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

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

#101
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.

More accurately, their need for illusion of control trumps their attachment for the employees.

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

#102

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.

While there is likely some truth to it, the first survey is hardly unbiased: it’s a survey showing lots of people are looking for jobs conducted by a company focused on job searching. That would be like WebMD doing a survey of people on its site to see how many people think they’re sick and finding out “wow, lots of people think they’re sick”.

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

#103
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 beca…

It's hard enough in software engineering IMHO. What used to be swivel in your chair and ask a colleague or going to whoever you need to speak to is now * Send a Slack message/email and wait an arbitrary amount of time for a response. * Organise a Skype/Teams/whatever call in a few hours time and feel guilty about it, as it feels rude to just ring someone as they could be occupied or busy. I spend a stupid amount of t…

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

#104
post #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…

I believe it because this is what I’ve seen around me. People willing to quit if they are forced to go back to the office. Now will they do it? I don’t know, although some have already bought houses elsewhere without even asking for permission.

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

#105
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels a lot more natural if you're sitting right next to someone or just around the corner. You can peek and make an educated decision of whether they look busy or not. If it's a call it's a bit out of the blue. Maybe they don't have their headset around/plugged in, maybe they're doing something like eating or doing laundry. You just don't know because all you see is an activity status icon.

I pretty much never call anyone out of the blue. I'd almost certainly message them and ask them if we can have a quick call.

I still feel sending a message for 'if we can have a quick call' is still similar to being out the blue. I feel like I'm putting pressure on someone at this time.

Maybe it's just me/my personality.

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

#107
34% should probably be 33.333...% or one third. In other words I doubt they know the accuracy of this number any more than roughly estimating it to about a third. Which if is the case makes the argument less convincing that we're seeing a completely new phenomenon as it pertains to remote workers.

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

#109
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why?

Probably people just figured out that they don't need big cities to live. Personally I think cities are overrated anyway and this is why: - heavy traffic hence heavy pollution - huge commute times to work - need to pay lot more for home (both buy/rent, may even have to take loan) - everything is expensive. My current expenses are 1/3 of that of city and I already have a home. I live in a town since pandemic

I think the advantages of living in a big city really emerge when you have hobbies/interests/needs that are not very common.

In that case if you want in-person interaction with like-minded people, or to attend specific facilities, you need a big enough population that the relevant small percentage of people becomes a significant community.

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

#110
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.

That's a average, not a cluster on a histogram. If you spend 4 hours a week job hunting when you are looking in earnest, that puts you over half an hour a day (almost 50 minutes per workday)
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