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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

#41

Post by WORMS_EAT_WORMS »

Very interested in seeing the WTF happens with the housing market this year. Maybe a good indicator of truly how people feel about this vs random surveys.

- Huge amount of people fleeing to suburbs last year.

- Huge amount of people continuing to flee this year.

- Lots of buyer regrets on hugely marked up homes as things normalize.

- Bunch of workers getting called back into offices and people regretting commute times.

- Bunch of people quitting jobs and regretting their expensive purchases as they can't find other competitive paying jobs that stay remote.

Etc..

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

#43

Post by spaetzleesser »

tdeck wrote: post #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.

For me going remote was a huge improvement for my sanity. The loud office and the daily commute were wearing me down. But I understand other people prefer the office. Let's hope companies will adapt and support different personality traits.

Problem is that most managers are extroverts and don't really understand the needs of introverts.

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

#44

Post by benbristow »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #32
benbristow wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's not a remote problem, that's a project management and communications problem. Physical proximity is no replacement for clearly communicated requirements/bug reports/product roadmaps as well as tribal knowledge (which should not be tribal but documented somewhere searchable and robustly accessible), but it makes a nice hack when everyone is required to be in the office.

Agreed on it being PM/Communications problems. Definitely easier in the office though.

Another thing is that it's often harder to write your question/problem in text as a message, when in verbal communication it's a lot easier (personally, YMMV). But having to organise calls to get that verbal communication is a pain.

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

#45

Post by musingsole »

nkozyra wrote: post #19
samr71 wrote: 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…

I wish employers would take this opportunity to scrutinize what it is that is valuable about working together in-person versus what it is that actually worked remotely. There are plenty of articles about better documentation protocols and this or that workflow to support remote work, but the reality is employees often feel pain on those fronts because of unspoken power hierarchies that gatekeep changes only from a set of approved clerics as opposed to whatever the organization structure would actually imply on paper.

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

#46

Post by otterley »

Headline doesn't match the content. The content says that the respondents would "look for a new job." The respondents did not say they would quit. Obviously, one can look for a new job while still working at a current employer, and then quit if the search is successful.

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

#47

Post by mulmen »

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…

34% being unwilling to work in offices does not imply not the 66% prefer to work in offices. It is entirely possible (however unlikely) that 100% of people prefer to work remotely but that 34% demand it. You just can't infer anything about the preferences of the 66% based on the preferences of the 34%.

Some jobs have to be done in person, sure. But some jobs don't. Personally the extra two hours a day and reduced stress more than make up for the lack of face-to-face meeting time with my coworkers.

A friend of mine is in software sales. She doesn't need to physically be in an office ever. There are a lot of office jobs that can be done remotely.

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

#48

Post by gabeio »

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…

34% stated they would rather leave than return to the office. But the article goes on to say that only 25% would rather go fully back into an office. It sounds like the majority would enjoy a place they could go work if they choose to but not be forced to work in the office full time either.

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

#49

Post by decafninja »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #21
mikeyouse wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So much this.

My office (investment bank) is dull, dreary, depressing, dystopian, Dilbertesque. Everyone must wear at least business casual (dress shirt, dress pants, dress shoes). We have none of the perks mentioned above. The commute is miserable. Very little sunlight. Even our coffee is an atrocity. This is probably standard fare for most old school non-tech companies.

I've visited the offices of quite a few Silicon Valley tech companies. The atmosphere could not be more different.

If I had to use an analogy, coming into my office is like checking into the local cheap motel. Going to a SV tech company office feels like it would be akin to checking into a hip and luxurious boutique hotel.

I've said this before, and I know grass is greener on the other side, but if my office environment were better, I could imagine myself enjoying being at the office more. As it stands currently, it is outright depressing.

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

#50

Post by mikeyouse »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #21
mikeyouse wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah no doubt - I used to commute to Hayward from SF and it nearly killed me, even though the office perks were still nice (though that was a 5-day/week office job). Post GFC, it was manageable with the decreased Bay Area traffic but as the economy heated up, my 45min 8am commute turned into a 1.5hr 7am commute.

My current org was 90% remote to begin with, there was just a "main office" with a few dozen employees working out of their casually, and regular department gatherings in the space when a number of people had to be in SF. So going full remote was easier for our org than others, but I wouldn't mind a few days back in an office.

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