My employer is trying to enforce 60% return to office, insinuating that there will be repercussions for those who don't follow this mandate.
Are your employers also trying to enforce people returning to office? And what are your thoughts/observations from your fellow colleagues?
Edit: I personally don't mind going into the office, but interested to know how others are feeling. Added poll:
@tharlow: Sounds a little like micromanagement to me. Better to have an environment with mutual trust and respect.
I’m sure we can at least agree to disagree!
@Mr Random: Forget micromanagement, or even management — this is about accountability. Where there is no accountability (i.e., wfh), and the potential for endless distraction, there will be corruption. It’s inevitable. There are obviously exceptions to every rule in life (there is no black and white), but multiple studies tell the real story. wfh works for you and your company, but as a model it is a disaster for companies/productivity and a boon for employees. The statistics don’t lie
@tharlow: Depends on the type of work. Some work requires a lot more concentration and focus than other. Eg. Software development. You can't focus properly in an office environment unless wearing noise cancelling headphones. Wfh, with the kids gone to school, provides a distraction free environment and is conducive to such type of work.
Other work like business analysis where you need to talk to people and requires regular meetings, I think it's better done from the office environment.
Eg. Software development.
I think it’s pretty clear by now that this is the economic segment with the most bloat — too many cooks spoil the broth, as it were. From a recent example, App is doing >1000 poorly batched RPCs just to render a home timeline!. This is what happens if you let people wfh unsupervised, unaccountable, with fat paycheques that artificially inflate their self-worth
This is what happens if you let people wfh unsupervised, unaccountable, with fat paycheques that artificially inflate their self-worth
The same thing can be done working from office, supervised, with accountability. People who have clue about systems think they know the best. RIP Twitter.
@RSmith: Of course statistics can’t be tweaked — statistics, when done correctly, is a science, and has the property of reproducibility. Unlike software “development” or “engineering” — a field that is very much still learning how to produce anything approaching an acceptable level of scrutiny. wfh can be successful in isolated cases, but as a model it is deeply, deeply flawed. And multiple studies bear that out
@tharlow: Wonder how the world survived being locked down and people WFH. In my opinion, it is all about taking responsibility and delivering the work assigned to you. Where you do it from is immaterial.
Mandatory doesn't mean obligatory, consent is needed without coercive or threatening behavior
but go on please, leagal English full of traps, other than that as long as you do your job from home and they fire you, it becomes unfair dismissal
Kind of like sovcits “travelling”, “commerce” etc…
2 days minimum and HR are actively tracking attendance. If you fail then you get a warning letter.
Our project team is now mandated 2 days in the office, which I think is fair. There are some people taking the p*ss with a whole bunch of excuses, especially that they are IT contractors (and earn $$$) and have been lazy. So I just fired them and now looking at the market. It is much harder to do it for permanent staff.
It was not long ago that everyone comes to the office 5 days per week. Sometimes the management needs to have balls for short-term pain by firing people who are not compliant with the rules. It would set an example for the other team members to get into line.
REBEL
NFA.
For a while before the last COVID wave we were asked to try for 2 days in the office so everyone could get together. I enjoyed that - I like my coworkers and enjoyed seeing their faces. But it also meant all meetings were booked for those days which could be annoying.
Then the wave hit and the requirement to come in was dropped and never reinstated. The reality now is that WFH is a key perk that employees in my industry look for, so I can’t see the situation changing anytime soon if we want to be competitive in hiring talent.
We still have a big office space, and I usually go in 4 days a week because I like the separation of my home and work life, I like getting lunch in town, seeing workmates etc. But I also live close to my workplace, so that makes it easy to grab a bus - if I had to drive for 45 minutes every morning I imagine I’d be less keen. As for clients, we used to have regular meetings and workshops in the studio, but I haven’t had a meeting in the same physical room as a client in years now, and it hasn’t really had a huge impact on the work.
There’s only 3 or 4 of us who make the trip into the office regularly. The majority work from home most of the time. That leaves a space for 30 or so employees with only 4 or 5 desks being used. So once the lease is up on our office space, it wouldn’t surprise me if we moved into a shared workspace with or something like that.
Extra points if your workplace is changing offices to one which is worse in every conceivable way and then drops the mandatory return to work 3 days/week. I am sure that won't lead to staff retention issues.. /s
For my current job I was recruited on the basis of being fully remote so if they change that then yeah I'll be shitty and leave. I'm 150km from the office so that's not workable.
They were making some noise a few months ago but it looks like they have already backed down though as they have given up a few floors in the building and consolidated desk space to a lower occupancy rate.
I have mostly returned to the office full time because I enjoy it more and I find I am able to get more work done, my employer is flexible and has not requested anyone come back but there have been some subtle encouragements like they will randomly arrange things like coffee and lunch for the office (like 500-600 people or whatever), ice cream, other activities etc - I imagine this is so that people WFH think they are missing something.
My office is surprisingly busy every day, some days near 100% capacity, other days like 50% but probably on average like 60% - it's not a ghost town.
Of the people I see in the office most days they all seem to say the same thing, that is that they feel like they get more done at the office and that it is more enjoyable. The people who WFH tell me the same, that they get more done at home and its more enjoyable. I find that interesting, both sides tell me the same thing.
It is going to vary by industry and company, but I reckon people who WFH more often than not are going to find themselves getting left behind. I see my bosses boss and their boss pretty much every day, we talk, discuss work, socialize - not to mention all the other people in the business that I see every day.
Meanwhile I haven't seen anyone from my team in person in like a month, including my boss (I have seen my boss on video calls thats it), one person in my team I haven't spoken to in like 6 weeks, not intentionally, just they are busy with their things I am busy with mine but they are almost always WFH.
So who is leaving a better impression with the powers that be? The person who comes to work, does a good job, is fun to work with or talk to, who is visible and easily accessible to the rest of the business or the person who does a good job behind the scenes that no one really knows? Also with economic uncertainty, I would rather be the person with strong connections to the decision makers than a person who may as well be a number on a spreadsheet when it comes to job cuts.
When I was younger I sought all the things you just mentioned and I reckon I'd be aching to go to the office. Then came kids and all those things were hard to care about when dealing with daycare, school drop-off, regular family dinner times, bed time routines, etc… at which point WFH has been a godsend. I suppose I'm lucky I built close relationships with all the bosses before lockdowns and my role ensures I am often required to engage with them still
With the exception of jobs that require you to be there in person (e.g. tradies, construction), it's obvious that many businesses and roles can continue to function with remote workers. So at this point, forcing folks back into the office is more of a reflection of management and its culture. i.e. archaic thinking that believes, if you can't see someone working then they must be slacking off or some other hidden agenda like making the most of their office lease, instead of looking at staff outcomes/results.
Not sure why you are being downvoted. This is exactly what I experienced at my last workplace. Managers explicitly told us they want us back in 100% of the time stating, "how are we able to track you are working".
We worked in software. The fact we consistently pushed work up to a repo would have given them the information they 'needed'.
Needless to say, I left, and the company has been hemorrhaging money through a never-ending cycle of new employees ever since.
Those opposed to at least a partial return to work should realise if you really dont need to come into the office at all, maybe someone in Mumbai can you it at a far cheaper cost
And at a substantially lower quality, dependent on your line of work of course.
Lol, upper management don't think about that.
Not sure how doing the exact same job in a corporate rental instead of home office proved that at all
It proves your physical presence is unnecessary and therefore they are able to offshore the position…
You said two unrelated things in one sentence then… the first thing doesn't prove the second thing?
This is a myth. Sure some jobs may be outsourced like call centre etc, but I’ve found outsourcing anything more complicated to be a colossal failure time and time again. There are good firms sure, but those aren’t cheap so what’s the point.
Return to the offfice is a REASONABLE request. Dont like it, find another job or office that allows WFH.
The last business I worked for went under by doing this, there were only 12 employees but 9 of us all resigned within 2 weeks. 4 of us on the first day then the other 5 shortly after when they found out their workload had increased, and the director couldn't scramble fast enough to hire and train new employees.
And for some businesses, this will happen - and many businesses will survive with a work-at-the-office policy too.
All I am saying is that it is a reasonable request and people who are affected / don't like it etc can choose to go elsewhere with a company that aligns with their wants/needs.
My company is 30-50% office time. Personally think that 3 days a fortnight in the office is extremely reasonable so Im pretty happy and complying. Unfortunately we struggle with desk space now (hot desking)
I think the best thing is to quit if the company refuses WFH. The market is pretty good and lots of companies are hiring.
U work in twitter OP
This is an Elon Musk inspired movement by employers. Elon is a d*ck
Imagine a world in which free $400 lunches and free wfh money becomes the norm. That’s today. Elon is just bringing the world into sync with reality
Elon isnt a woke or social justice warrior and thats the best thing about him , especially in this stupid new world order.
Tofu-eating wokerati
The majority of people do bare minimum and are hardly responsive or show any form of productivity when working from home. Those that are productive from home tend to be the very ones that are also productive at work as well.
Logically the answer is clear. However, people are free to apply wherever they like. In truth, companies are happy to see the low productivity people leave elsewhere. A lot of people overrate what value they actually bring to the workplace.
The truth is that if your job can be solely work from home, it means that the probability that the role can be outsourced for less increases significantly.
got a link to this study? From what I've seen in-office tends to be half day coffee breaks, half day distractions, half day going for a walk and 10% work
And don't forget the "truth" that out sourcing will be the same quality of work
It is though, that’s why every company is doing it and our unemployment rate is extremely high due to it.
When you got hired, did you ever offer them working from home? If your answer is no, why dont you just go to the office now?
Even if an employee's contract state working from home is a requirement, there's always a clause to retract any clauses from a contract which is not legally binded.
For example a contract could state working 9 to 5 but a clause at the could state hours may vary depending on business changes.
The employee also can retract their employement… goes both ways…
Productivity employees working for reasonable workplaces/bosses should have no problems WFH, if less productive employees take a hardline on WFH, even reasonable bosses will take the opportunity to move them on…
My employer has a "virtual first" policy. They are happy for staff to work from the office, but they have actively supported staff working from home (desks, chairs, monitors etc). Having said this, I worked from home for about 7 of the last 8 years. COVID just made it more normal! :)
I'd be happy to go back a day or two a week. I value flexibility more than anything else.
With the job market the way it is, I do think many employers need to be careful how they handle the return to office for those who have proven to be productive from home.
The job market is so very close to crapping itself it’s not funny. We have a major recession charging at us full speed- it’s not the employers who are going to have issues, unemployment will rise significantly. The buyers market of jobs is an anomaly that’s already slowing significantly.
I don't care what you say, you cannot be as effective at home as you are in the office. You may think you are, but the colleagues who wish to interact with you beg to differ. You cannot build relationships over Zoom, and the quick "pop in and chat to solve a problem" can only work face to face. Get back to the office people if you want to be an effective employee!
Please provide references with your analysis.
Thank you.
100% this. The people who demand wfh are all the least productive, and it's just made them worse. And for those who like it in the office, wfh has just made everything harder.
Honestly I understand why some companies are doing it. They literally don’t know what their staff are doing at home. The solution is to ensure full tracking of all your employees working remotely. There is awesome surveillance software for this.
Well no one works in a complete isolation.
Most of my team was way more productive working from home. However I say most some I constantly question what some are doing but honestly sometimes it is really hard to work out how long tasks take and I have some amazing performers in my team. So maybe it is an unfair comparison when I compare to global they are about par.
You can get tracking software that will show you how long mouse is active for/what screens they are looking at/whether home screen is locked…literally everything - and it can aggregate data by hour of the day. Easy to see if anyone is slacking off! Obviously if people doing their job well you will have some leeway but it’s great for quickly identifying people taking the piss / giving you the evidence you need to put someone on a performance plan. Naturally you do all this surveillance transparently and we build it into our employment contracts now. People who are genuine workers do not give a f that they are being tracked because they know they are performing. It’s the trade off of people want the privilege to work from home.
Any company that sets active hours as a KPI is on a path to inefficiency
how dare your employer, the person who pays your wage give you an order!
If you can do your role exactly the same from home then it's stupid to force back to the office, they just want to micromanage and power play.
Still 1 day/week in office for me but management are very strict about it. I fear they will slowly increase this soon as they've now removed the social distancing between desks. Don't mind the 1 day but nearly 3 hour commute is a killer..
My workplace was far too reliant on picking up the phone to people or email prior to lockdown. The introduction of better team collaboration tools (slack, ms teams etc) has been a huge improvement to connection across colleagues in my organisation. Not sure this would have happened without wfh
The sense of entitlement here is beyond belief. They are paying your wages; they dictate the terms of your employment. People should be grateful for having an easy white collar job paying $150,000 a year.
Deciding to sit at a desk in a home vs a desk in an office does not make one entitled. Especially when efficiency has been proven for working from home for that individual or team.
If performance has has dropped, then sure, an employee should probably return to office.
I'd like for everyone to, in great detail, describe what job exactly they are doing to defend their WFH entitlement.
I've discovered at least one person in construction that tried to defend their WFH, joking about how they can now get away with ignoring calls from the foreman
Sure.
Software engineer. Currently working on a project as a solo developer who liaises with a product owner who is located in another state. Only difference of working in the office compared to home is the environment and 3 hour daily commute.
Prior to this, I was part of another team working on a very strict deadline building something from the ground up. We affectively used zoom and a messaging service to communicate, plan, and execute said plan. All working remotely.
There has never been an issue with these forms of communication for us. If anything they have improved our efficiency as every chat is now documented, and we can refer back to them rather than having follow up meetings if something was missed by a person.
Our manager has made it simple. Demonstrate that work is getting done, then there is no need to dictate where you work from. They even go further and state that so long as our hours do not interfere with anyone else, make them up as you please, so long as the work is done.
This freedom allows me to get up at 7, start work, have a shorter lunch, and be clocked off by 3. Or take a long break in between if I really wanted.
It works for my industry. At least where I currently work.
And yes, it all comes down to your job in the end. I would not expect a tradie to expect to work from home due to the nature of their job. All these arguments and people calling out others being entitled, lazy, or a bad worker, really need to consider that just because your job may not allow for this flexibility, does not mean others won’t.
I don't think it's suitable for all roles and/or industries. In my case, it wouldn't be possible to do my job without WFH, at least, not with all of the "out of business hours" work.
I work in IT, and WFH has been relatively normal for around 10 years, but certainly doable for over 20. Outside of my "9-5" (more like 8-7!), I was an on-call engineer for most of 2000-2016, and in that time, I would have resolved 99% of issues from home for an after hours call. Depending on my various factors, I would have been called after hours between 1 and 20 times per week, and the time to resolve issues would have been between 30 minutes and 24+ hours. I'm not talking PC support here BTW, I'm talking critical systems for major corporations and critical government systems (ie. everything from banking, "just in time" manufacturing systems, to police and ambulance dispatch systems).
From 2016-2019 I lead a global team of subject matter experts in the domain of middleware and web services. I was the only team member from Australia. My team had members from India, China, Spain, Germany, Bulgaria, US, Argentina. I worked very weird hours because of the global nature of my team. Probably 10 hours a day, spread between 6am and 3am, varying greatly from day to day. Working from the office would have made no sense at all.
Finally, from 2019, I have been a solution architect. I am based in Adelaide, and my primary client and almost all of the people I work with day-to-day are based in the eastern states. I work with a range of people from very senior executives to developers to business operations staff. My role is to design/create technology solutions for complex enterprise business needs. Again, working in the office would serve no purpose in this role, but if my employer wanted me in there a day or two a week, I wouldn't have an issue with that. However, any more than that would be foolish, and I don't think I would have any issue getting an exemption.
My observation has been pretty simple. The people that worked hard and were good at what they did, continued to do so, possibly even better under WFH conditions. The people who were generally useless and or lazy in the office, continued to do so from home. If organisations and management were not so spineless, they would "deal" with these unproductive individuals, regardless of where they did their work from.
Skilled people in my industry are approached by recruiters almost every day, and would have no trouble finding alternate employment in a matter of weeks. Employers requiring work from the office, just so some low/mid-level management can walk around a floor and see people at their desks, just indicates that they are stuck in the past, and not the kind of place I'd want to work. I completely accept that there are roles in technology that require some face to face, or visiting client sites or operational areas etc. However, going to an office for the sake of it, is counter productive.
Define "easy" please?
wfh = easy
When you employ muscles they heat up. You sweat. You pretend to use your brain, and nobody else is convinced that something is really going on inside your head
You seem to be on a crusade against wfh mate. Have you ever been in a WFH situation out of interest or is this based on your hypothesis?
Hello again.
It unfortunately comes across as arrogant when you assume everyone fakes working when from home.
Take a look at my reply to Blitzfx above detailing my role to see how a wfh setup can work well.
“ wfh = easy”
If the biggest challenge you face in your job is physically turning up, then you are the one with an easy job. For most people WFH is more pleasant, productive and less distracting. It’s not a case of sitting at home and slacking off, we are 3 years in now surely workplaces have identified the bad eggs.
The work/life balance means you can walk the kids to school and log in on time, mow the lawns during lunch rather than the weekend. It’s just a better life.
@JelIyfish: Shame some people here who are in management are unable to fathom such a concept. Work should remain a slog to them with no regard to an employees life balance. Likely because they never got the chance to enjoy a job themselves. Unfortunate really.
They are paying your wages; they dictate the terms of your employment. People should be grateful for having an easy white collar job
Always great to see the admission that it is not a fair exchange due to the inherent power imbalance because of the subtle threat/risk of unemployment. You're not wrong. Maybe you need to be grateful as well as employees can just leave anytime and then you have to spend time and bear the cost of training a new person and risking hiring a wrong fit.
Majority of "white collar job" pay much less than that FYI.
Get off your high horse.
Seems standard, just because there was a bad flu season now everyone thinks they deserve to slack off and watch tv all day from bed instead of work. Go back to the office and do your job I say
“You are entitled to your opinion. But You are not entitled to your own facts”
All my employees are back in the office full time with no exceptions.
Sorry, I am the employer and if you want the work and the pay, you need to come in. I really don't need to explain myself either
Don't like it? Leave - plenty of great people with the right attitude looking for work nowadays
What industry?
And what is the correct attitude for your workplace?
Property (but not real estate agents)
My staff are hungry, eager, and want to progress in life financially. The more hours they put in the more money they make.
The lowest paying staff member I have earns over $150k per year. We work hard, we banter and have fun, we have team lunches, dinner or drinks at least twice a week. We know each others families and spend weekends together
They are free to go home at 5pm but most stay until at least 6pm. Most come in before 8:30am
I don't want bottom feeding salary milkers who want to be "comfortable".
Your attitude, and comments, towards people who prefer a work from home life balance, such as myself, is disgraceful.
That out the way. Your industry sounds like it would benefit from an at office requirement compared to mine. Consider that before calling people who work from home “bottom feeding salary milkers who want to be comfortable”.
@Mr Random: Ofcourse its disgraceful to you. I am challenging your entire existence of wanting an easy comfortable life where its all about you you you and your precious entitlements
I don't need to be empathetic to you, just like how people who are adamant about "WFH work/life balance" are rarely empathetic to employers who are barely scraping by and spending their time and money monitoring productivity rather than actually being productive
@bobolo: Yet here I am proving your entire perception of wfh wrong.
I personally logged on to do additional work this morning for a couple hours because I thought of a solution to one of my problems. But hey, that’s being lazy right? Since I did that hour at my home office.
It’s not an entitlement, as you put it. But an agreement between an employer and employee in order to improve the employees conditions, and from my personal experience, the employers as well, as they get more out of me.
Each person handles wfh differently, but lumping everyone together as lazy and entitled because of a limited vision is pretty low.
-Edit-
And for the record. It’s not all about me me me. I put in many additional hours now that I don’t need to waste my own personal time commuting. So my employer gets well above what they initially agreed to pay me.
@Mr Random: Congratulations! Make sure you tell your employer and payroll about that precious hour you had to spend outside of business hours to do some extra work!
Was that done between scrolling through ozbargain forums and arguing with random people, or do you leave most of that to actual work hours sitting in your pajamas "working from home"?
@bobolo: Making a lot of incorrect assumptions there. Sounds like you might benefit from an occasional work from home balance to help adjust that attitude. I hope your employees are not treated in the same manner when an opinion or thought is run past you.
@Mr Random: No thanks! I have my work/life balance very well covered. I work in the office and I don't work at home. Simple.
@bobolo: Good. Glad to hear it. And that is your preference.
All I’m saying is don’t belittle others work just because of a location. This is a public forum which invokes discussion. We both are entitled to our opinions, but comments such as your own making inaccurate and demeaning remarks is really not necessary.
I simply asked what industry, and gave you an example of how I make it work for me and my employer, yet all you did was try to pick it apart and misquote everything I said.
Just a thought. Have a good one!
@bobolo: If you can afford to pay your workers $150k, I don’t think you’re scraping by. A bit of perspective mate.
@Griffindinho: Personally I'm not. Far from it actually - and largely because I have the right people with the right attitude working with me.
Know many that are though. And they still have to deal with the same employee issues.
@[Deactivated]: Simple employee mindset you have. Its not about trust - its about being able to discuss things on the fly, as they happen - its about talking through immediate problems throughout the day - its about being there for each other when things get stressful and/or problems happen in real time. Its about cameraderie and picking each other up where needed, and also the energy/motion of the office environment where you hear and see everyone else being productive and successful - which automatically pushes everyone else to do the same
@bobolo: All well and good mate, but at the end of the day you know that you’re a grub who only values the superficial.
its about being able to discuss things on the fly, as they happen
As a knowledge worker, this is the most painful part of an office environment. Jill from Customer Service who has a totally urgent request that needs to be dealt with on the fly, as they happen, only Jill is a bit of a nuffy that can't distinguish "important" from "urgent", and now I've put down the task that I was focused on to redirect my attention to this new super duper urgent (TM) task, and then have to spend another 15 minutes re-focusing on my original task once done.
Replace Jill with "middle manager who has no functional skillset or output" and you're one of the companies people flee from, because the majority of skilled employees want to produce good work and be productive.
Any employer touting a one-size fits all approach to the entire labour market is an idiot.
How do your staff's kids get home from school and who puts them to bed?
@isthisreallife22: The wife/husband? Grandparents? How did humans manage to do any of that before covid? Stupid question.
@bobolo: Settle down bobolo, you’re not Elon Musk. What you described is exactly the toxic workplace people are trying to avoid. There is more to life than being a wage slave to an egotistical manager who thinks their workers genuinely want to spend time with them.
@JelIyfish: Not toxic - just successful. All my employees want to be there otherwise they are free to leave. I wonder why they don't???
Stupid question
Huh? What does COVID have to do with it? You're the one that said all your employees are there well after business hours. Wtf
@isthisreallife22: Yes, they are. So what does that have to do with kids sleeping? Or being picked up from school?
I don't want bottom feeding salary milkers who want to be "comfortable".
Pretty sure there are some in your business too.
There’s more to life than money mate and more people are realising it. Enjoy less and less slaves in the future that you can micromanage from an office.
@Griffindinho: Ofcourse there are those who don't value creating a better life for themselves and their family financially. They are not interested in me and I am not interested in them. Nothing wrong with that, but the reality is that we live in a world where money matters - a lot. And its increasingly more so in recent years.
BTW, slavery by definition means forced and unpaid labour - neither of which are true in any employment scenario in the western world.
@bobolo: What makes you think there is any correlation between wfh and salary? Moving ahead financially has nothing to do with being forced to sit in an office.
@Mr Random:
My experience is that they don’t do much striving when they’re at home. Surfing OzBargain, generally anything but the minimum required to receive a lusty paycheck. They would strive much more effectively if being held accountable in an office. Some companies will, however, succeed no matter what the overheads