience contradicts your claim. Do you have any evidence to back it up?
I quit my job because my boss demanded RTO. They asked me to come back after they rescinded the RTO.
Im not gonna click the link. I am gonna live under the assumption that, because that thumbnail is next to the headline, that chick is to blame.
Fuck you old lady. Let us work from home.
Working from home has its pros and cons. Fortunately, in my experience, the pros are all mine and the cons are all someone else’s. That kind of colours my judgement.
It has become a fake discussion already.
It is not the question anymore whether work at home is better or work at the office. It is not the question whether you go back to the place where you have worked before.
It is big bosses fabricating excuses for laying off people.
How? They have closed your old office long ago. Now they tell you that another place in a different state is “your” office. Now go and “return” to there. Or they have hired you for WfH with no plans to ever work in an office, and now they tell you to “return” to somewhere.
And then you can watch them moaning and whining how so many of their employees people just do not want to “return”, and therefore they need stronger policies…
There’s such a disconnect between the discussion on line about this and my experience in the real world.
I work in tech and it’s probably at least partially situational, but everyone in my office that I talk to about this agrees that working in office is more productive. Everyone wants the flexibility to work from home, and my company is still hybrid, but it’s universally agreed that the office is better. Granted I know some people left after we went hybrid from full wfh, and I’m sure some of those who left would be in disagreement.
But for instance, I’m a senior engineer and the juniors often ask for help from me multiple times during the day…if we’re both in the office. If one or both of us is home, I rarely hear from them. I don’t see how this isn’t a clear indication of lost productivity and learning from them.
But when you see this discussion online, the people arguing that WFH is just as good or better drown out the other voices.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand that commuting sucks and for the employees who is better, and I hope it stays that way. But I struggle to believe that from a business productivity perspective it’s better to be fully remote.
