Why do companies want to return to the office?

Because companies have deemed it more productive

Remember companies were lauding the benefits of WFH during COVID?

I remember back in 2022 our crowd saying they had zero drop in productivity.

I asked how they measure productivity.

Silence.

I knew it was bound to happen. Came back to the office after COVID and all the new hires were useless as they had zero mentoring and oversight. Most people aren't self motivated enough to effectively work from home. Others are out doing the shopping and minding children when they should be working. Some just sink as they're not getting adequate support from their colleagues who are absent from the office.

Problems get worse when pro WFH managers don't fix these issues in case they too will be called back into the office.

Because they can is the simple answer.

If someone doesn't know if their staff are working. Then they don't measure it. Which means they also don't measure it in the office either.

The only solution is to move to a job that does allow remote working.

it's not a one size fits all and I have been at both ends of the spectrum. I worked 3-4 days at home for a number of years before Covid. I was with the company for about 20 years and it was a relatively small company with a steady headcount. It worked great for me and for the organisation - however this was in the early days when Skype for business and Cisco Webex were the norm and used occasionally.

Around came covid and suddenly everyone was invited and almost expected to be in every Teams meeting going which hasn't let off - so in the last couple of years you now see people on constant Teams messages in an office.

However - I changed job just as Covid was ending and I moved to a larger company. There was a hybrid approach and most people did 2-3 days in the office. I ended up settling on 4 days in the office and what I gained from being in the office with my new colleagues has stood in my favour from a lot of different angles.

Being in the office gave me a much quicker path to progress in the organisation by virtue of being around all departments of the business. Someone who started the same week as me in the same role and who works from home 4 days a week hasn't progressed and it is purely that they don't have those adhoc interactions with their peers from other departments and senior leadership.

I know that not everyone is ambitious or wants to interact with other colleagues but you can't take away from the fact that like everything in life most things are more nuanced than pure transactional and personal relationships matter.

It also doesn't help when we have a generation of people entering the workforce now who almost flat refuse to make a phone call or take one. Hiding behind email, messages and group online meetings. 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

I've yet to see any company release data showing their productivity dropped as a result of working from home. I would wager the vast majority maintained productivity or increased it

The answers are much simpler, and there's a few of them IMO

First is the middle managers of most companies are under threat because it's a lot easier to measure productivity in remote employees than depending on nebulous metrics like "collaboration". They also can't really exert their will on remote employees so are forcing them back to the office

Second, a lot of CEOs are basically workaholics who revel in the "all hands on deck" mentality and feel the company is missing something by staff working remotely

Third, and the simplest reason, it's a redundancy action without the redundancy. Easiest way to improve the bottom line is to fire a bunch of staff but companies don't want the bad press. So they force staff back to the office, a bunch leave (often the expensive senior staff) and many of the ones who stay are junior staff dependent on gaining experience or migrant workers who will lose their work visa if they quit

The third point in the above is very relevant for my current situation. That and the fact Senior Management love the office and quite often just spend the day talking loudly to each other or organizing meetings, over Teams, in the Board room, with colleagues in other locations - but it is more a show to say 'look we're all together here'.

I currently do 2 days and that is fine but I hate those days in the office and get much more done WFH but that is due to the structure of the role I do.

Well my experience is that the younger generation has absolutely no interest in the office and wants remote work as much as possible

I do agree that training and supporting graduates has become difficult with remote work, but I'd turn that around on employers. It takes a lot of effort to get new employees up to speed and frankly it feels like that effort actually trailed off during COVID and remote work.

Managers and mentors need to be proactive and reach out to new employees to ensure they aren't sitting alone. They also need to foster an air of being approachable so new hires are happy to ask questions

Frankly this seems to be lacking in a lot of companies now regardless of where their employees are working

It can be beneficial for new hires to go into the office if it's turned into a social and learning experience. It has to be organised and a lot of companies seem uninterested in that

If I'm being totally honest, most companies seem totally uninterested in training staff and are expecting new hires at all levels to walk in with 100% of the skills they need from day 1

This is my experience too, the people who call loudest for a return to office seem to be the ones who are loudest and most disruptive in the office

Personally, I'm quite happy to head in when there's a reason to go, like meeting the team or training or a planning session.

I really don't see the point in commuting for 2 hours to do some Zoom meetings that I could have done at home

I certainly don't find I do any more work in the office, just instead of slacking off to do the laundry I'll be slacking off to chat to people

There seems to be this idea among managers that if you force a bunch of people into a room they'll "collaborate". Mostly they'll probably collaborate to escape, either physically or by talking about anything except work

True collaboration happens when you get a bunch of people with a shared objective to help each other and work together. You don't need to be in the same generic office space for that to happen

Commuting is not, and never has been, "unpaid labour". God almighty.