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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

#81

Post by kzrdude »

pipeline_peak wrote: post #4

Nah, I'm not going back to your stupid building to talk about sports in the break room while microwaving Tupperwared leftover chicken breast lol. Gas + commute time + increased likelihood to eat out (leftover chicken breast) = more money out of my pocket. And I could stretch even further with the endless banter, getting yelled at for not understanding things the first time (I'm not an auditory listener), disrespected…

Eating out is a net positive for me. I get better, more varied food and feel better if a professional does the cooking. It's not worth saving money on what I eat - it's so important for health.

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

#82

Post by [deleted] »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #16
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.

The idea that employers need to give you everything you want is strange. They give you the least they can possibly get away with. Sure - some small subset of employers competing for the best employees will do this. But the average employer? I'm skeptical.

[deleted]

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

#83

Post by kjkjadksj »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #30

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…

See if I lived five minutes walk from work, I’d want to be in the office even less. Why sit there between meetings if I am five minutes from my home? Why bag a lunch when my kitchen is down the block? I’d probably show face at the obligate meetings then just go home for the day if I could.

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

#84

Post by dylan604 »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #16
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.

The idea that employers need to give you everything you want is strange. They give you the least they can possibly get away with. Sure - some small subset of employers competing for the best employees will do this. But the average employer? I'm skeptical.

>They give you the least they can possibly get away with.

Yup, and now that employees have had a taste of freedom from that, they are very resistant to returning to that. Why is that hard to grasp for companies?

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

#85

Post by rndmnflnce »

We have a whole kitchen staff that prepares very good breakfast and lunch for us (no dinner!). The kitchen is also open for beverages/snacks throughout the day. We have a great gym with trainers. That is enough for me to come into the office everyday.

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

#86

Post by footy »

opless wrote: post #37
tehjoker wrote: post #2

I would say the most important factor for me would be to implement COVID-19 mitigations, but I also enjoy wfh now.

Covid hasn't gone away though. Returning to an office is my idea of hell though. Getting I'll because some random employee won't take the time off or WFH because they have a cold/flu/covid is plenty enough reason to say "no"

This is how I feel. I know someone whose life was pretty severely impacted by long covid, and I don't want to be her. And I'm a 37 year old woman, which apparently is a higher risk demographic than average.

Between that and the benefits of working from home (having lunch with my local friends or eating leftovers, no commute, control over my environment, being able to work from my partner's occasionally), I really don't think there's a realistic amount of money I'd go back to an office for. Onsites are fine, but RTO 5 days a week 48 weeks a year? No thank you.

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

#88

Post by lolinder »

btilly wrote: post #49
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.

I worked in a company that had meeting rooms with glass walls. It was great. You could write on the glass like it was a whiteboard. And the knowledge that everyone else could see you were in a meeting was an incentive to only be in meetings when you had a real reason to be.

Meeting rooms is fine—it has the added benefit of seeing easily if one is empty. Offices would be terrible.

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

#89

Post by pipeline_peak »

JJMcJ wrote: post #35
pipeline_peak wrote: post #4

Nah, I'm not going back to your stupid building to talk about sports in the break room while microwaving Tupperwared leftover chicken breast lol. Gas + commute time + increased likelihood to eat out (leftover chicken breast) = more money out of my pocket. And I could stretch even further with the endless banter, getting yelled at for not understanding things the first time (I'm not an auditory listener), disrespected…

> commute Not only time but expense and accident risk, especially for an automobile commute.

Agreed, a daily cross on the beltway isn't something that should be necessary so I can sit at a computer. This isn't 1965, I'm not working at Honeywell as some mainframe engineer.

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

#90

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

There is one sentence at the very beginning that is completely false:

> But remote workers don’t build the skills and connections that can help them one day get a better job.

It is so wrong yet it's repeated so much some people started to believe it. Maybe at some specific jobs or in some companies where management doesn't understand remote culture, but otherwise it's blatantly false as evidenced by all the people who switched from one remote job to another with a salary increase.[0]

[0] Could they get an even better job if they had worked in the office? Maybe, maybe not, but it's clear what was important for them.

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