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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

#91

Post by blhack »

Absolutely on the other side of this. My wife and I are both 100% remote (except for some in person classes which we teach).

We ended up renting an office (a really nice coworking space in Phoenix called industrious, which we have kindof fallen in love with).

We pay for this out of our own pocket because it turns out that the amenities typical to an office are really nice. Our productivity is up substantially since we moved in here.

Here's my prediction: the midpoint between work from home and going back to the office is going to be your employer paying for a coworking space like this for employees who want to be back in an office.

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

#92

Post by Spivak »

beastman82 wrote: post #18

Talk is cheap

Very few people are going to up and quit. Many people if forced back into the office will start looking for remote work. Nobody wants to be the company that loses everyone who prefers remote work and is valuable enough to get another job.

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

#93

Post by slow_donkey »

jen20 wrote: post #68
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…

It’s quite bizarre to me that you feel it’s rude to call someone, but not interrupt them at their desk. Calls may be silenced while doing work, walk-up interruptions are much harder to prevent.

So I have the same issue. On Slack, I can't tell if someone is busy - almost no one sets their status as away unless they're actually offline. Whereas in the office it was easier to assess via headphones or if they've just gotten up from their desk etc.

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

#94

Post by Thaxll »

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

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

why?

Because working from home for 1year just sucks and it opened my eyes that it's not something I want to do if I have a choice, you miss so much on the social side.

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

#95

Post by benbristow »

mulmen wrote: post #74
benbristow wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just asking this as a talking point. Does a quick interruption that unblocks me and allows me to continue working outweigh allowing you to finish your thing first? Because maybe you're unblocked but I'm blocked by you now, and the thing that's actually blocking me. So only 1 person is able to work.

> Does a quick interruption that unblocks me and allows me to continue working outweigh allowing you to finish your thing first? No, absolutely not. As my coworker you have no right to my time, at all. Certainly not on-demand. You are in no position to prioritize my time, especially in the context of you finishing your task. > Because maybe you're unblocked but I'm blocked by you now, and the thing that's actually bl…

I'm talking more about if I've got a story where something isn't clarified properly. The project I'm on at the minute, the stories really aren't well refined at-all so I need to talk to a project manager/architect-style character for something that I can't answer myself because I simply don't know. I've said things about doing refinement sessions etc. but they've never surfaced.

What you say sounds pretty selfish though. If someone came to me and asked for help with something I'd be happy to drop tools and come and help as I'm not just a 'colleague', I'm a team member.

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

#96

Post by ghaff »

benbristow wrote: post #76
jen20 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s quite bizarre to me that you feel it’s rude to call someone, but not interrupt them at their desk. Calls may be silenced while doing work, walk-up interruptions are much harder to prevent.

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.

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

#98

Post by anonu »

I envision a hybrid work environment. I would invest in off-site and event planning companies. Maybe even create a business that facilitates the entire planning process for companies. Every month or 2 everyone would fly out to a particular place - everyone could get some face time in, team-building activities, and then go back to WFH for the rest of the time.

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

#99

Post by abduhl »

mulmen wrote: post #74
benbristow wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just asking this as a talking point. Does a quick interruption that unblocks me and allows me to continue working outweigh allowing you to finish your thing first? Because maybe you're unblocked but I'm blocked by you now, and the thing that's actually blocking me. So only 1 person is able to work.

> Does a quick interruption that unblocks me and allows me to continue working outweigh allowing you to finish your thing first? No, absolutely not. As my coworker you have no right to my time, at all. Certainly not on-demand. You are in no position to prioritize my time, especially in the context of you finishing your task. > Because maybe you're unblocked but I'm blocked by you now, and the thing that's actually bl…

It sounds like you want to be a contractor, not an employee. I would imagine that your job description, if it exists, includes language such as "teamwork," "mentoring," and "problem solving" and does not include language such as "siloed," "completely independent," and "unanswerable to anyone."

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

#100

Post by MattGaiser »

kstenerud wrote: post #30
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.

It isn't really meant as a comparison. It is more that "badly enough" isn't a high bar for a very large number of employees as they already not that attached to their jobs.
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