How to encourage a return to the office?

Jim2007

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118103792#Comment_118103792

When there is a major saving for companies, you can guess who's bubble is going to be burst. My daughter started her first job out of college last year at with a consulting engineering firm - about 70 employees. The owner kept telling them, that they'd be back in the office next year... At the end of October, he any announced a special bonus at the staff conference call and oh by the way, he is not renewing the rental contact on the office and WFH was not permanent!

Jim2007

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118104294#Comment_118104294

Companies act in their own best interests and having a POed workforce and being unable to attract staff are very good reasons to make a U turn.

Jim2007

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118106483#Comment_118106483

Right sure.... you might want to re read your first post very carefully.

Wildly Boaring

At the end of October, he any announced a special bonus at the staff conference call and oh by the way, he is not renewing the rental contact on the office and WFH was not permanent!

So no office. No WFH. They gonna work in the carpark?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118117743#Comment_118117743

Yeah, confused by that

c.p.w.g.w

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118116345#Comment_118116345

They work on average 35Km from work, so a 70km round trip X5 days=350km per person so 2 mates is 700km

VonLuck

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118117495#Comment_118117495

I did not say everyone was in complete isolation, but I would consider someone who has zero face to face contact to be isolated. The exact definition of isolated is "far away from other places, buildings, or people; remote.". Remote is a key word there, as in remote working!

I am looking for adaptation, hence the blended working. You're the one who's not adapting as you can't seem to find a balance between working from home and the office.

Also I neve said that only face to face contact will do. You keep putting words in my mouth.

I don't see your proposal as a good workaround. You could be working on one task for the day and you hit a bump in the road. You're suggesting you wait around until your scheduled meeting comes up? How is that productive?

You seem to be purposefully misinterpreting everything I say. Is it just to try and get an argument going?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118117705#Comment_118117705

No need. I know exactly what I said because I wrote it. Is there a point to your post?

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118117743#Comment_118117743

Great example of the perils of relying on written communication: one easy typo, 100% change of meaning, people are confused.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118118006#Comment_118118006

People can choose to be difficult and uncommunicative where ever they are. Be that in a office or remote.

Likewise people can choose to be easy to work with and communicative also.

storker

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118118006#Comment_118118006

I think you need to read (or type) your own posts more carefully. Everything I've said has been based on what you've said. I never said that everyone must work from home, or that working from home is the only way to go, I said that working from home is not the communications problem you're making it out to be, if people are prepared to adapt. Companies all over the place are proving that.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118118204#Comment_118118204

But yet we have a record of the conversation that can be quoted and clarified.

If it was an in person meeting, it may not be realized till after the meeting that people took things up differently.

Pros and Cons.

VonLuck

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118118960#Comment_118118960

You claimed I said that everyone working from home was in complete isolation. I said " I'm not sure how many people can work effectively in complete isolation"

You claimed that I said only face to face will do. I never once said that. Partial face to face, yes.

You seem to want to try and aggravate things by purposefully misinterpreting my words. To be honest I've spent too much of my time responding to your comments which are clearly not trying to be helpful. I won't be engaging with you again.

Rket4000

"I don't see your proposal as a good workaround. You could be working on one task for the day and you hit a bump in the road. You're suggesting you wait around until your scheduled meeting comes up? How is that productive?"

I would have thought that "group chat" functions help with this. You can set multiple chats for different teams or projects and if you have a query or hit a problem you stick it in the chat and surely someone will have a minute or two to respond. That's what works for my workplace

The J Stands for Jay

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118115506#Comment_118115506

Sounds like a normal weekend there.

storker

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119302#Comment_118119302

Excellent.

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119022#Comment_118119022

Can be - but quite possibly won't be. Some people will assume it was a typo (or even miss that it say "not" instead of "now") and behave accordingly. Others will do the opposite. They will likely get back to work after reading the message, and not necessarily even discuss it. Whereas in a F2F meeting, there would be immediate or immediately-after discussion and the different understandings would emerge and be clarified.

OP, I've been thinking about this whole thread. Part of the issue is that there a a group of WFH evangelists who don't value anyone else's perspective, team work, or organisational culture. Since Covid-caused WFH started, anyone who has dared to disagree, or even suggest that things aren't quite so black and white, has been immediately shot down as as a micro-managing change-retardant. These folks generally don't like their colleagues, or their managers or even their companies. I get the feeling that most work in high-demand specialist fields where they don't regularly deal with the messiness of the human condition, and where companies put up with their behaviours in order to access their skills.

Others of us make a habit of seeing more broadly, and thinking about people who aren't like us.

Or we work in very different fields. For example, I sometimes provide services to people in a highly-legislated semi-social services field (being deliberately vague). They take a lot of verbal abuse from clients. Home used to be a place of respite from work nastiness. Colleagues used to be there to sympathise after bad calls, and to brainstorm tricky issues. Now home is where they get the verbals. The calls stop when a persons' shift ends, sure, but they still have the same visual cues around to remind them of what was said. There's no one to see when they are in tears because someone has got to them. Brainstorming has to be scheduled or typed in a chat-window (these professionals aren't tech-inclined). In this company, WFH sucks - despite it looking like an almost perfect fit because almost-everything can be done on-line. The irony is, I'm on-site 4/5 days/week, because I need the equipment there. And I don't take hard calls!

Encouraging people back to the office will vary hugely, depending on what motivates individuals and on what the job is like. Subsidised food will work for some. Others will need promotional possibilities, challenging projects to work on, easier to do certain parts of the job, a peaceful work area etc. Reminders about friendships / camaraderie will work for others.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118120507#Comment_118120507

If all else fails you can always go to your back-up plan of being horrific to your fellow workers

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118120507#Comment_118120507

That someone makes a typo or miss speaks is the same thing. There's a reason conversations and phone's calls are recorded and notes are written up.

Similarly that some jobs or people are not suited to wfh does not mean that its unsuitable for everyone.

Why you would use a chat text box when video or phone is available is baffling.

Rket4000

The reason you would use a chat text box to ask a question or seek advice and you don't want to disturb someone... They, or someone else who has the answer can respond when they're finished what they're doing.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118121166#Comment_118121166

It wasn't framed as the optimum medium for the context. It was framed as a the only choice and least suitable.

Sunny Disposition

I don’t think you can really encourage people to come back and be confident you’ll get anywhere. It’s just very difficult if someone has to commute a long way and has issues with collections/drop offs.

Realistically if you need staff in a certain place you just have to tell them. They won’t like it of course, so you’ve got to be sure it’s what you want. You’re bound to alienate a lot of them, but such is business.

It’s a big decision though and should be made cautiously. Only force the employees back if there’s no choice. Giving the option to them is the best idea, provided you can get everything done and aren’t too worried about the price of office space.

Sunny Disposition

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118101486#Comment_118101486

This is very interesting, effectively the company keeps an office but only requires people to be there one day a week? Surely it’d be in their interest to give up the office completely?

Electric Sheep

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118108274#Comment_118108274

At my work we usually just Skype each other rather than having a meeting to ask a question.

miamee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118121274#Comment_118121274

Yeah, my family member says she sometimes gets work questions from the grads...on snapchat 🤣 Skype sounds better.

Dial Hard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118121224#Comment_118121224

They own the building outright so it doesn't make a whole lot of difference, really. Running costs wouldn't be that high either, lights and heat, basically. It's a Georgian building so no fancy aircon or anything like that.

Irish_wolf

I'm going to give a different take here. There's a lot of feelings in this thread, people who feel like others get less work/lower quality done at home, people who feel they get more/better quality work done at home. Or maybe they know they get less done but are overall so much happier in their lives that they couldn't give a ****, for example they no longer have to deal with people like Mrs O Bumble who's happy to bully others to get their way. But there's not a whole load of facts coming out from people who have actually studied and analysed the producivity of their workers or the quality of their outputs. Put it in writing people and use that as your leverage. Much harder to argue against concrete facts and figures. If you can prove that the company is negatively affect by WFH measures by a significant amount then you should demand and contractually oblige people to be in the office for whatever % of the week you deem necessary. If you cant prove this then it's just a bunch of waffle and your feelings are irrelevant, let people do what they want as long as they get the job done.

For example people work more, but get less done overall according to this paper https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/BFI_WP_2021-56.pdf

"Hours worked increased, including a rise of 18% outside normal business hours.

Average output declined slightly, thus productivity fell 8-19%"

however another paper suggests these productivity metrics are hard to measure using the older pre-pandemic measures and indicates that overall productivity will be up by a similar factor that the previous paper suggests they will be down https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w28731/w28731.pdf

"We also estimate that higher levels of WFH will boost productivity by about 4.6 percent.

Over half of this productivity gain reflects the savings in commuting time afforded by WFH."

I cant work from home due to my job being an on-site job (aviation) so I cannot confirm personally how WFH has affected me but it seems that the margins for error on how productive people are at home compared to in the work place are right on the money for little to no actual change. Anecdotally people will tell you they get more done because they have ~2 hours extra per day when they are not commuting and this is what my friends and family members have reported. They are happier and less stressed. This means they can go for longer in sustained bursts rather than trying a mad 9-5 sprint where they start the day wrecked from the commute and are dreading the return journey.

The second paper also alludes to an uncomfortable truth. WFH will vastly benefit higher earners. The office was a great equaliser. Everyone has access to the same work spaces and the same equipment. The difference in the kind of WFH set-up a lead engineer can afford to create compared to the type an office admin or some entry level employee can create will be massive. This disparity will have a knock on effect in people's perceptions of who WFH is suitable for and will influence managerial decisions. It's not black and white, but unless you can prove the benefits of going back to the office with objective facts you can expect people to tell you where to go.

miamee

Great post @Irish_wolf and I agree specifically with your last paragraph. Wfh is not suitable for everyone. Not everyone has a space at home that can be designated as a 'work space' and so are working from the kitchen table, a desk in their bedroom, the sofa, whatever. In those situations you have other distractions - family or housemates in the kitchen/living room, the discomfort of not sitting at an appropriate desk or using the correct type of chair, the inconvenience to others in the household maybe having to work their day around you and your work meetings - not using the washing machine, kettle, etc when you're on a call and all of those things that you don't have to deal with in the office. WFH is a great thing - if it suits you. Being able to go to an office space that is suitable to your needs and for work only and leave work behind once you walk out the door also has it's advantages.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118122607#Comment_118122607

Yup, no argument there

For some, while their position may suit WFH, their situation may not. In those cases they should avoid WFH.

Totally logical

dulpit

Above posts show why people want a blended environment if possible.

Sunny Disposition

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118122021#Comment_118122021

Okay, if you're in that position you're under no real pressure to make a decision, can easily facilitate people who prefer an office.

Do many of the staff go in on days other than the day they are required to attend?