Why do companies want to return to the office?

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122860421#Comment_122860421

My experience is it's across all levels of management not simply at one tier. Not everyone in management has the same opinion with it either. Some like it, some do not.

ledwithhedwith

it boils down to what’s in your contact, who cares if you are a great worker at home, you didn’t sign a wfh contract. People moaning about long commutes, is this the same commute you did 5 days a week before? Or did you foolishly choose to live further away from your office knowing wfh wasn’t in your contract?

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122860138#Comment_122860138

There are plenty of people who have been working from home for years now with no problems.

What's happening now is it's become yet another tedious generational and ideological battle. It's essentially

GHendrix

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122860938#Comment_122860938

We can all see now that those long commutes are just not necessary. And the more people we force back to offices, the more that commute just grows for everyone.

GHendrix

I think as well that a lot of CEOs are typically older people that don’t want to embrace the future.

Eventually younger generations will move into those roles and working from home will take over.

Padre_Pio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122860951#Comment_122860951

More likely you have a mix of people in different jobs and roles all talking at cross purposes.

Padre_Pio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122860952#Comment_122860952

The employee does not determine whether their commute is necessary or not.

Former Former Former

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122860899#Comment_122860899

You're not working you're mentoring

But mentoring is working. It isn't captured by "KPIs" but it's absolutely critical to a company's success and to employee development. A huge problem for a lot of younger people who've spent a lot of their career working remotely is that they've missed out on that mentoring, even if they don't see it as a problem. How to function in a team environment is a critical life skill and you just don't get it sitting at home.

magicbastarder

this was an interesting case:

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2024/10/23/company-demand-that-employee-attend-office-once-a-month-was-reasonable-tribunal-rules/

Former Former Former

Whatever about bringing existing employees back, in my industry (pharma), almost every job being advertised now is for on-site work.

ledwithhedwith

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122860952#Comment_122860952

Course it’s necessary, you signed up for a job that’s far away from you.

boardsdotie44

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122860938#Comment_122860938

But gives an edge to companies that do offer it.

It is going to happen, more and more people will be remote working, might be years, but in say 20 yrs time I cant see large volumes of ppl commuting (I hope), it is just a waste of time, money, bad for environment etc

ledwithhedwith

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122861038#Comment_122861038

it is a perk yes, but then a lot of company’s at the moment don’t feel like it’s a perk worth fully offering. Maybe you are right but there has been a marked revolt against it in the last year.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122860983#Comment_122860983

Well ya I get that. I have never had a job that wasn't "hands on" so it's not part of my world. I feel lots of people in my situation are weirdly hostile to people not in that situation.

I have many friends who were work from home long before the term ever entered the general public. Now their companies are getting passive aggressive about "coming in" and are inundated with nonsense from armchair critics about how "lazy and unproductive" they are.

Oscar_Madison

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122860247#Comment_122860247

“Maybe I'm an old fart stuck in my ways but a single phone call of 5mins can replace an email thread with 20 people cc'ed 90% of the time”

This and also I think people misuse Teams and email anyway - because the technology is there they feel they have to use it as the no 1 go to when in fact a phone call is easier far more productive and quicker - it’s when being in the office can help - you can ask colleagues questions and sort issues much quicker - I’m not advocating 9-5 5 days a week here but even once a week can keep relationships strong and get complex issues sorted much quicker

boardsdotie44

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122861029#Comment_122861029

Very smug, some ppl have no choice but to live farther and farther away (we have a housing crisis you know, and phenomenal house prises)..

And with more and more ppl returning to the office, its putting greater pressure on our already crappy transport system..

Just makes life a misery for everyone involved..

Hybrid is the compromise, maybe 2 days in office and 3 days at home… or even 1 day in the office for some, all depends on job..

ledwithhedwith

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122861070#Comment_122861070

it’s not being smug I just have zero sympathy for someone who was dumb enough to move a far distance away from their place of work before making sure it was in writing about wfh. Hybrid is decent and seems to be the way a lot of companies are going. Even a long commute one or two days is not asking a whole lot.

boardsdotie44

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122861048#Comment_122861048

revolt by companies, but they need the workers, if workers keep moving to companies that do offer it, then they will have no choice but to move with the times..

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122860899#Comment_122860899

It's the whole, teams call mantra of saying things like "hi Flinty, how is the wife?" to everybody rather than just saying it once in the morning

ledwithhedwith

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122861083#Comment_122861083

this is not happening in droves at all though and sure if less and less companies offer it… where are they all going to go?

AlanG

wfh may b fine for established employees but it makes bringing on new staff very difficult and is bad for innovation. If your job can be done 100% wfh then it is likely to be replaced by AI in the next few years.

The most successful companies in the world havent invested in staff facilities, free food, engagement, loyalty, gyms etc. for no reason. It reduces staff turnover and increases staff loyalty. If WFH was more profitable they would not be making you go back into the office. Managers have to think about the long term strategic benefits to the company.

Very little innovation happens over ZOOM.

irelandrover

I can see it from both points of view. I definitely prefer being in the office as I do feel collaboration and the team atmosphere are better in person. However i see that some people work better and can concentrate better at home when they aren't in a big open plan office.

Personally i prefer being in the office as it lets me have a better work life balance as as soon as i leave the office i am off work.

For the people that promoted hybrid. Do you have a dedicated home office or do you work from the kitchen table? It always seems the worst option for me. Can't live far from the office for cheaper housing but need to have an extra room in your house as an office which greatly increases your costs.

witchgirl26

I think there's benefits to both. I work at a job that requires meetings and showing things. And during Covid wfh, the cycle time for the reviews that I do (which are tracked) were 1.5 times longer than pre-Covid in office. Something that I could have popped to someone's desk for & asked about instead took a few emails spaced over a couple of days. We do hybrid now as it's help cut down on travel but kept the essence there.

Office days are good for getting some of those interactions done not on a screen & getting updates as to what's going on in the office. I definitely suffer from Teams fatigue & can't deal with all the back to back on screen calls that took place during Covid wfh. I also like the separation of home & a work a little bit more so 2 days wfh & 3 days in office is good.

I do think it can all depend though on your own work circumstances. Even if all your team is in a different country (as was my case for over a year), it's still good to see the colleagues in the office your based & build those relationships. But if your job can primarily be done from home & your company is comfortable with that, maybe that's a 1 day week in the office to build those connections.

brokenbad

………..

whippet

the amount of times I ask people for updates on stuff and they say - i've a quick call scheduled in with X, Yor Z and will get the update from them. In the intrim I pop upstairs and in 60 seconds I get the quick update that was waiting on a scheduled call. It's crazy the time that is wasted by people now accepting a culture of everything needs to be scheduled in.

Before covid we'd have regular client updates - once per month. Usually entailed one or two of us popping out to the customer for a meeting. Meet with the key stakeholders (one or two people). Since Covid and the scourge of teams meetings - we now typically have about 6 people from each organisation on the call that takes twice as long and is half as productive. Even requires a PM to take notes, minutes and actions. Stuff that was never an issue before.

I will take anecdotal evidence from my organisation with just over 300 employees - those who are in the office more often than not are better performers and make up about 80% of the internal promotions. Take what you want from this - but it is clearly evident where I work.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122861017#Comment_122861017

The post I was replying to clearly distinguished between their work being at their own desk and the work mentoring at other people desks.

You've both indicated it's not quantified or planned. That speaks for itself.

You're now seem to be inferring it's impossible to work as a team unless co-located. I've often worked with people on different continents at the same time. So I'll agree to disagree on that one.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122861086#Comment_122861086

It's weird if you do that everytime you start a conversation with people you work with daily.

Its also weird if you only do that on teams and not meeting someone in person who you don't talk to regularly.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122861196#Comment_122861196

Tell me you don't have metrics without telling me you don't have metrics..

FlipFlopAgain

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122860384#Comment_122860384

I don't buy the pension argument. Most pension funds are well diversified, and commercial property will be typically less than 10% of the overall holdings. Any drops in commercial property values are more than offset by rises in share prices over the last 4 years.

And why would an individual company decide to keep its own rent bill high in order to just marginally increase the value of some commercial property fund. It's highly unlikely that a company's pension fund is invested just in the property that the company is renting. That would be extremely reckless.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122861292#Comment_122861292

I know what you mean. It's much faster for me to walk around our buildings in different physical locations and arrive unannounced for an update. Rather than giving them time to collate the information and a five minute phone call.