To be fair, a nontrivial number of them are middle/upper management, but it’s not the entirety of the people I know who want this.
The answer isn’t work-from-home, nor is it return-to-office. The answer is: give people a choice.
If you want to work from home, cool, we don’t need to maintain your cubicle, and/or, we can hire more people without needing more office space.
If you want to return to office, cool, your space is waiting for you.
A few will retain the ability to switch back and forth, but the majority of people I’ve talked to about it, either want office or home exclusively. Very few want hybrid.
Fair enough. All the business owners I’ve met have said something to the effect of “my way or the highway” about it. So I personally just aligned myself with a job where the bosses “my way” is the way I prefer.
In my case, work from home.
My current job doesn’t even have a physical office. We’re all work from home. I like it.
I’m one that prefers being in the office. My productivity goes to shit when I’m at home because there’s too much other stuff I can do. I also like talking to my coworkers face to face just in general because people are usually more empathetic in person. That being said I don’t think it should be forced on anyone if it’s not necessary to work in the office. The rest of my team works from home without issue as far as I can tell. We are fortunate in that our employer does not have an issue with WFH.
That’s the only pinch as far as I can tell. Some of the people who prefer face-to-face communication, are the bosses. So they force everyone into return to office for their own comfort/convenience/preference…
Those that prefer WFH be damned I guess.
The problem is, you can’t really say no to the boss, you either comply, or find a new job. Not everyone is in a position where they can quickly/easily find a new job that suits them better.
In my experience, the highly skilled long-tenured staff tend to lean towards WFH, but it’s not an absolute. Plenty of skilled people who prefer in-office work… My point is that a disproportionate number of long-tenured workers are finding new jobs when RTO policies are put in place. There’s a lot of highly skilled workers in the market looking for WFH positions. Easy pickings for anyone wanting to hire for remote jobs.
Obviously a lot of the people who prefer in-office aren’t really looking for anything right now, so the job market is kind of crazy. WFH jobs are snapped up and in-office jobs are posted for weeks or months… Simply by allowing people to WFH, a company can pick up some highly skilled talent pretty easily.
As an aside, WFH has saved me upwards of $5k/yr on gas, parking, wasted time on the road, maintenance on my vehicle… It’s quite remarkable.
I know some people like this too.
To be fair, a nontrivial number of them are middle/upper management, but it’s not the entirety of the people I know who want this.
The answer isn’t work-from-home, nor is it return-to-office. The answer is: give people a choice.
If you want to work from home, cool, we don’t need to maintain your cubicle, and/or, we can hire more people without needing more office space. If you want to return to office, cool, your space is waiting for you.
A few will retain the ability to switch back and forth, but the majority of people I’ve talked to about it, either want office or home exclusively. Very few want hybrid.
I don’t think these people are typically pro-choice.
Fair enough. All the business owners I’ve met have said something to the effect of “my way or the highway” about it. So I personally just aligned myself with a job where the bosses “my way” is the way I prefer.
In my case, work from home.
My current job doesn’t even have a physical office. We’re all work from home. I like it.
I’m one that prefers being in the office. My productivity goes to shit when I’m at home because there’s too much other stuff I can do. I also like talking to my coworkers face to face just in general because people are usually more empathetic in person. That being said I don’t think it should be forced on anyone if it’s not necessary to work in the office. The rest of my team works from home without issue as far as I can tell. We are fortunate in that our employer does not have an issue with WFH.
That’s the only pinch as far as I can tell. Some of the people who prefer face-to-face communication, are the bosses. So they force everyone into return to office for their own comfort/convenience/preference…
Those that prefer WFH be damned I guess.
The problem is, you can’t really say no to the boss, you either comply, or find a new job. Not everyone is in a position where they can quickly/easily find a new job that suits them better.
In my experience, the highly skilled long-tenured staff tend to lean towards WFH, but it’s not an absolute. Plenty of skilled people who prefer in-office work… My point is that a disproportionate number of long-tenured workers are finding new jobs when RTO policies are put in place. There’s a lot of highly skilled workers in the market looking for WFH positions. Easy pickings for anyone wanting to hire for remote jobs.
Obviously a lot of the people who prefer in-office aren’t really looking for anything right now, so the job market is kind of crazy. WFH jobs are snapped up and in-office jobs are posted for weeks or months… Simply by allowing people to WFH, a company can pick up some highly skilled talent pretty easily.
As an aside, WFH has saved me upwards of $5k/yr on gas, parking, wasted time on the road, maintenance on my vehicle… It’s quite remarkable.