I’d look for new work if my current job increased in-person requirements. Sorry commercial real estate bag holders, you’re in for a rough ride
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It's not because of commercial real estate that offices are forcing people back.
It's simply because managers who are in charge of making that decision prefer to be in the office.
They like everyone in the office, so they're forcing it on everyone. Either because it makes them feel more powerful to look at all their underlings, because they enjoy working face-to-face (probably how they got high up in the company), or because they suck at their jobs and can only micro-manage by looking over people's shoulders
Absolutely. This was the entire reason the CEO at my last company forced everyone to return to office, giving local managers zero latitude to allow flexibility. He sent out videos saying crazy things like "introvert or extrovert, we're all energized by working in person together!" Just completely tone deaf bullshit. We got a month's notice for when we had to return, and I found a new job in that month and am much happier now.
Zero reason for people to be in the office if they can be just as productive as home, and happier doing it.
I bought a house that’s further away from where my office was than I’d have ever considered buying if not for the permanent wfh change made during the pandemic.
I’m now a minimum of an hour away from where most jobs would be in-person, and that’s not something I’m ever willing to do again.
Sorry not sorry. Those rich cunts can burn.
Return to office is such a fucking joke. I'm not spending hours in the car to keep corporate leases and McDonald's afloat.
Unispace found that nearly half (42%) of companies with return-to-office mandates witnessed a higher level of employee attrition than they had anticipated.
One aspect these articles don't usually address beyond the attrition rate, is the quality of those leave is usually the highest. So its a double whammy. Not only are you losing workers, you're losing your best workers. Those best workers have mobility because they are in demand for their skills or ability to execute. So what an employer is left with is even worse, many of those remaining that are lower skilled or less ambitious so their can't leave or choose not to because they aren't interested in high achievement at work.
The company's most valuable asset is their workers. Return-to-office is a loud screaming message to all the company's workers that "butts in seats" or extraction of the worker's dollars for corporate tax cuts from municipalities are more important that the worker's comfort and preference. That leads to the death of companies.
I don't often toot my own horn, but this is basically me. My work is pushing for people to move to LA into the office after being almost fully remote for a few years. I've never set foot in LA, and was hired fully remote. They're struggling to hire junior devs because their frontend is almost wholly custom JavaScript and nearly completely undocumented. They're currently stuck with expensive senior devs. I could easily take my title elsewhere for more than they're paying me, but I like the lax work environment enough to stick around.
The last I heard about the move back to office was February, and they just hired more people out of state. I don't think they're pushing for it anymore, haha
100% this. We literally lost our best and brightest and the end of the pandemic. When I bailed it was B and C grade. Made the last few months very difficult.
It was absolutely brutal!
My wife and I left our company when they clawed us back to the office. It’s been 3 years now and there is 0 chance we’ll go back at this point. For all the big companies complaining about their empty buildings there are medium size players happy to poach top talent and let them work remote
Im currently complying with RTO because my office is close to my house and it is convenient, but there are talks of forcing employees to relocate to where the majority of their team is which would be halfway across the country for me. Needless to say we're losing people in droves and many medium/small companies are picking up tons of talent.
Then there's my employer, who is giving us WFH for the foreseeable future. They might even sell our office building and move our datacenter.
We do a monthly small-team in person, and the occasional all-staff in-person, but otherwise it's just "come in if you want, or don't, lol." Like, I technically have a desk. It's just got a couple monitors on it collecting dust, though. I'm only really ever there (aside from the infrequent in-persons) when my rabbit has to go to the vet, which is closer to the office.
We actually showed more productivity after moving to WFH, so they said 'let's just keep it.' So my only restriction is living in the state, since it's a publically-funded org.
No picture of the rabbit, though? ☹️
Right? They didn't pay the rabbit tax.
My company is the same way.
They realize many of us will leave, and they would lose a ton of money trying to replace us.
With around 15 years of experience working remote-only, I will never accept a job that mandates a day in the office.
If the role isn’t 100% remote, it is not considered.
Simple as that.
Yep, you can't fight basic math.
With a half-hour commute, you're dropping at least $250/mo on gas (more if you use proper mileage calculations and include car insurance costs) and spending an additional 32 hours of your time in unpaid travel for work. If your hourly rate is $15/hr, that means another potential $380 in earnings a month out the door.
Since that $15/hr brings you in $2600 before taxes, that means in this scenario you're spending roughly 10% of your gross income on travel expenses, and losing out on a potential income increase of 14%.
This is why, despite the fact they were a great company I had thought about joining for years, last year I turned down an offer that was a 50% raise from my previously held position.
I got the same amount in an offer from a separate company that enabled work from home, and when I did the math, the value between the two was striking - it was the clear winner, despite the fact that the first company only wanted me to travel across town.
I don't think this is even the full picture, though. The cost savings from working remotely for me have been largely unnoticed (but objectively there).
The real value, for me, has been increased autonomy and freedom from the office culture and overbearing bosses. It was amazing how my managers were suddenly ambivalent about my work performance once they weren't able to constantly observe me at my desk.
Also more of you count in car maintenance and potential babysitting for slightly older children who can be alone for a couple hours after school, but are too young to truly be alone.
I also feel like people just get back a lot of time to themselves by not having to commute. My husband gets another hour at least with me and our children every day, maybe an hour and a half. Instead of only seeing them for a quick dinner and getting them ready for bed, they actually have that time to hang out and play. It's things like that, that are invaluable.
Many companies, including my previous one, assume their position is stronger than it is. Then they complain and blame millennials' work ethic when people don't hang around for their torture like they used to.
As someone who contributed to the 'high level of attrition' during a forced return to office: it was my pleasure and I'll do it again.
Oh it's been very damaging and a major reason for high staff turnover. Since COVID I have worked in transactional finance roles where the staff turnover rate has been has high as 95% - meaning that for every 20 hires, only one would stay with the company beyond twelve months.
A trend I noticed is that companies which refuse to embrace remote working will greatly struggle to hire staff.
It's more baffling how a lot of companies respond to these issues not by raising wages to market levels or improving working conditions/workloads, but by buying the team pizzas every month or two, pushing tighter RTO mandates and adding lengthier notice periods into new contracts.
COVID-19 had one saving grace and that was proving that many roles could be performed remotely. The pandemic has made remote working an expectation of today's workforce that corporations have either embraced or fought long and hard to reverse. It's the companies that embrace remote work which are going to thrive.
Who knows, that may be a good thing in the long run. We don't need ludicrously expensive luxury office space, which my city is full of. But you know what my city desperately needs? Homes. Bristol has the second-highest property prices in all of the UK behind London. Our rents are quickly approaching London levels because all the Londoners are fleeing the capital to clog up our housing market.
Longer notice periods? Nah dog. 2 weeks if I like my team, and there's a potential reference out of the job, otherwise cya
I used to do 3 hours round trip commute. I was always exhausted. Can never do that again after i tried work from home.
Fuck that lol. I wake up at 7:55, open my laptop, clock in at 7:56, then bring my laptop into the kitchen and eat breakfast.
Corporations who are pushing the narrative that people don't like this are out of their mind.
My old schedule were wake up at 7:10. Out the door by 7:40. Be at the office by 9:00ish. The most painful part if not the 90 min train ride but the 25 stops... I counted those stops for 5 years.
In the SHED survey, the gravity of this situation becomes more evident. The survey equates the displeasure of shifting from a flexible work model to a traditional one to that of experiencing a 2% to 3% pay cut.
Those number seem way too low to me. Just picking some semi-random numbers, let's assume a 40 hour work week and an average travel time to work and back of 1 hour per day, so 5 hours per week. Being forced to come to the office would then be equivalent to 12.5% more of your time spent to earn the same amount of money. Of course that scales depending on how far away from the workplace you live, but for 3% or 2% to be realistic you would basically have to live right next door.
Let's not even account for the other added expenses of going to work. Like clothes, different food, gas, car repairs, and lost time for flexibility of appointments.
Also when you are paying for those that is after tax as well. So I save about £2k a year just on travel costs, that’s the same as a £3k pay increase.
WFH saves me ~$4000 per year in gas & wear & tear alone. 4 cyl sedan with a 30 mile round trip.
The next battle: 4 day work week or Work from home. Your choice.
You wait, they'll try that shit.
Both, both is good.
My company has been WFH since March 2020 and they've so far shown no indication of making us return to the office. Could I make more working somewhere else? Easily, but I like being at home with my family. I'll trade a slightly better salary for that freedom and I suspect a lot of other people will, as well.
We were full staff in office before covid, then full remote office optional in 2020/21. In 2022 we went back to one in person all staff meeting and one small team meeting each month. These are scheduled far in advance and lunch is often catered. We also went from all private assigned offices and desks to about half. Now people can reserve unassigned spaces in half or full day increments as needed. On an average day anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 of staff are in for some or all of the day.
I live fairly close and spend about half of my workweek at the office. I typically go in 3-4 days a week but start my day at home and go in mid morning after traffic dies down. I also leave mid afternoon before traffic picks up again. Remaining work can be done when I get home or later that evening. If I lost that flexibility I would probably be looking.
Can concur here.
My company, at first, decided to ask everyone to come back into the office.
They were also trying to hire more people, but almost every candidate dropped out once they heard they would be expected to go in.
They've now reversed course and let people work from anywhere.
I work for the Rainforest company.
I genuinely believe that they are hoping, if not praying that RTO results in a huge chunk of people leaving. Alongside forcing people back to the office, they're now pushing people to relocate to main offices, and limiting teams from hiring internally.
I'd say the same is for many big companies. They're absolutely desperate for people to leave in order to cut costs and look lean to investors while they take in record profits.
I'm a mechanic, I'm yet to find spanners long enough to work from home :(
Well like they say, all the workers need is a nice little recession to return to the office. They're getting too uppity!
Meanwhile, since we like money more than control, my company is letting the office lease expire & finding a smaller, cheaper place for our equipment.