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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

#21

Post by toomuchtodo »

mikeyouse wrote: post #17
rhacker wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 get…

Most workers don't have the perks you mention. It's an edge case for a small cohort of Silicon Valley tech workers out of the entire cohort of those who had to go remote.

If your office experience was blah, or you had a long commute, you likely realized a lot of utility and benefit having your employer forced to support remote work.

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

#23

Post by mulmen »

User23 wrote: post #3
MattGaiser wrote: post #2

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.

That would require management honestly evaluating employee performance and acknowledging bias. In reality management has spent a year proving to itself that working from home is impossible.

Companies that can take an honest look at themselves based on the last year will do well in the future. Those that don't will continue alienating good employees.

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

#24

Post by necheffa »

Alupis wrote: post #13
User23 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 beca…

In a similar vain of logic, 34% is a non-trivial portion. Why should a non-trivial portion be forced to work in an office just because another non-trivial portion wants to?

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

#25

Post by iagovar »

kobieyc wrote: post #10

Study finds that 34% of humans are strongly introverted.

I just have more life than work.

I want to transition to developer (solo learning now), and having someone in my job over sighting my junior BS would be helpful, but honestly I just have a much more nice life now.

I work surrounded by nature sounds. Birds, a slight brise, sun... Man, no office can compete with this.

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

#26

Post by benbristow »

Alupis wrote: post #13
User23 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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 time having blocked stories/tasks because I need to clarify some criteria/parts of it and the people I need to speak to are difficult to reach because they're busy/AFK.

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

#27

Post by ed25519FUUU »

kobieyc wrote: post #10

Study finds that 34% of humans are strongly introverted.

I'm an extrovert and I went fully remote. I have much more fulfilling interactions with my wife and small children throughout the day compared to basically anything I experienced at work.

I can leave the house at 5:00 PM on the dot, so we can all go out and have fun with other friends and families (in my city we're not locked down at all) much earlier in the day compared to old commute times.

I do miss the free food and fun lunches, but I don't feel like I'm getting the short end of the "interaction" stick.

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

#28

Post by anthropodie »

rhacker wrote: post #5
samr71 wrote: post #4

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

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

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

#30

Post by kstenerud »

MattGaiser wrote: post #2

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.

That's not a valid comparison. On one side you have people who just want to quit their current job. On the other side you have people who want to continue in their job, but also want to work from home badly enough that they'd be willing to quit over it.
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