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

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

#421

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #154
kjkjadksj wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd do it because I think it's better to have separate work / life areas; right now my WFH spot is also my PC gaming spot and the bedroom and the place where laundry dries, and I wouldn't mind more distance between work, leisure and private life. That said, five minutes means one could come home for lunch. But anyway, five minute walk to work is highly unlikely; a lot of people (most? citation needed?) have a commute…

I had to get a second desk in my place for WFH. It was way too jarring to log off and keep sitting in the same spot. Contextual learning made me feel awkward to browse Reddit “at work”.

Given my space, my WFH desk is much crappier and smaller than my personal one, but still so much better than losing my life commuting.

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

#422

Post by deathanatos »

Zetice wrote: post #248
btbuildem wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won't. The push for open-plan spaces was motivated by cost-cutting. Layouts with many closed offices would cost far more to build, and take up more square footage to host the same number of employees. At a time where savvy businesses have dropped their commercial leases / gone full remote, and the more conservative / less accepting of change ones are left holding the bag, I would not expect anyone to make big inve…

It's a common but incorrect belief that many small individual offices is a substantially more expensive buildout option.

Do you want to share with us how that belief is incorrect?

It seems downright trivial to me that giving employees 4' desks packed side to side, back to back in rows requires less square footage and no walls, vs. an office.

(And thus, the race for short-term gains in terms of less real estate trumped the long-term gains of SWE being able to think, and the race to the bottom began. It seems to me the costs of open-office are all after the build out: lower morale, higher noise, lower productivity, faster disease transmission, etc.…)

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

#424

Post by kergonath »

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…

Some people like both and are happy with some balance. It’s nice not to have to commute, but it’s also nice to see colleagues and have a place to work outside home.

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

#425

Post by erik_seaberg »

zffr wrote: post #146

One middle ground that's been working for me is having sound-proof "phonebooths" in the office ( https://room.com/pages/office-privacy-booths ). Whenever I really need to focus, I'll go into one of these.

I need to focus all day, every day. What are people doing where they don't?

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

#427

Post by highwaylights »

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…

This is the correct answer.

I'd much rather just find another job entirely than come back to an office, and I imagine a lot of people feel the same. I think part of the problem is that a lot of companies don't really appreciate what people would be giving up, or that they see much less value in it than the people they're trying to convince.

You'd need to offer something pretty special just to compensate for the cost of the commute, let alone the time lost (which for a lot of people is significant).

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

#428

Post by marcosdumay »

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.

The idea that they will eat larger costs, so that they can not get you what you want, and part of the reason you want it is because you will be more productive... is quite strange.

I don't get where you are coming from.

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

#429

Post by skissane »

flandish wrote: post #370
FredPret wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everything is a class dynamic. “Analyst at GS hanging out in the Hamptons” doesn’t scream working class. The CEO and analyst are both upper class, just different levels of power and seniority. That CEO is just a power-tripping asshole.

Class is in no way related to salary.

> Class is in no way related to salary.

It is in part. A person on a US$20 million a year salary obviously isn’t working class or even middle class-they might truthfully say they are of “working/middle class background” (if their parents were of more modest means)

Whereas, their 10 year old kid whose annual income and assets are roughly $0 is also upper class-because their parents are. Now, if they grow up and their parents end up disowning them and they end up living on the streets homeless-then they won’t be upper class any more. But if that doesn’t happen, then they are-because even if they aren’t filthy rich yet, very likely they’ll eventually inherit a huge amount of money from their parents (assuming they don’t already have some kind of “you’ll never have to work a day in your life” trust fund set up for them). They could live their whole life in the upper class without ever getting a salary at all

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

#430

Post by plagiarist »

tfandango wrote: post #142
klysm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a huge perk for me, last thing I want to do when getting home from a commute is hit a wall of chores. Much better to spread them out through the day

I often do dishes or laundry during longer calls. I find it easier to follow the topic when I do this over when I'm on a call AND a computer where I quickly end up working on code and ignoring the call.

I haven't considered that, but I could probably concentrate better if I were mindlessly sweeping a floor than if I keep seeing Slack DMs popping up.
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