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80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

cnbc.com

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Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#91

Post by spamizbad »

water9 wrote: post #64
atleastoptimal wrote: post #15

I understand the merits of WFH and in-person work. One thing that is however funny is the guilt tripping used by employers who have this straw-man version of a lazy WFH employee, and more so, employers who have a delusion that their workplace is important enough that people need to sacrifice a large portion of their lives just for the opportunity to be there in person. 90% of jobs aren't people's "passions" and have…

Acting like all humans will work equally as hard when they are supervised vs unsupervised is completely naïve

Most office workers really aren't supervised unless you count a manager glancing across the open-plan office to see how many butts are in seats.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#92

Post by renewiltord »

adamkf wrote: post #26

Here's the quote from the [actual whitepaper]( https://envoy.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Workplace_Data_... ) from Envoy that this article references: > 80% of executives say they would have approached their company’s return-to-office strategy differently if they had access to workplace data to inform their decision-making. Envoy's not exactly an unbiased source here, since they sell software to collect this data.

Interesting. While 80% said they would approach it differently, 66% felt they would have improved layout and space on-site and 52% would have improved amenities. That tells a different story.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#93

Post by marcosdumay »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #15

I understand the merits of WFH and in-person work. One thing that is however funny is the guilt tripping used by employers who have this straw-man version of a lazy WFH employee, and more so, employers who have a delusion that their workplace is important enough that people need to sacrifice a large portion of their lives just for the opportunity to be there in person. 90% of jobs aren't people's "passions" and have…

It's a small point, but we bounce ideas around just fine on my fully remote workplace.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#94

Post by lamontcg »

troupe wrote: post #48
atleastoptimal wrote: post #15

I understand the merits of WFH and in-person work. One thing that is however funny is the guilt tripping used by employers who have this straw-man version of a lazy WFH employee, and more so, employers who have a delusion that their workplace is important enough that people need to sacrifice a large portion of their lives just for the opportunity to be there in person. 90% of jobs aren't people's "passions" and have…

I find it funny that when people were required to be home, employers talked about what great productivity they were getting with people at home. Then when it isn't required anymore, they want everyone back in the office for...productivity. My guess is that most employers really have no way to measure if an employee is being productive or not so managers are just reporting what makes them look good...and now we are ba…

> I find it funny that when people were required to be home, employers talked about what great productivity they were getting with people at home. Then when it isn't required anymore, they want everyone back in the office for...productivity.

The decades of evidence that open office plans are utter shit for productivity already proved that the emperor wears no clothes and they have no idea what makes for better productivity.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#95

Post by deprecative »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #80
water9 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acting like all humans will work equally as hard when they are supervised vs unsupervised is completely naïve

It's also naïve to assume that the work people do when supervised is always valuable and not optimizing for the appearance of work, rather than work itself.

It's also naive to assume that optimizing for productivity is some goal we should work toward when zero reward structures are in place for it. The thing to optimize for is just enough productivity.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#96

Post by ramesh31 »

rabuse wrote: post #90
ramesh31 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> basically because they picked a fight and lost Did they lose? Pretty sure the prevailing sentiment among the C-level has effectively become "Get back to your cube and shut up because we said so, or little Timmy won't be getting his braces." here in the US.

In the long term, they will lose out. It's like Tinder vs your local dating pool. Why limit your options to a very small subset of people, when better options are just a tap away (ssh tunnel away)?

>Why limit your options to a very small subset of people, when better options are just a tap away (ssh tunnel away)?

Employers like control. Relationships (your example) are pretty similar actually.

Why would someone settle for a partner below their standards? Simple, they enjoy having control in the relationship. Why would an employer settle for a sub-optimal employee? Dependability and reliance.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#98

Post by throwaway72957 »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #15

I understand the merits of WFH and in-person work. One thing that is however funny is the guilt tripping used by employers who have this straw-man version of a lazy WFH employee, and more so, employers who have a delusion that their workplace is important enough that people need to sacrifice a large portion of their lives just for the opportunity to be there in person. 90% of jobs aren't people's "passions" and have…

We have a generous hybrid work policy: you can WFH, but you may be required to attend on-site sessions and meetings, for example if we're doing architecture brainstorms or design reviews. We've not found this to work well over zoom. Overall, this works out to a day or two a month, but most people choose to come in at least 1 day a week for various reasons (mostly social).

We casually observed there seemed to be a split in employee WFH performance, with most performing as expected or better when WFH, but a minority performing MUCH worse. That is, significantly less than 50% of the productivity they have while in the office.

We've had casual one-to-one meetings with those individuals, and while a few will sort themselves out, most just flat out deny a difference. So we resorted to adding some very basic anonymised monitoring tools to a random subset of staff laptops (hence throwaway account).

What we found was that the majority are indistinguishable which days they are working from home and which days they are in the office, but a minority basically do no work when WFH. By this I mean, behaviour such as their laptop is idle for 20 minutes then active for a few seconds. As it's anonymised we can't be sure, but I'm guessing those are the staff we've identified as having a problem. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a second job.

The problem is: what to do about it? We're in the UK so just firing people without cause isn't an option. HR are saying it would be unfair, humiliating and potentially constructive dismissal if we forced the problem staff into the office but not everyone else. There's also a lot of valid discomfort and GDPR-related fear around the idea of installing heavy surveillance tools on laptops to collect evidence, and a concern that it will make for a hostile work environment. Even if we just used it very selectively on staff suspected to be breaking their contract, they would undoubtedly tell their colleagues which would lead to discontent. But without that evidence, it's very difficult to legally justify sacking someone.

The HR people are trying to force us back to the office because these issues are too challenging to deal with, but we (the tech team management) are trying to find a way to deal with staff who are taking the piss without upsetting everyone else in the process.

What's the play here? Genuinely looking for a good solution as, like many others, I personally enjoy WFH and don't want to have to give it up.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#99

Post by syndicatedjelly »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #39

I had lunch, not too long ago, with a senior executive of a silicon valley tech company that was moaning about how much of a pain it was to get people to come into the office and how it felt like things would never return to the way they were. And I told them I actually knew of a way to get 100% of their employees to return to the office happily. When they asked what this magic bullet was I said, "Go back to offices,…

I don’t want to work in an office with doors any more than I want to work in a jail cell.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#100

Post by Plasmoid »

r00fus wrote: post #82
water9 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acting like all humans will work equally as hard when they are supervised vs unsupervised is completely naïve

Thing is, I'm just as supervised at work, honestly (which is to say, not at all). I still have 1:1s with my manager, am still accountable for my targets and organizational goals, and generally do the same thing whether I'm WFH or in office. Office work has several advantages: 1) I like discussing in person with coworkers - sometimes coming up with fun/interesting ideas 2) office itself is more conducive to a particul…

I think RTO would have been a lot more palatable if most offices weren't intentionally built with 1hr+ commutes from residential areas.
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