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Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#21

Post by Tempest1981 »

lolinder wrote: post #11

> If you want to watch your employees work, build glass walls. I hope this is dark humor and not meant to be taken seriously. For me, about half the reason I prefer my home office is that I don't feel like I have to look productive. I can get my stuff done in my way, and as long as my boss is happy with the result it doesn't matter if my way "looked" right.

> glass

The acoustics are also terrible, as are the visual distractions of watching people walk past and peek in every 20 seconds.

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#23

Post by neosat »

No - it may work for some employees but it's not far from what will make people who prefer remotely want to suddenly return to office.

More importantly, return to office, as the end goal isn't a good end-goal. Sure it can work reasonably well when everyone is in the office, but the pandemic 'experiment' has clearly shown us that remote, hybrid are also workable models. Each model: all on-site, hybrid, flexible have their pros and cons and the outstanding organizations of the future will be the ones that can create an environment where people who thrive in each model and co-work.

The right end-goals should be around more around the lines of productivity, teams hitting/exceeding their goals consistently, employee retention, employee happiness among other things.

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#24

Post by jasoncartwright »

AvAn12 wrote: post #9

Joel Spolesky has made this very point many times in the past: "Private offices with doors that close were absolutely required and not open to negotiation." I work on a Data Sci team that moved to an open floor plan in 2018. What happened? Anyone who needed to work intensively on a project would work from home instead of in the office.

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/07/30/private-offices-re...

https://stackoverflow.blog/2015/01/16/why-we-still-believe-i...

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#25

Post by Zetice »

AvAn12 wrote: post #9

Joel Spolesky has made this very point many times in the past: "Private offices with doors that close were absolutely required and not open to negotiation." I work on a Data Sci team that moved to an open floor plan in 2018. What happened? Anyone who needed to work intensively on a project would work from home instead of in the office.

If all of this results in an office layout revolution that includes many individual offices opening into shared team spaces, I am 100% here for it.

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#26

Post by gedy »

Even with that, no company has paid me enough in 20 years to live near the office that is safe and family friendly. Sorry not sorry.

BTW I keep hearing benefits of "RTO" - but I've never worked for a company that only has a single office, so we end up on video calls with other teams and team members anyways even when the company didn't allow WFH.

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#27

Post by _fizz_buzz_ »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #3

At home, the benefits are extreme. Full office, private bath, private bed, private kitchen, garaged parking, asset security, and a 30 second commute. The next wave of office workers will want it better than this, or it simply won't work.

I think a lot of people on here have not been through a real recession. Not saying that everybody will go back to working in an office, but thinking one can simply demand anything only works when employment is high. During a recession, it is either social assistance or one takes the job that is available.

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#28

Post by nkozyra »

SnowProblem wrote: post #12

What companies today give software engineers offices? Microsoft's used to be fantastic in 00s and early 10s but they also were moving to open spaces when I left so not sure the state today.

Honestly, trying to fix the problems of: 1) expensive office space and 2) people not coming into the office with 3) more _expensive_ office space is just the kind of McKinsey-level thinking we should expect.

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#29

Post by whoopsie »

harshaw wrote: post #10

I think its fair to say that RTO is not about data, or studies, or about anything really. Leaders across all industries have decided people are coming back. Perhaps there is a secret cabal of commercial office space lenders who are putting pressure as share holders, or some other conspiracy theory. But it's happening - no one can do anything about it (except vote with your feet), and no one is going to get better acc…

Meanwhile, my startup is profitable, hiring, and permanently 100% remote across 7 countries. Hiring is easy.

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#30

Post by mytailorisrich »

People who like WFH will never want to return to the office unless perhaps the office is a 5 minute walk from home (they may be forced to, but they won't want to). For many people the time and cost savings of avoiding a daily commute cannot be offset by a nicer office.

Those who are happy to return to the office in general are those who do not like WFH and prefer more contacts and a change of scenery.

A nicer office makes things better but it will not change people's minds on WFH.

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