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34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

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11–20 of 341 posts

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#11
I've been thinking about this too. I appreciate the benefits of the office, but I'm more productive than ever now that I can control my environment, commute, and schedule. If I have to go into work, that's about two hours of commuting each day. Where are those hours going to come from? I sure as hell don't want them coming out of my personal time, which always feels too full as it is.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#12
post #7

At any given point, half of workers are contemplating leaving. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/27/47percent-of-workers-are-con... The typical office worker spends a half hour searching for new jobs at work every day. https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/in-an-8-hour-day-the-aver... I’m not sure this is a revolution or just that plenty of people have no real attachment to their employer.

I don't find that second statistic believable. As someone who though almost every day about leaving a past job, even I didn't spend 30 minutes per day looking at job listings. In fact for a while I had to force myself to spend 20 minutes a day on that activity.

Interesting.

I am not leaving anytime soon, but can easily spend 15-20 minutes a day replying to recruiters just in case I one day need them and just browsing what pops up as recommended on LinkedIn.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#13
post #3

At any given point, half of workers are contemplating leaving. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/27/47percent-of-workers-are-con... The typical office worker spends a half hour searching for new jobs at work every day. https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/in-an-8-hour-day-the-aver... I’m not sure this is a revolution or just that plenty of people have no real attachment to their employer.

Conversely, if an employer isn't willing to let employees do a job remotely after having had a year to see that they're perfectly capable of doing so, they clearly have no attachment to their employees.

Or, perhaps they had a year to clearly see they're perfectly incapable of doing so.

Not every office job is software engineering folks... Imagine trying to manage a warehouse remotely... or bounce ideas off each other in real time at a marketing agency... or any of the other normal jobs that thrive with in-person interaction.

Not to mention, 34% is a minority... we can't force the other 66% to work remotely just because a minority enjoy it.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#14
post #5
post #4

I personally would rather quit than stay remote indefinitely, I can tell you that.

why?

I can't speak for the poster but obvious issues include:

* Having any kind of separation between work and home.

* The requirement to have an office space that you likely pay quite a lot of rent for.

* Lack of spontaneous interaction with co-workers (especially new ones)

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#15
post #7

At any given point, half of workers are contemplating leaving. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/27/47percent-of-workers-are-con... The typical office worker spends a half hour searching for new jobs at work every day. https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/in-an-8-hour-day-the-aver... I’m not sure this is a revolution or just that plenty of people have no real attachment to their employer.

I don't find that second statistic believable. As someone who though almost every day about leaving a past job, even I didn't spend 30 minutes per day looking at job listings. In fact for a while I had to force myself to spend 20 minutes a day on that activity.

i had an officemate who spent about ~7.5 hours a day looking at job listings and reading things like "how to quit your soul crushing day job and do what you always wanted". so she was holding the average up for you and 13 other folks.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#17
post #5
post #4

I personally would rather quit than stay remote indefinitely, I can tell you that.

why?

I went from ~3-4 days in the office to full remote during the pandemic.. and then we gave up our office space since it was going "so well". I'm not quite ready to quit, but the office had tons of perks -- nice cafeteria / nice espresso / gym / beautiful setting in SF / casual face-time with the leadership / coworkers in different departments sharing a common space.

Sure there was a commute involved, but I enjoyed getting out of the house. Hopefully things will be better post-pandemic and I'll get some of the social interaction by working out of coffee shops and from parks, but the quality of life improvement from changing from a "5 days/week in the office" to "3 days/week in the office" was substantially larger for me than going full remote.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#19
post #4

I personally would rather quit than stay remote indefinitely, I can tell you that.

Talking with various friends and people among my network I can say that it varies so much.

Some people would prefer to never go in, some people (like myself) would prefer an office presence but no requirement to attend and others would prefer to eliminate remote work.

I find this interesting because we tend to extrapolate our own thoughts and preferences to the general public. And this is kind of why working together is sometimes hard! We all want/expect/prefer different things in a working environment.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#20
I don't believe it.

I do believe that 34% of polled workers said they would quit rather than return to the office, but I do not believe even a majority of them would actually go follow through on that threat. Especially if you filter out high paid/high job-security developers and similar people who might have the financial security to do so.

People, particularly Americans, are shackled to their jobs for many reasons and most people are risk-averse.

Despite myself being pro-remote, I think that we will see a sizable return to office-centric work culture over the next few years. The office may (hopefully) end up looking or feeling a bit different as an outcome. All the stories about the "end of the office" are overblown.

Once it again becomes beneficial for your career and/or social life to participate in office culture people will come crawling back. Not saying it's a good thing, but it's what will happen.

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