Interesting read.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/boss...staff-quit

A lot of these big businesses have execs that are heavily invested in retail space in downtown areas. Forcing workers to return is meant to boost their real estate investments.

Why do workers believe they have to right to work from home if they want? It’s horrible for the business on many levels.

(07-30-2024 12:07 AM)banker Wrote:  Why do workers believe they have to right to work from home if they want? It’s horrible for the business on many levels.

That depends entirely on the company and the job. In many cases I suspect you may be right. That said, I work for a software development company where the majority of the staff work from home. We’re scattered all over the country so commuting isn’t really an option. Should we hire only locally (to the existing building location, which would have to be replaced with a much bigger building btw) just so staff can be forced to come to an office every day? Not seeing a lot of upside to that.

I’ve worked from home since 2020. At first I thought it was great for work/life balance, but if I am being honest something is lost in translation in terms of communication between management/staff and peers. I also think there really is just no way to build a culture.

There are parts of almost every job that can be done from home, but that doesn't mean it is a WFH job, and that is the actual problem. People accomplish "stuff" at home and they think they can do it all. You add personal entitlement to that equation and you have the head butting we see now.

It really is pretty simple [at least it should be] if the people in charge want you to be in the office you have two choices: Quit or go in.

And the reason they want you in the office really doesn't matter. Quit if you don't like it, there will be someone else who will take the job and go into the office.

I work in a really big company. At capacity, the main building holds about 4500 people. Once restrictions were lifted everything was "optional". On average about 400 people were coming in Tuesday to Thursday [it was a ghost town on Monday and Friday], and once the summer was over it went up to about 600 per day. At the end of that year, the company "asked" that people come in 2-3 days per week so there could be more in person meetings, improve collaboration, and provide more support for new hires (they suffered the most).

That "pretty please" request yielded NO change in attendance. It was an interesting social experiment as it turns out. The company tried to treat the employees like adults, asked for better participation, explained their reasons for it, and the employees basically ignored them.

This lead up to last summer when the company said, unless you are in an officially identified remote position, you must come in to the office 3 days per week. To soften the blow, they basically said the building (not work) is closed on Fridays so you had to pick three days from Monday to Thursday.

The responses to that on the company intranet page was absolutely embarrassing. It was like listening (reading) to a bunch of 12 year-olds.

Of the responses, my absolute favorite was from some young lady who entered the workforce during covid and knew nothing different, she said [I swear on my late sister that I am not making this up] - and this is almost verbatim:

"If you are going to now require me to come to the office, this will add a significant expense for gas and cut into my social time as I will be travelling as much as 30 minutes each way. Will we be receiving additional compensation for this?" She alluded to needing to buy new clothes as well in the secondary part of her response.

There were dozens and dozens of excuses why people could not come in. I never knew that dogs could not be left alone for 8 or 9 hours????


I have only had to fire 2 people in my career (going on 35 years and about 20 with firing authority) and both were people who took advantage of WFH.

You guys should bear in mind not all jobs are like YOUR jobs. Some jobs need to be done from a physical location, but not all. Welcome to the 21st century and the age of the internet. The only real constant in life is change.

Awe. Buttercups

I work for a Fortune 300 company in the engineering/architecture space. Our transportation group was the first to mandate coming back to the office and the result is we lost our most seasoned people because they'd go to other companies who were willing to let them work remote.

I think at the end of the day, there is not simple answer

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(07-30-2024 07:43 AM)fsquid Wrote:  I think at the end of the day, there is not simple answer

My point exactly.

(07-30-2024 06:34 AM)CliftonAve Wrote:  I’ve worked from home since 2020. At first I thought it was great for work/life balance, but if I am being honest something is lost in translation in terms of communication between management/staff and peers. I also think there really is just no way to build a culture.

I appreciate your observation. Real life experience (including my relatives) confirms the cited drawbacks I suspected back in 2020.

Everyone I know who works from home spends several hours a day screwing around, doing personal stuff, doing kid logistics, walking their dog, exercising or doing nothing. They'll all honestly admit to that. But if anyone suggest they work in an office, they freak.

It's a necessary evil but most people that work from home spend most of their time CYA justifying productivity for working from home. Reason they all spend time on company calls that have nothing to do with business and training like DEI garbage. It's easy to see who is participating and give them a gold check mark.

Sales is at least easier to evaluate benchmarks.

(07-30-2024 07:56 AM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  Everyone I know who works from home spends several hours a day screwing around, doing personal stuff, doing kid logistics, walking their dog, exercising or doing nothing. They'll all honestly admit to that. But if anyone suggest they work in an office, they freak.

It's a necessary evil but most people that work from home spend most of their time CYA justifying productivity for working from home. Reason they all spend time on company calls that have nothing to do with business and training like DEI garbage. It's easy to see who is participating and give them a gold check mark.

Sales is at least easier to evaluate benchmarks.

When I work from home I do all that stuff too, but I also log on earlier and log off later. So it's a give and take.

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(07-30-2024 08:05 AM)fsquid Wrote:  

(07-30-2024 07:56 AM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  Everyone I know who works from home spends several hours a day screwing around, doing personal stuff, doing kid logistics, walking their dog, exercising or doing nothing. They'll all honestly admit to that. But if anyone suggest they work in an office, they freak.

It's a necessary evil but most people that work from home spend most of their time CYA justifying productivity for working from home. Reason they all spend time on company calls that have nothing to do with business and training like DEI garbage. It's easy to see who is participating and give them a gold check mark.

Sales is at least easier to evaluate benchmarks.

When I work from home I do all that stuff too, but I also log on earlier and log off later. So it's a give and take.

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Add in the fact that you don't do the water cooler talk, or the drive bys that keep you from finishing the work you need to complete daily.

(07-30-2024 07:56 AM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  Everyone I know who works from home spends several hours a day screwing around, doing personal stuff, doing kid logistics, walking their dog, exercising or doing nothing. They'll all honestly admit to that. But if anyone suggest they work in an office, they freak.

It's a necessary evil but most people that work from home spend most of their time CYA justifying productivity for working from home. Reason they all spend time on company calls and training like SEI garbage. It's easy to see who is participating.

Sales is at least easier to evaluate benchmarks.

Man, you can screw around many hours a day from an office. Been there, seen that, done that. Do you seriously not know this? Never walked into someone's office and caught them social mediaing or playing Space Invaders?

Do I screw around sometimes working from home? Sure I do. Do I always make up the time? Absolutely. I have objectives I have to meet, sometimes completely unrealistic objectives, and if I don't meet them, no bonus or raise or, if it's bad enough, no job. When this happens I work way more than 40 hours.

You can't fit the entire population into one pigeonhole. Your prejudices are not my reality.

No offense meant.

Companies are free to demand what they like, and employees are free to tell said companies to shove it up their arse. If you were not hired for a FT WFH position and it just transitioned to that then absolutely they can ask you to come back, but they are just likely to lose their best employees by doing it. If you want people to be in the office full time employees are going to demand more money for that (at least any good ones), or you'll only get a lower quality/less experienced candidate to take your position or to stay.

(07-30-2024 08:05 AM)fsquid Wrote:  When I work from home I do all that stuff too, but I also log on earlier and log off later. So it's a give and take.

Yep. And weekends if necessary.

(07-30-2024 08:08 AM)BartlettTigerFan Wrote:  

(07-30-2024 07:56 AM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  Everyone I know who works from home spends several hours a day screwing around, doing personal stuff, doing kid logistics, walking their dog, exercising or doing nothing. They'll all honestly admit to that. But if anyone suggest they work in an office, they freak.

It's a necessary evil but most people that work from home spend most of their time CYA justifying productivity for working from home. Reason they all spend time on company calls and training like SEI garbage. It's easy to see who is participating.

Sales is at least easier to evaluate benchmarks.

Man, you can screw around many hours a day from an office. Been there, seen that, done that. Do you seriously not know this? Never walked into someone's office and caught them social mediaing or playing Space Invaders?

Do I screw around sometimes working from home? Sure I do. Do I always make up the time? Absolutely. I have objectives I have to meet, sometimes completely unrealistic objectives, and if I don't meet them, no bonus or raise or, if it's bad enough, no job. When this happens I work way more than 40 hours.

You can't fit the entire population into one pigeonhole. Your prejudices are not my reality.

No offense meant.

See what I mean? People who work from home admit it but always go all mamma grizzly.

You might be a more happy employee, but you likely aren't as productive if what you do requires a team environment Just a fact. It's just cheaper. Your company makes a cost benefit analysis that the lost productivity and lack of communication and transient culture outweighs the other stuff. They know you frick off several hours a day.

Between zoom calls and team meetings and updates and all the other stuff to make up for not being together, people spend so much time doing that stuff now it's funny. For many, more of the job is this kind of remote box checking now than actually doing the core job. I can't tell you how many people I know who are on the clock while on family vacations. They know they are getting over. You do you.

Hybrids where you need to be in just a couple days a week to press flesh, proof of life and to be able to be evaluated in person make a lot of sense.

If companies require that, you are always feee to interview elsewhere.

(07-30-2024 06:34 AM)CliftonAve Wrote:  I’ve worked from home since 2020. At first I thought it was great for work/life balance, but if I am being honest something is lost in translation in terms of communication between management/staff and peers. I also think there really is just no way to build a culture.

I've been a WAH since 2020 too after working in offices for decades.

Not coincidentally, that's when i started on here too. I didn't have anybody to talk to. Seriously.

(07-30-2024 08:25 AM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  See what I mean? People who work from home admit it but always go all mamma grizzly.

I bet I'm way more productive than you are. If I worked in an office no way I'd work much after 5 or on the weekends. I do all that from home. Do you?